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OGC Recommendation Available to the Public

The Open GIS Consortium, Inc. (OGC) has announced that an OpenGISŠ Recommendation has been made available to the public. The paper titled "Recommended Definition Data for Coordinate Reference Systems and Coordinate Transformations" is available for public review at http://www.opengis.org/techno/specs.htm. This Recommendation Paper specifies a data model for metadata in support of the OpenGIS Coordinate Reference Systems (CRS) and Coordinate Transformations (CT) Implementation Specifications, and specifies standard definition data for the data model. Because the specified data model is more general than an OpenGIS Implementation Specification and more specific than the OpenGIS Abstract Specification, the work is being delivered in a Recommendation Paper. Representatives from three OGC member organizations, BAE SYSTEMS Mission Solutions, the Petrotechnical Open Software Corporation (POSC), and Shell International Exploration and Production B.V. developed the model using object-oriented analysis and design thinking.

Visit:- http://www.opengis.org/techno/specs.htm

Blue Marble Geographics' BeyondGeo solution now supports ECW image files.

Blue Marble Geographics has announced that the patented ECW compression technology is supported within their BeyondGeo Internet mapping solution, providing users with the ability to publish ECW files directly onto the web. The BeyondGeo application allows users to easily publish an interactive map on the Internet using a hosted solution and saving thousands of dollars over traditional map server solutions. ECW provides up to 100:1 multi-band compression at speeds up to 50% faster than its closest competitor. The ECW format also provides viewing that is 300% faster than any other wavelet-based compression format, thus adding the ability to efficiently deal with gigabyte sized image files. Going from the desktop to the Internet just became easier, without concern over mapping file formats or size.

Visit:- www.beyondgeo.com & www.ermapper.com

GEOEurope Supports Education And Information At GIS 2001

Designed to add value and make GIS 2001 an informed, motivating and worthwhile experience, visitors will be able to make use of the free educational features and information zones on the show floor (18-20 September 2001, Earls Court 2, London). GEOEurope Magazine has sponsored two of these features, namely the Consultancy Centre and the Solutions Centre. The Consultancy Centre will offer visitors the opportunity to obtain free and impartial advice from consultants who have experience across a multitude of GI Industry areas. Advisors will be on hand, to talk through projects and help visitors avoid costly mistakes. The Solutions Centre organised in association with Kingston University and also sponsored by GEOEurope will provide an independent, friendly and informative facility for delegates to get hands-on experience of GIS in both formal workshops and informal 'drop-in' sessions. The workshops are based on a step-by-step approach to practical GIS applications and employ industry-standard software that is free of any vendor-led sales agenda.

Visit:- http://www.gisexpo.com/

Michelle Rudiman Joins Bentley as Director of Corporate Communications

Bentley Systems, Incorporated, has announced that Michelle Rudiman has joined the company as the Director of Corporate Communications. Ms. Rudiman will be responsible for planning and directing corporate advertising and public relations initiatives. Ms. Rudiman was most recently the Director, Marketing Programs at Arc Second, the developers of PocketCAD PRO software. In that capacity she was responsible for managing last year's media launch of PocketCAD and all marketing and promotions programs. Ms. Rudiman brings to Bentley more than 10 years of broad-based high technology marketing communications and public relations experience. Prior to Arc Second she was employed as the Director of Marketing Communications at Engenia Software, a Reston, Virginia, venture capital funded company developing XML-based collaborative software. From 1990-1997, Ms. Rudiman held public relations and communications positions within the Canadian space program.

Visit:- www.bentley.com

Baker Awarded GIS Services Contract for City of Suffolk

Michael Baker Jr., Inc., has been awarded a contract by the City of Suffolk, Virginia, to provide geographic information system (GIS) basemap development. The total contract value is approximately $2 million. Michael Baker Jr., Inc., is a unit of Michael Baker Corporation. Baker began providing GIS consulting services to the City in 1998. The development of a GIS Needs Analysis, Data Survey, Management Plan, and Implementation Plan helped to lay the groundwork for the data development tasks -- Digital Orthophotography, Planimetric Base Mapping, and Tax Parcel and Zoning coverages -- that Baker will perform under this agreement.

Visit:- www.mbakercorp.com

KVH Industries Introduces S. Joseph Bookataub as New Chief Operating Officer

KVH Industries has announced that it has hired S. Joseph Bookataub as the company's new Chief Operating Officer. Mr. Bookataub brings to KVH extensive experience in the areas of lean manufacturing, ISO procedures and certification, and supply chain management, as well as procurement and quality assurance. While serving as the vice president of operations and quality for Pyramid Technology Corporation, he successfully reduced product costs by 50 percent in three years.

Visit:- www.kvh.com

WINGAS commences Network Management Project with GE Smallworld Spatial Technology

GE Smallworld, a leading provider of strategic network solutions to the utility industry, today announced that WINGAS GmbH in Kassel, Germany has selected GE Smallworld Spatial Technology to store geographic information system (GIS) data and to support queries for identifying geographically dispersed network assets. WINGAS selected the GE Smallworld Spatial Technology platform based on the system's performance and flexibility and GE Smallworld's experience with similar network applications in Western Europe. WINGAS had been collecting and documenting their surveying data and cartographic material in electronic format since 1993.

Visit:- http://www.gepower.com/en_us/index.html

GEOTec Event Call for Papers

The 16th Annual GIS Conference takes on a new identity this year with the addition of two new conferences and a new name. The GEOTec Event will bring together three distinct user groups that have geospatial technology in common. This is the one comprehensive international event to address all users and application arease, and it is being held in the country where GIS got its start. The GEOTec Event will consist of three core conferences and multiple tracks within these conferences. For further details regarding the Submission of papers visit: http://www.geoplace.com/gt/

Asia News

NRSA to route imageries from foreign satellites

BANGALORE, Aug. 20 - Corporate and urban-planners in India need not fret any more: they can finally access high resolution earth imageries from foreign satellites such as `Ikonos' legally.

These one-metre resolution imageries will be routed through the National Remote Sensing Agency (NRSA), Hyderabad, but after defence-sensitive areas are erased, according to the recently approved national remote sensing data policy framework.

NRSA is an autonomous society under the Department of Space and is the source for data from Indian satellites IRS 1C and 1D.

IRS imageries of 5.8 metre resolution were the world's best until Ikonos came along two years ago -- a private US satellite of Lockheed Martin's Space Imaging. From some 900 km above the earth's surface, its cameras can show objects of one metre size-- a boulder or a boundary wall of that thickness, for instance.

Source: Business Line, 21 July 2001

Read complete article: http://www.blonnet.com/2001/08/21/stories/142167ij.htm

China to Promote IT Among Schools Over Next 5-10 Years

BEIJING, August 21 (Xinhuanet) -- The Chinese government will spend five to ten years, starting from 2001, for promoting IT education among primary and middle schools including vocational and technical schools.

This was disclosed at the on-going Expert Meeting of the 4th Ministerial Review Meeting on Education for All of the Nine High- Population Countries, which was opened here Tuesday morning.

The subject of IT will be made compulsory throughout the country, and by the year 2005, IT education will become a compulsory course in all the middle schools, and the primary schools in cities and other developed areas. The coverage will be expanded to over 90 percent of schools nation-wide as soon as possible. Moreover, taking into consideration local conditions, different methods will be explored to make the Internet accessible to all primary and middles schools.

Before 2010, some 90 percent of the countries' primary and middle schools will gain access to the Internet and broadband net; and for the remaining 10 percent, multi-media teaching facilities and other resources will be made available. The Chinese government will also make efforts to integrate IT and other subjects. The study and application IT should be integrated with the development of educational concepts, and IT should be applied to the improvement of the educational system, content and methods.

Meanwhile, teachers will try to apply IT in teaching other subjects as much as possible, and IT should be employed in students' studying and in the creating process. IT will also give full play to long-distance education and new information and communication technologies so as to meet the evolving needs of the social and economic development, promote the training of practical skills and accelerate the national development of education.

To achieve the goal, the Chinese government has worked out a guiding principle stressing rational planning and all-round promotion, which are tailored to the needs of different localities and with a focus on effectiveness

Source: Xinhua News Agency

Singapore Net Users Take To e-Government

According to Internet audience measurement firm Nielsen//NetRatings, the Singapore Government's S$1.5 billion (US$856 million) investment in its public sector infocomm initiative is starting to generate positive results.

"The Government's bid to become a leading e-Government is definitely making headway. Audience online trends are very encouraging as more Singaporeans log on to government Web sites and tap into their services online," said Hoe Chin Fee, managing director of ACNielsen eRatings.com in South Asia.

"Electronic services are very much integrated into the system and are customer-centric, and coupled with the fact that they are easily accessible 24 hours a day, it is no wonder that more Singaporeans are opting for the online option."

Based on a panel of 4,000 Singapore Internet users surfing from their homes in June, data collected by Nielsen//NetRatings showed that the Ministry of Education (MOE) Web domain recorded a 120 percent increase in unique audience over a six-month period.

Source: http://asia.internet.com/

Bangalore set for exclusive tech daily

Bangalore, India's teeming technology capital, will launch a daily newspaper next week exclusively devoted to the sector, its publisher said on Thursday.

The Tech Mail, described by the Technology Media Group (TMG) as the world's first technology daily, saw a test run of distribution on Thursday ahead of its formal launch on Monday.

The salmon pink, 16-page tabloid will have colour editions on weekends.

"I believe there is a large opportunity. There is definite demand. We have been on this for more than one year," publisher Subhanjan Sarkar told Reuters.

He said he had checked with leading technology publishers worldwide, and was pretty much certain that the daily was the first of its kind.

Bangalore has been at the heart of India's booming software industry, which saw its exports touch $6.2 billion in 2000/01 (April-March), having grown around 50 percent a year from $734 million in 1995/96.

Source: Times Of India,