A wrong number dialled by a friend in America inspired a young Indian Police Service (IPS) officer, his orderly and a friend in Meerut to develop a software which brings effective policing on one's fingertips.
The push of a button on the keyboard and the entire district police machinery comes alive on a computer screen. The unique features of the software - Sewa-100- are its "constable compatibility" and its surprisingly low cost.
Sewa-100 is backed by a comprehensive database of all the city roads, banks, bars, colonies, fire stations, hospitals, hotels and offices. It enables one to locate a "distress call", monitor immediate police assistance. It was recently tested in Noida, near Delhi, and the results were encouraging.
"My friend in America was making a call to me from a public booth when he accidently pressed 911 (distress call number to local police) instead 91 (international code for India)", says Navniet Sekera, a 1993 batch IPS officer and the brain behind Sewa-100. the police had been able to react so swiftly because the police department has a software which has the telephone numbers and locations of all the telephones in the district.
The main component of Sewa-100 is a large, actual and on-scale digital map of the district on a computer screen. This not only enables one to locate a place but also helps in keeping a constant watch on all the police vehicles in the district.
Kibo Lab Pushes Asia Space Race
Caged by yellow catwalks in a hangar outside Tokyo, Japan's most hyped and technically advanced space project looks more like a bus-sized dog food can than a space station module.
But when launched into orbit three years from now, the research capsule will be the only part of the international space station designed, built and run by an Asian country.
Japan's high-tech wizardry boosted it into that elite club of space travelers. Bristling with pride, Japan bills the vessel, called Kibo - or Hope - as Asia's first manned spacecraft.
Yet as the 16-year, $4 billion venture entered the final phase of testing in November, Japan's space program was faltering. And as an Asia-wide space race is just beginning to heat up, it's all Japan can do to keep a tenuous lead.
The Asian space race may lack the high-profile propaganda of the Cold War sprint for the moon. But it mirrors that showdown between the United States and the Soviet Union in one important way: It is driven more by strategic goals than scientific ones.
Calling Kibo a manned spacecraft is a bit of a stretch.
While the vessel has room for four astronauts to conduct experiments, it will tentatively be launched into space by the U.S. space shuttle in three separate shots beginning in 2004.
Japan doesn't have a rocket big enough to budge the 16-ton package and the country isn't seriously entertaining plans to eventually launch its own astronauts.
China, on the other hand, has placed great prestige on and poured an undisclosed amount of resources into its secretive 31-year-old space program. Some estimates say China could be ready to put astronauts aloft in two years.
Japan's $1.65 billion a year space program was shackled from its inception, in part by the country's pacifist constitution. Human flights were off limits because the re-entry technology needed to bring astronauts home safely was too closely linked with intercontinental ballistic missiles, Nagasu said.
But that thinking changed when North Korea lobbed a rocket over Japan in 1998. Japan not only became more interested in human space flight, it vowed to send up its first spy satellite by 2003.
To put its own probes in space, Japan has even embarked on a new rocket program, the H-2A, which could pit it against Europe and the United States in the lucrative commercial launching market.
If the Jan. 31 final test launch is a success, Japan will proceed with 11 scheduled operational launches through 2005.
Kibo gives Japan access to the state-of-the-art outer space air conditioning, life-support and energy-supply systems used by NASA (news - web sites). And for the first time, Japan will be training its own astronauts for the space mission, instead of having NASA do the work.
China, long isolated by both the United States and Russia, at first had to develop portions of its space program from scratch and specializes in basic, but reliable, spacecraft,
By contrast, Japan has focused on high-tech gadgetry, often with mixed results.
It has successfully put a satellite in orbit around the moon and docked two satellites in space by remote control. But it also has a history of mechanical breakdowns, budget overruns and two failed launches, only recently reversed with the successful first liftoff of Japan's next-generation H2-A rocket in August.
Kibo is considered a bright spot.
``Before this, Japan never had its own manned flight system,'' boasts Shiraki, waving a hand at the hulk behind him in an assembly room the size of a sports stadium. ``I'm proud.''
Two round windows at the end of Kibo's 33-foot long pressured cabin peer out like eyes over a platform - or ``back porch,'' where a robot arm can carry out experiments exposed to the vacuum of space.
But even that feature, unique of all contributions to the international space station, shows just how far Japan has to go in being accepted as an equal, independent partner.
NASA has the right to use half of Kibo's research facilities for its own experiments.
And perhaps more symbolic - Japan's spacesuits, while emblazoned with rising sun flag on one shoulder, are also festooned with the U.S. stars-and-stripes on the other - something unthinkable in China.
Miner & Miner and IMAGEM SENSORIAMENTO REMOTO from São José dos Campos, Brazil have partnered to offer powerful AM/FM/GIS solutions to electric, gas, water and wastewater utilities throughout Brazil and Latin America. Imagem will be completing its Business Partner training in Miner & Miner's ArcFM(tm) to become a certified ArcFM Training Center. Upon which Imagem will be in a position to conduct Portuguese-based ArcFM training for their clients. Imagem will provide a means for Miner & Miner to better serve the Brazilian utility market place. They will provide local support and training to existing projects as well as implementation services and consulting to new and potential customers in the region.
TORNADO Technologies has announced the release of version 2.0 of AEC|VIZ, the software for visualization, communication and promotion of 3D/2D content. The new version includes a major update, with new features that make AEC|VIZ a truly versatile and effective application for the visualization and communication of models and projects in 2D or 3D. Keeping the same interface, AEC|VIZ 2.0 includes more functions enhancing its usefulness for communication while remaining as easy to use as ever. To give new users a chance to thoroughly test AEC|VIZ, and because of the growing demand, the trial period has been lengthened to 30 days instead of one week. The counters have also been reset to zero, so that anyone can download the demonstration version again and test it at their leisure for 30 days, irrespective of previous trials.
QUALCOMM Incorporated, the leader in mobile communications for the transportation industry, today announced that Lowell, Ark.-based JB Hunt Transport, the nation's largest publicly held truckload carrier, has selected the OmniExpress® mobile communications system for its intermodal fleet. Under the terms of the agreement, JB Hunt will begin immediately deploying OmniExpress system units in its intermodal fleet. With this agreement, JB Hunt expands its 10-year mobile communications relationship with QUALCOMM to equip its smaller local fleet of vehicles. OmniExpress system is a Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA)-based digital wireless fleet management system that provides near real-time, two-way communications and vehicle position reporting for improved mobile worker productivity and operations administration. Features include two-way data communications, store-and-forward messaging, automatic vehicle tracking using integrated Global Positioning System (GPS), as well as data integration capabilities with routing and scheduling systems, and business-specific office applications.
