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Edens & Avant Wins Prestigious GIS Award

Chosen from more than 60,000 organizations worldwide, Columbia, SC-based Edens & Avant is being recognized for its accomplishments in Geographic Information System (GIS) technology. Edens & Avant, one of the nation's fastest growing retail real estate enterprises, has created an awarded winning solution for retail site selection to provide the most convenient real estate services possible using state-of- the-art GIS technology. The Special Achievement In GIS award is presented by ESRI, the world leader in GIS software, mapping components, and spatial database management tools. The award ceremony takes place at the 21st Annual ESRI International User Conference in San Diego, California, the largest gathering of GIS professionals in the world. Along with Edens & Avant, such diverse organizations as the Israel Ministry of Defense; American Automobile Association; Feng Chia University, Taiwan; Chilean Ministry of Interior; Charles Schwab & Company Inc.; USA Today; Michelin Tires; and the United Nations Environmental Programme will also be honored by ESRI at the 2001 User Conference.

Visit : www.edensandavant.com

New York City Uses Oracle(R) Spatial Technology to Get Geographic View of Entire City

The biggest things-buildings, trends, theatrical productions-often make their debuts in New York City. It's no coincidence that the New York City Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications has created one of the largest city-wide spatial data warehouses to help significantly reduce the costs associated with collecting, managing and disseminating mapping data. A complete digital map of New York City is now stored and managed in an Oracle data warehouse, using Oracle Spatial, allowing the city to extend geographic information technology to everyone via the web. Beginning this fall, a city-wide application to be called "EveryOne Map," will be available to the public on the official city website to help enable businesses, citizens and government officials to make more effective decisions. For example, prospective home buyers could learn about assessed values, ownership information and community resources to help them choose properties. Other valuable information that will be available via EveryOne Map includes data on open space, parks, building footprints, curb lines, water bodies, parcels and census tracts. Using Oracle technology, New York City is enabling e-government, helping public officials and citizens work more efficiently and save money.

Visit : www.oracle.com

National Geographic's Popular MapMachine Shows Off New Features

National Geographic's popular and award-winning MapMachine now has even more features to use. Boasting a new user interface and the addition of historic maps from the Library of Congress, MapMachine is one of the most in-depth and user-friendly online interactive tools used by map lovers, avid explorers and outdoor enthusiasts, and professionals who are looking for the latest map data. To create this ultimate map application, National Geographic teamed up with ESRI, the leading developer of geographic information system (GIS) software. The high-tech MapMachine uses ESRI's Internet mapping technology, ArcIMS, to enable people to access maps and the vast amount of up-to-date geographic data from a variety of government agencies and the National Geographic Society. It's all in one place and in a format that is easy-to-use. The place to go on the Web to create, find and print maps of every description is www.nationalgeographic.com/mapmachine

Lizardtech Solutions solve portability problem for massive images on mobile devices

LizardTech has demonstrated, at the ESRI User Conference 2001, how mobile, location-based industries are using its MrSID software for easy access to massive Geospatial imagery on mobile devices. Over the last year, the geospatial industry has seen breakthrough growth in both computing power and storage for mobile devices. These recent advances in computing hardware, as well as MrSID's specialized viewing capabilities, have made it possible for massive aerial and satellite image files to be easily used for outdoor fire prevention, hazardous materials mapping, utilities, GPS and other mission critical, in-field mapping applications. LizardTech's industry-leading MrSID file format is used regularly as the preferred image format for ESRI's popular ArcPad software. In Spring 2000, ESRI and LizardTech announced native MrSID image support inside ESRI's ArcPad 5. Recently, ESRI integrated LizardTech's MrSID encoder inside the ArcGIS product family.

Visit : http://www.lizardtech.com/company/pressreleases/index.pl

Nexian Launches HandyGPS Pro With Rand McNally Software

Nexian Inc., an innovative leader in mobile communications, introduced a new global positioning system (GPS) product designed to bring satellite-driven technology to the general public. The HandyGPS Pro, featuring Rand McNally's top-selling StreetFinder Deluxe travel navigation software, was presented at a special event during PC Expo (New York) featuring Mercury Astronaut Scott Carpenter. Nexian has received global recognition for its development of a compact GPS module for the Handspring Visor personal digital assistant that converts the device into a GPS receiver. Sitting on Handspring Visor's Springboard port, this micro-GPS module intelligently pinpoints locations on a detailed digital map, shows the position of nearby shops and attractions and aids in finding a destination. HandyGPS can also be used to search for locations by street name and record travels into memory to replay later.

Visit : www.nexian.com

Vizzavi Netherlands selects Webraska to launch nation-wide traffic information services

Vizzavi Netherlands, the leading multi-access portal in the Netherlands, has selected Webraska, the worldwide provider of wireless navigation services and technologies, to launch nation-wide real-time traffic information services on SMS, Internet, and WAP. Using Webraska's real-time traffic services, built on Webraska's Wireless Navigation Platform™, mobile subscribers will enjoy a personalised traffic information service. They will be able to enter their profile on Vizzavi's Internet portal, with their regular travel routes, times of travel and preferences. Based on their personal profiles, they will receive push SMS traffic alerts on their mobile phones. Webraska's real-time traffic services are also offered on Vizzavi Netherlands' WAP portal to all subscribers. Traffic information is displayed on graphical maps representing the motorways of 14 different regions and tourist destinations in the Netherlands.

Visit : www.webraska.com

International FiberCom Introduces First of its Kind GPS Synchronization

International FiberCom Inc., a provider of a full range of services to telecommunications, cable and wireless service providers, today announced the introduction of a proprietary satellite signal transmission system that provides Global Positioning System (GPS) signal synchronization and operates on fiber optic cable in remote and "in-building" locations. This technology was developed for a nationwide wireless carrier's Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) network to provide GPS timing data for remotely located radio base stations. GPS time reference is integral in maintaining synchronization within TDMA algorithms. The customer has placed an initial order for six fully redundant systems, valued at approximately $100,000. The GPS Over Fiber system uses a small, unobtrusive, rooftop antenna to receive the GPS data and then transmits this data over fiber optic cable to the remote radio equipment using its proprietary RF over Fiber(TM) analog transceiver technology.

Visit : http://allencaron.com/clients/fibercom/releases/071101.pdf

MidAmerican Energy Company Adopts Intergraph's G/Solutions

Intergraph Utilities has signed a contract with MidAmerican Energy Company to upgrade Intergraph's successful FRAMME-based AM/FM/GIS to the company's next-generation technology for natural gas and electric geofacilities management. MidAmerican serves 1.3 million customers in a 10,000 square-mile area from Sioux Falls, South Dakota, to the Quad-Cities area of Iowa and Illinois. The new technology, G/Solutions, with its open architecture, will give MidAmerican more flexibility and opportunity to integrate geospatial data with other business-critical systems, such as Logica's Work Management Information System (WMIS). The system upgrade to G/Solutions will include migration of the company's extensive intelligent landbase, the addition of Logica's work management interface, and the incorporation of electric design tools into the design/construction workflow.

Visit : http://www.intergraph.com

Asia News

Haryana, IBM ink e-governance pact.

The Hayrana Government has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with IBM India for computing various state government departments. The Mou is expected to focus on computerising government organisations in Haryana through IT Consulting, and developing custom build applications for e-governance projects. According to the arrangement, IBM will build e-governance applications and help the state government in itsinitiative for imparting IT education in schools, colleges, polytechnics engineering colleges and institutions.

Source : The Ecnomic Times

World First Relief Map of South Pole Published

The world's first relief map of the South Pole drawn by experts of Wuhan University was published on July 9, according to peopledaily.com.cn. It is a mountainous land over an area of 3,200 square meters, 400 to 500 km away from the Zhongshan Station. Due to its complicated landform, it is one of the few areas in the South Pole beyond the formal research of any countries. So quite a few countries have got plans to set up their expedition stations here.

From 1999 to 2000, researchers of the Chinese expedition team set out from the Zhongshan Station two times on foot and fulfilled the first scientific research of the land in the history of human beings. In January of 2000, experts from the Wuhan University conducted an extensive expedition for mapping in this area and finally accomplished the task of drawing a relief map of 120 square kilometers of this mountainous land of the South Pole. During the research, they established two GPS stations and erected three permanent bronze signs of Chinese mapping in this part of the land.

In experts' view, the Relief Map is an important breakthrough in the research of geographic structure of the South Pole as well as the earth.

Source : Xinhua News Service

Belgium beckons Indian IT firms

If YOU thought India was the only country where states vied with one another to get business, think again. Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Hyderabad all want the potential investor to believe that they offer the best in terms of infrastructure, tax benefits and manpower. These states are no different from regions all over Europe. And in a reversal of roles, these regions are wooing Indian companies to set up offices abroad.

One such region is Flanders, one of the three major regions in Belgium, the other two being Walloon (French speaking) and Brussels (multilingual). Flanders is largely populated by Flemish speaking people but most locals have a working knowledge of English.

How aggressive is Flanders? It has set up a trade office in Bangalore and is regularly holding seminars in different Indian cities on the subject “Invest in Belgium”. In fact, the next such seminar is slated to be in Chennai on July 17.

The fact is, one can set up an office with an initial investment of Rs 25 lakh in Flanders. This is a deposit that can be utilised as working capital. Anyone wanting to check this out first-hand or see the location for themselves, need just fly to the region. Once you land in Belgium, people from the Flanders Foreign Investment Office will whisk you away, at their cost. They will then show you potential locations, introduce you to lawyers, take you to the offices that are waiting and ready to be occupied. On setting up office there, they can even identify suppliers and partners, lend support in negotiations with government departments, local authorities, subcontractors and suppliers, as well as with support services such as financial and legal services.