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Intermap announces a new generation in digital mapping technology

Intermap Technologies has announced a new generation of Digital Elevation Model (DEM) mapping technology able to generate an industry-leading accuracy of one foot (30cm). "We have achieved a significant milestone in our goal to provide accurate, low cost digital elevation models for our customers," said Brian Bullock, Intermap President and CEO. "We have received and bench tested all the hardware components required for the up-grade of our STAR-3i® IFSAR. We are targeting a 1-foot (30 cm) vertical accuracy on 15-foot (five-meter) data points for the DEM provided by our STAR-3i IFSAR system. Also, a smaller 4 ft (1.25m) image pixel will be provided for more detailed feature extraction. The horizontal accuracy of both the DEM and image products will be better than 6ft (2m). Software development is nearing completion and the integration of the entire system is scheduled for this September." Once complete, Intermap's proprietary STAR-3i IFSAR will cost effectively provide digital elevation data over a wide, three-mile (five-kilometer) swath.

Visit : www.intermaptechnologies.com

ORBIMAGE awarded $6 million hyperspectral imagery contract by NASA

ORBIMAGE has announced a multi-year agreement with NASA's Stennis Space Center to supply up to $6 million in imagery from the 200-band hyperspectral camera to be carried on the company's OrbView-4 satellite. As the world's first commercial hyperspectral imagery from space, NASA will use the OrbView-4 hyperspectral data to develop environmental monitoring applications for managing the Earth's water and land resources. Under this new agreement with ORBIMAGE, NASA will use the OrbView-4 hyperspectral imagery to develop environmental monitoring applications as part of its Earth Observations Commercial Applications Program (EOCAP). Environmental monitoring applications for hyperspectral data focus on the ability to efficiently measure, map and monitor natural resources on a global basis.

Visit : www.orbimage.com

Information Dissemination Services-Direct delivery program for NIMA

Raytheon Company has been awarded the Information Dissemination Services-Direct Delivery (IDS-D) program, valued at $203 million, for the National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA). IDS-D is an automated, high performance delivery system that includes smart information push, support data services and profile management, and an innovative data compression and format conversion process that allows delivery of user requested information on time. During the past nine months, Raytheon worked directly with government personnel and support contractors to refine program requirements and design a dissemination architecture to support future needs of the intelligence community. IDS-D receives, profiles, processes and directs large volumes of data at multiple security levels and provides timely, relevant, and accurate imagery and imagery intelligence information to the armed services and intelligence community.

Visit : www.raytheon.com

Bentley Provides AISC Steel Information in XML

Bentley Systems, Incorporated, announced that it has formatted the American Institute of Steel Construction (AISC) data on rolled steel shapes in XML. Providing data on wide flanges, angles, channels, tees, etc., in the Internet-friendly XML format, rather than in books and spreadsheets, will add valuable structural design data to engineering models, and provide a standard, extensible method of sharing data throughout the project life cycle. Besides better interoperability between desktop applications, the XML data format will allow the rolled steel shapes to be displayed in customisable views over the Web or downloaded to a PDA or cell phone at a job site. At the request of AISC, Bentley is providing the steel data in XML format for delivery on the latest AISC Shapes Database CD, which can be purchased from the AISC Web site at www.aisc.org.

Visit : www.bentley.com

Union Township, Ohio, subscribes to MapCiti web-based mapping solution

Syncline, Inc., has announced that Union Township, Ohio, has subscribed to the company's fully automated Web-based mapping service, which is designed specifically for government and utilities. The service, MapCiti(TM), enables municipalities to share geographic information systems (GIS) data - such as the location of police and voting districts - internally and with the public in the form of maps. Union Township will be using MapCiti(TM) to keep its 42,000 citizens better informed on a number of topics, including the location of voting precincts. It will also use MapCiti(TM) to publish maps showing where crimes are taking place in the community, as well as the location of police patrols. The idea is to give people accurate, up-to-date information on neighbourhood safety, as well as to show how police are responding to that information.

Visit : www.mapciti.com and www.syncline.com

Image Web Server 1.6 for Geological Survey Web sites

Earth Resource Mapping (ERM) has announced the development of an integrated online web mapping application for Geological Survey organizations that takes advantage of the recently released Image Web Server 1.6. The application, freely available to purchasers of Image Web Server 1.6, tightly integrates imagery served by the Image Web Server with vector and database information served by GIS map servers such as MapXtreme, MapGuide, Geomedia WebMap or ArcIMS. Country and state geological survey organizations are responsible for very large amounts of data in raster imagery, vector GIS or tabular database format. Imagery typically includes digital terrain models, satellite imagery, airphotos and ortho photos, magnetics, gravity and radiometric information.

Visit : www.ermapper.com and www.earthetc.com

Atlas Launches U.S. Weather Satellite

An Atlas IIA successfully launched GOES-M from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, pad 36A at 0723 UTC (12:23 a.m. PDT) on July 23. GOES-M (Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite) will be placed in an on-orbit storage location where it will be available as an on-orbit spare to monitor hurricanes, severe thunderstorms, flash floods and other severe weather. GOES-M was renamed GOES-12 upon achieving orbit. GOES-9 and GOES-11 are in storage orbits near 105 degrees West longitude. GOES-M will be positioned in the same general area.

Asia News

India Signs on RADARSAT-1 for Additional 2 Years

RADARSAT International (RSI) and the National Remote Sensing Agency (NRSA), Department of Space, Government of India have signed a monitoring contract whereby NRSA will purchase a minimum of 300 RADARSAT -1 scenes over the next two years. This contract is a follow-on from a previous two-year commitment by NRSA. RADARSAT-1 data and services have been used extensively in India for flood and agricultural (in particular rice crop) monitoring. Time-sensitive services such as Near-Real Time data processing and Electronic delivery enable scientists in India to receive data --within hours of RADARSAT-1 data reception, to be used as a key information source in responding to a flood disaster.

Visit : www.nrsa.gov.in

China to Launch Third Unmanned Spacecraft Soon

China is to launch its third unmanned spaceship soon to pave the way for sending the first Chinese astronaut into space next year, it was reported Monday, according to Chinadaily.com.

China is expected to launch Shenzhou III soon as pre-launch preparations were "in full swing" in China's Jiuquan Launching Center, the Chinese-language newspaper Wen Wei Po said. A manned space flight could happen as early as the latter half of next year, depending on the successful unmanned test flights of Shenzhou III and Shenzhou IV. Shenzhou IV is expected to be launched before the end of this year, the report said.

If the launch is successful, China will be the third country after Russia and the United States to put a man into space. China has began its unmanned spacecraft programme in 1999. The Shenzhou II was launched in January 9, orbiting the earth 108 times. The first Shenzhou unmanned space capsule carried out a 21-hour, 14-orbit voyage after being launched from Jiuquan in November 1999.

Source: Xinhua News Agency, www.xinhua.com

E-post delivery at the doorstep

YOUR friendly neighbourhood postman will soon deliver more than just letters and parcels; he will also drop in e-mail messages at your doorstep.

The Department of Posts (DoP) is gearing up for the launch of `E-post' -- a new service which is aimed at taking e-mail to the far-flung corners of the country and creating cyber centres within the post office.

It is planning to not only set up Internet browsing facilities within the post office premises, but also provide a new service of delivering e-mail messages. The e-mail service will be fee-based and a user will be given a unique E-post ID. With the ID, he will be able to access the messages from any part of the country.

Sources in the department said that this new initiative has been planned to make up the revenue losses incurred due to the extensive use of e-mail.Though a date for the formal launch of E-post has not been set, sources said that this would happen soon. The initial pilot project will be conducted on 200 cities and will later be extended to 20,000 cities.

Also, to make the system suitable for the rural consumer, the e-mail service will be available in several regional languages. The DoP has, off late, been looking at alternative methods to boost revenues. Besides this, it is also looking at making the post office a one-stop shop for financial products and also a bill collection centre.

Source: Business Line, 24 July 2001

Online guide makes it almost impossible to get lost in Dubai

Anyone with Internet access need no longer get lost in Dubai, thanks to a new e-guide launched by the Municipality yesterday. The free service allows people to locate places using an address, street or area name and then print out a map.

It was developed by the Municipality's Geographical Information System Centre and contains all destinations, buildings, hotels and streets. Centre director Mohammed Al Zaffin said, "It can be used by people who want to pay their Etisalat or Dewa bills and want to find the nearest branch.

"There is a registration process for anyone wanting to be included in the service, be it hotels or other organisations, who can then regularly update information about themselves."

Municipality Director-General Qassim Sultan said a committee was established to supervise the system and update it continuously. The service is available at www.gis.gov.ae.

Source: www.gulfnews.com

Need for knowledge on e-commerce underscored

The inaugural ceremony of the training workshop on "Electronic Commerce in Export Business" was held at the DCCI Business Institute premises in the city yesterday. The DCCI Business Institute under DCCI-GTZ Partnership Programme organised the workshop.

Aftab-ul Islam, past President, DCCI, inaugurated the training workshop as chief guest, says a press release.

In his speech, Islam underscored the need for knowledge on electronic commerce to face the challenges of the global competitive world. He said that the indisputable message is that, "there is a death of a distance. The communication cost coming down to almost nothing." He said that the electronic commerce is depending on three factors - telecom infrastructure, information technology and human resource development.

Mirza A Matin, secretary, DCCI, welcomed the participants and giving brief resume of the training activities of DBI. He told that the e-commerce offers a convenient way to buy, sell, and deliver to the consumer goods and services that can take an electronic form. The use of the Internet for business transactions is on the increase worldwide at a faster pace

Resource persons Ms Dil Afroze, national director of DEVNET-TIPS Global Project, Dr Rokonuzzaman, director, Information Services and Assistant Professor, Department of Computer Science, North South University MS Raunak, adjunct faculty, Department of Computer Science, North South University, Hasanur Rahman Chowdhury, deputy secretary (Training) and course co-ordinator and Shahazada Basunia, deputy secretary (Public Relation) were also present on the occasion.

The course aimed at familiarising the participants with the following topics: An introduction of e-commerce in export business, prospects of e-business and major areas, access to global markets - using the Internet, benefits of e-commerce in export business, e-commerce development strategy (human resources development plan for performing e-commerce), an exporter’s perspective on e-commerce: real life example and export pavilion Bangladesh: a conceptual Internet marketing solution for exporters of Bangladesh. ( The Independent )

News from bangladesh

N-explosions will not go unnoticed

Gen. Pervez Musharraf may or may not want a nuclear war with India but what he cannot avoid is detection of any explosion in the immediate future either in Pakistan or elsewhere. This is because of a little-known seismic centre located at Gauribidanur, a two-hour drive from Bangalore.

The seismic array station, set up by the Bhabha Atomic Energy Research Centre, has come a long way since its inception in 1965 having recorded its first explosion data from Long Shot, USA, that year.

Since then the centre, recognised as one of the most reputed in the world, has also recorded events as diverse as quarry blasts at Kudremukh mines to the Pokhran-2 and the Chagai Hill Pakistan explosions.

Today, after its agreement with the UK was not extended for technical know-how, the station has developed an indigenous digital data acquisition system to monitor and transmit in real time seismic activities across the globe.

The basic advantage of the indigenous system is that the country has been able to replace the old systems that were obtained from the UK Atomic Energy in the initial years.

Source: The Statesman, 23 July 2001