Top Stories
New Autodesk raster design eases digital design process
Autodesk, Inc., has announced Autodesk® Raster Design (previously named Autodesk® CAD Overlay®) for GIS, civil engineering, manufacturing, and building design professionals. Autodesk Raster Design helps designers in these industries manage two of the most difficult challenges they face: integrating legacy and paper-based drawings and photos (aerial/satellite imagery) into the digital design process and keeping the data in a digital format throughout the workflow. New features in Autodesk Raster Design include optical character recognition (OCR), color palette controls, tonal adjustments, and rubber sheeting, helping users eliminate the time-intensive need to digitally re-create drawings from scratch. Any organization that has designed and built a building, road, or manufactured product has vast amounts of legacy drawings and data that are either too cost prohibitive or time consuming to convert to a digitally re-usable format. Autodesk Raster Design's powerful image-editing tools make it easier than ever to edit any text in the image, correct image distortion and detail problems, and convert images into formats that can be easily integrated into the design process. These capabilities help designers spend less time editing and re-creating drawings, instead allowing them to focus their efforts on the design project at hand.
Visit:
www.autodesk.com
Worldwide deployment of location-based services made possible with GeoMobilIT Services
MobileGIS Ltd., a founding member of the MAGIC Services Initiative, has announced the availability of a single platform for development and worldwide deployment of location-based services, eliminating the need for proprietary databases and servers to manage complex geographic data. Available as part of a technology preview MobileGIS' GeoMobilIT(TM) Service simplifies geocoding, mapping, language translation and travel guidance, and provides the most detailed global coverage available for development of navigation, travel planning, emergency notification, asset tracking and other services. With GeoMobilIT Service, MobileGIS is one step closer to offering the most detailed, widest reaching geographic services available to wireless carriers and telematics service providers that provide location-based services to end-users as well as enterprise customers. In first quarter 2002, following the technology preview of the GeoMobilIT Service, MAGIC Services Initiative is expected to officially approve MSP 2.0. When MSP 2.0 is approved, the service will be made commercially available. GeoMobilIT Service is built for widely recognized Internet standards including XML, SOAP, HTTP and SMTP and is Microsoft .NET compatible which makes it easy for developers to build and use services on a variety of devices, from mobile phones to mainframe computers, using any language or operating system. It provides detail at the global level, including more than a million named entities worldwide, significant populated places, travel corridors and major roads, as well as natural features, historical landmarks and other points of interest.
Visit:
http://www.magicservicesforum.org/ &
http://www.mobilegis.com/
Autodesk introduces new software series to meet the specific needs of civil engineers
Autodesk, Inc., has announced from its annual user conference in Las Vegas, the Autodesk® Civil Series. The Autodesk Civil Series is a new software bundle that gives civil engineering professionals what they need most: a single suite of integrated civil design applications that meet their biggest challenges including integrating applications, maintaining data integrity, and collaborating with colleagues across the entire design process. The Autodesk Civil Series has an extensive set of tools and capabilities to meet these challenges, enabling users to handle the wide variety of tasks they encounter in subdivision, site, road, and sewer and drainage design projects. The suite enables users to easily pass survey data to and from the field, as well as easily integrate paper-based drawings and raster imagery, such as aerial images or scanned drawings, into the broader design process. The new Autodesk Civil Series underscores Autodesk's commitment to its civil engineering customers and represents the next step in Autodesk's civil engineering solutions, giving users powerful, industry-specific capabilities that fit their design processes and simplify the purchasing process.
Visit:
www.autodesk.com
Paradigm's Destinator-TM At Radio Shack
Paradigm Advanced Technologies, Inc., has announces that Radio Shack Canada (Div. Intertan Canada Limited) has placed an initial order for their Destinator(TM) GPS-based navigation system. The Destinator(TM) product will be sold through Radio Shack Canada's 'Gear & Gadgets' hi-tech showcase at stores across the country for CDN $499.00 retail. Product will be shipping immediately. Radio Shack Canada operates nearly 900 retail outlets with over 2300 employees. The Destinator(TM) navigation system provides navigation assistance to travelers throughout North America. Destinator(TM) allows users to effortlessly navigate by providing real-time turn-by-turn voice instructions in either English, French or Spanish that guide the user to a destination without having to glance at the Destinator's(TM) map readout. Visual guidance is also available in real-time on dynamically updated maps of the area. The Destinator's(TM) GPS unit keeps up with the user's changing speeds and varied terrain while continuously maintaining the system's accuracy to within 30 feet. Quality Navtech(TM) map data for all of Canada and the United States are included. Additionally, features such as RouteUSA(TM) enable seamless navigation from coast to coast (within Canada and the USA) along with an extensive points of interest database.
Visit:
http://www.powerloc.com/ &
http://www.destinator1.com/
MultiGen-Paradigm Announces Vega Prime
At the Interservice/Industry Training, Simulation & Education Conference (I/ITSEC), MultiGen-Paradigm, Inc., the leading provider of realtime 3D software solutions, has announced Vega Prime(TM), the next generation of the Vega product line. Vega Prime is a cross platform, extendable, and scalable development environment that includes MultiGen-Paradigm's Vega Scene Graph(TM) (VSG), an advanced low-level scene graph, as well as a high level abstraction API which delivers a wide range of customizable optimization and multi-level functionality. Vega Prime features a platform independent, customizable, C++, plug-in based architecture providing users with greater flexibility in creating visual simulation applications than ever before. Vega Prime also includes LynX Prime, an extensible, cross platform GUI configuration tool re-designed to facilitate the rapid creation, modification, and configuration of Vega Prime application development. Vega Prime's single source infrastructure allows user's to develop and deploy applications on multiple platforms without modification to the code.
Visit:
http://www.multigen-paradigm.com/
Asia News
Microsoft Introduces e-Hospital in Korea
Software giant Microsoft launched the Healthcare.NET consortium to establish the information technology infrastructure needed to make hospitals go online, aimed at accelerating the ``open hospital'' system earlier than planned.
Chipmaker Intel, medical information portal site Mdsave, solution provider Insoft and medical consultancy Unionhealth all joined the consortium, Microsoft Korea said yesterday.
The ``open hospital'', a hot issue in the local healthcare industry, describes a system whereby small hospitals can co-utilize medical equipment, facilities and human resource from larger hospitals. Small hospitals will then be able to provide continuous healthcare services without losing patients due to a lack of resources. Larger hospitals can also expand profits, getting payment in return for renting their resources.
It was designed by the Ministry of Health last year to maximize the limited resources in the industry by reducing overlapping investment among medical organizations, as well as provide developed healthcare services to customers. As of now, 30 large healthcare entities across the nation tentatively run the system, with a larger launch in the near future.
If such cooperation among hospitals makes synergy effects, building the information technology network linking co-operated hospitals is also necessary.
The Microsoft-led Healthcare.NET consortium will take such a role, bringing .NET, Microsoft's vision of the next generation Internet, to the local healthcare industry. .Net, Microsoft described, lets customers connect to the Internet anytime and any place through any Internet-enabled device.
.NET for healthcare, Microsoft explained, will enable every industry player, including patients and hospitals, to be linked in a single environment through the Internet where they can share information, reduce errors and inefficiencies and ultimately improve quality of care.
Read complete article at:
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/kt_tech/200111/t2001112616550645110.htm
China's WTO entry boon for Korean IT
SEOUL - South Korea's trade surplus to China in the field of information-technology (IT) products should increase by nearly US$400 million a year because of China's entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO), according to a South Korean IT think tank.
The Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) reported on Monday that South Korea's exports of IT products to China would increase by $587 million a year on average with China's entry into the WTO, while IT product imports from China would grow $191 million a year on average, for a trade-surplus increase of $396 million.
The ETRI said that China's WTO membership is likely to be a challenge as well as an opportunity for the IT industry, but there is a high possibility that it will work to South Korea's advantage in both the short and long terms.
As for positive effects, the ETRI noted that IT product exports will expand because of the fall in Chinese tariff rates and non-tariff trade barriers, increased demand for IT products in China and greater investment and business opportunities there.
Negative aspects include tougher competition in China's IT market, an enhanced competitive edge for China's IT industry and a slowdown in foreign investment in South Korea, the ETRI pointed out. The research institute also noted that South Korea's IT industry will have to compete with Chinese rivals overseas after China's IT industry is substantially strengthened by government policies that require foreign IT firms doing business in China to share technology with domestic IT firms
Read complete article at:
http://atimes.com/koreas/CK27Dg02.html
Intergraph Corporation has announced the appointment of Preetha Pulusani as president of Intergraph Mapping and GIS Solutions, effective immediately. She reports to James F. Taylor, Intergraph's chairman and CEO. Intergraph Mapping and GIS Solutions (IMGS) is one of Intergraph's five vertically focused units conducting business in over 60 countries, with annual revenues of about $130 million. Pulusani has been with Intergraph since 1981. She holds a bachelor's degree in accounting and a master's degree in computer science, and is actively involved in several professional organizations. Earlier this year, she was elected to serve on the board of directors of the Open GIS Consortium, an international industry consortium dedicated to open geodata and geoprocessing. Before being named president, Pulusani was executive vice president for Intergraph Mapping and GIS Solutions. In that role, her responsibilities included worldwide sales and marketing, Intergraph's flagship commercial product suites MGE and GeoMedia, and the new Intelliwhere division, which is focused on location-based services.
