Top Stories
Civil-Military interoperability demonstrated for GPS-based precision landing system.
A government-industry team accomplished the first precision approach by a civil aircraft using a military Global Positioning System (GPS) landing system Aug. 25 at Holloman AFB, N.M., Raytheon Company announced. A FedEx Express 727-200 Aircraft equipped with a Rockwell-Collins GNLU-930 Multi-Mode Receiver landed using a Raytheon-developed military ground station. Raytheon designed and developed the differential GPS ground station under an Air Force contract for the Joint Precision Approach and Landings System (JPALS) program. The JPALS system is being developed to meet the Defense Department's need for an anti-jam, secure, all weather Category II/III aircraft landing system that will be fully interoperable with planned civil systems utilizing the same technology. Raytheon and the U.S. Air Force have been conducting extensive flight-testing for JPALS at Holloman over the last three months.
Visit:-
http://www.raytheon.com/
GeoIT adds schematic capabilities to its GIS and IT Solutions
GeoIT has entered into an agreement with NetGraph Information Technology (NGIT) of France to become an NGIT Business Partner for Services. This allows GeoIT to integrate NGIT's NG Spatial(tm) schematic generation products into its GIS and IT implementation projects at utilities worldwide. NGIT developed NG Spatial(tm) for utility, telecommunications and transportation organizations as a solution for creating automated schematic representations from network databases. NG Spatial(tm) was recently engineered for integration with ESRI's ArcInfo 8 GIS package, providing direct access to geospatial database information for schematic rendering and complex data querying. Integrated into GeoIT's utility automation applications, NG Spatial(tm) will enable operators to easily extract network data from AM/FM/GIS and IT systems to geographically and schematically visualize and manipulate the system information. This solution will run with most major database products including Oracle, SQL Server, Informix and Sybase.
Earthstar Geographics announces the release of TerraColor World version 1.5
Earthstar Geographics have announced the release of TerraColor World version 1.5, an update to its high-resolution, colour shaded terrain and bathymetry images of the earth. Version 1.5 features new images including global snow and ice cover, and new plug-ins to use the images in ArcGIS®, Autodesk®, MapInfo®, Photoshop®, and other products. The product is offered at a special introductory price of US$59 for a limited time. TerraColor World is ideal for colorful world or regional basemaps, geography education, geologic and bathymetric studies, and more. The images are created from several public domain data sources including 1Km DEM data and 3.5Km bathymetric data. TerraColor World images are delivered in the ECW compressed image format developed by Earth Resource Mapping. Over 20GB of world and regional images are provided on a single CD-ROM in a variety of map projections, with a detailed User Guide.
Visit:-
http://www.es-geo.com/terracolor.html
Garmin New Hire to Spearhead Future Mobile Electronics Business Effort
Garmin International, a unit of Garmin Ltd., is pleased to announce the hiring of Guy Waitley as Associate Director of Business Development. This is a new position designed to bolster the company's strategic development efforts as it rolls out its future plans for GPS-enabled personal digital assistant (PDA) and smart phone products. Waitley comes to Garmin from Austin, Texas-based OnFiber Communications, where he served as Executive Director for Business Development and Stratgeic Transactions. Prior to OnFiber, he worked for more than six years with Sprint Corp. and Sprint PCS, where he most recently served as Director for Business Development and Strategic Transactions and was instrumental in developing strategic relationships and negotiating purchase and marketing agreements related to wireless products and services. While at Sprint PCS, he also engaged in a variety of leading-edge business activities related to wireless applications such as telematics, location-based services, voice recognition, roadside assistance and wireless Internet services.
Visit:-
http://www.garmin.com/pressroom/
Anne Arundel County, Maryland, hires PlanGraphics to reengineer business processes
PlanGraphics, Inc., a provider of professional spatial information technology services, announces award of a contract with Maryland's Anne Arundel County. The County has selected PlanGraphics in a competitive procurement to analyze the land use business processes of the Departments of Planning and Zoning and Inspections and Permits. PlanGraphics will reengineer seven core business processes, including zoning, subdivision tracking, and permitting. Based on the reengineering, PlanGraphics will prepare a set of functional system requirements that will be used to purchase a new and integrated information technology management system. The proposed system will integrate work and data flow into a single cohesive system to improve the department's business effectiveness and efficiency. The new system and business processes will be fully integrated with GIS for mapping and spatial analysis capabilities.
Visit:-
www.plangraphics.com
The USGS turns to Blue Marble Geographics and BeyondGeo to publish maps on the Internet.
Blue Marble Geographics has announced that the United States Geological Survey's (USGS) NAWQA Program has selected their Internet mapping service BeyondGeo, to serve some of their interactive maps on their website. BeyondGeo is an Internet mapping service that delivers dynamic, database driven maps directly within any website. Blue Marble Geographics has a number of software products licensed throughout the USGS, this was the first installation of their Internet mapping service.
Visit:-
http://infotrek.er.usgs.gov/files/nawqa/beyondgeo_map.htm
Asia News
Disaster management strategy on the anvil
The devastating earthquake in Bhuj has prompted the Centre to initiate a string of new projects to better understand the earthquake processes and formulate a disaster management strategy.
"Government has further intensified its efforts and has initiated several new projects which include the setting up of an Earthquake Risk Evaluation Centre and Radio-Telemetered Systems in Khandwa, Madhya pradesh and Koyna, Maharashtra," said Minister of State for Science and Technology Bachi Singh Rawat on Wednesday, while inaugurating an international conference on seismic hazard with particular reference to the Bhuj earthquake.
"The National Geo-physical Research institute (NGRI) has prepared a global seismic map which would help in better risk assessment," he said adding that microzonation of Delhi and other important cities, in a phased manner, had also begun.These efforts would yield fruitful results and help the scientific community to translate the hazard into risk assessment and evaluation as an important input for the preparedness of disaster planning and management, said Mr Rawat.
Speaking on the occasion, Science and Technology department Secretary V S Ramamurthy said the country lacked a major instrumentation programme required to develop, design and maintain essential instruments.He stressed upon the need to have more sub-terrain and land-based observatories, adding work on zonation had made considerable progress as compared to microzonation which had not been taken up on a large scale.Mr Ramamurthy also urged developing countries to increase spending on earthquake research.
Source:
The Pioneer
