Top Stories
Australia's first of its kind National Public Toilet Map
It may not be published by the Lonely Planet travel guide publisher, or even the Royal Automobile Club of Victoria, but it is almost certain to become one of Australia's most popular holiday and motoring guides.It comes in bold colors, can be plucked easily from the Internet and comes with the imprimatur of Federal Department of Health and Aged Care bureaucrats rather than the Leyland Brothers. The special comfort map reveals the location of every public toilet, urinal, lavatory and loo across the nation. It reveals their days of operation, their opening hours and whether they provide access to those with a disability. The map is the National Public Toilet Map, the first of its kind in Australia. Available at this stage only on the Internet, it details more than 13,000 public toilets. Funded by the Federal Government's $15-million National Continence Management Strategy, the map has won support from Aged Care Minister Bronwyn Bishop. Mrs Bishop said it would help the more than one million Australians affected by incontinence and travellers, especially those with young children. The map is promoted in a brochure outlining its key features, how it can be found on the Net and the national continence helpline.
Visit:-
www.theage.com.au/news/state/2001/09/19/FFXRCR1LQRC.html &
www.toiletmap.gov.au/
Comsearch Announces New GeoPlanner(TM) Product Line
Comsearch, an Allen Telecom company has announced the availability of Microwave GeoPlanner, a series of electronic geographic maps depicting up-to-date, incumbent microwave path data and information for point-to-point services from 940 MHz to 23 GHz in a specific geographic area for the telecommunications industry. Comsearch's Microwave GeoPlanner product is comprised of two data elements-- Digital Raster Graphic (DRG) and microwave path data. The DRG is a georeferenced 1:250,000-scale USGS topographic map. The microwave path data is portrayed as a line with specific information including contacts, latitude and longitude, frequency, equipment and status. When used in conjunction with a free map viewer, or mapping tools, telecommunications service providers can use this data to locate and analyse current licensees in their geographic area to identify potential new markets, plan new networks, find holes in existing networks, or identify potential competitors and operators. The product is the latest addition to DataZone(SM), a repository of standardized reports, studies and GIS data products for the telecommunications industry.
Visit:-
www.comsearch.com
Mapmaker poised to spread benefits of e-success
The head of Ordnance Survey has announced a sweeping package of moves designed to transform access to maps and digital map data. Vanessa Lawrence revealed how the agency's e-business strategy - one of the most praised within government - will put customers first and help develop the map market in the information economy. Speaking at the Association for Geographic Information (AGI) industry conference at Earls Court, London, she outlined a new series of online services, a groundbreaking partnership initiative, and details of Britain's new digital mastermap for the 21st century. The e-business strategy includes the development of online ordering and delivery services for Ordnance Survey large-scale mapping data. A successful pilot has been running since June and the full service will begin to bring benefits to customers from November. The first stage involves a web-based service for entrepreneurs and innovators keen to grow and develop business ideas using Ordnance Survey data. A second stage, to be launched in November, offers a more targeted approach to existing and potential partners whose ideas are ready for the market now.
Visit:-
www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk
Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources Receives Lifetime Achievement Award
The Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) was presented with ESRI Canada's first Lifetime Achievement Award at the annual meeting of Wildlife, Fisheries and Forest Ministers of Canada, held earlier today at the Westin Harbour Castle Hotel, Toronto. Jack Dangermond, president of ESRI (Redlands, CA), the world leader in geographic information system (GIS) software, recognized the MNR for its leadership role and innovative use of GIS. In a special presentation ceremony, the Natural Resources Minister, the Honourable John Snobelen, received the award on behalf of the Ministry. The MNR's most recent achievement was the development of the Land Information Ontario (LIO) program, which offers leadership within the province for all geospatial data providers and users to make geospatial data affordable, accessible and integratable
Visit:-
www.esricanada.com
Eletropaulo's ArcGIS/ArcFM enterprise GIS begins full-scale production rollout
Eletropaulo, a leading electric utility based in São Paulo, Brazil, with 4.8 million customers and nearly 4,500 km² of service area, has successfully completed its ArcGIS/ArcFM implementation. Eletropaulo is leveraging ArcFM 8, ArcSDE, ArcIMS, and Oracle to streamline asset management, improve and expand interdepartmental communications, and expand the reach and accessibility of enterprise-level data. The ArcFM 8 implementation replaces a subset of functionality formerly managed within a nongeographic mainframe database system and will be utilized by more than 100 users throughout the utility. The prime contractor for the project, Miner & Miner of Fort Collins, Colorado, has provided consulting and implementation services along with their core ArcFM product. ESRI and its distributor, GEMPI of São Paulo, Brazil, performed digital data conversion from mainframe to ArcGIS 8. The long-term goal of the system will be to use geographic information system (GIS) analysis and visualization functionality to support outage management and response. Using GIS and supporting technologies, the company will meet strict outage response criteria enforced by regulatory agencies.
Visit:-
www.esri.com
First Announcement and Call for Papers-3rd International Symposium on "Remote Sensing of Urban Areas
The first symposium "Remote Sensing of Urban Areas" was held in Regensburg, Germany, in 1997, followed by symposium on the topic of remote sensing of urban areas was organized by A.Prof. Dr. Carsten Jürgens from University of Regensburg, Germany in 2001 to continue scientific discussions on this topic. This initiative was supported by ISPRS activities e.g. the new working group VII-4 "Human Settlements and Impact Analysis" that was created during the last ISPRS-Congress in Amsterdam 2000. Due to great interest of scientists from different countries to both symposia and the continuous developments in space technologies for monitoring urban areas the Third International Symposium is supported by several institutions on the national and international level. The Symposium organizing committee kindly invites you to participate in this Symposium, which will be held in Istanbul, Turkey in 11-13 June of 2002, and to share this information with other interested scientists around the world.
Visit:-
www.ins.itu.edu.tr/rsurban3
Asia News
The two faces of technology in times of disaster
The terrorist attack on America last week has once again demonstrated how the world is walking the tight rope of technology, which is destroying and serving at the same time.
Packages like Microsoft flight simulator enabled the terrorists to crash 'virtually' into the twin trade towers hundreds of times before really going for the final strike. With aircraft simulators at the training institutes, they could got training in flying horizontally without needing to know how to land and take-off.
But for technology, such precision could only be dreamt of. With technology, it can only be dreaded.
To add to all this, a week after the disaster, security experts say there are impending threats of a cyber war. Hackers of different ideologies could storm the Internet, deface websites, launch attacks to deny services as has been true with politically charged events in the past. But that's not reason enough to believe that all this while we have been nursing a Frankenstein monster who is out there on a rampage.
There are technologies, products, solutions and software that can not just help manage and mitigate disasters but, in some cases, also predict calamities. If on one hand Microsoft's flight simulator aided terrorists, the software gaint's Pocket PC handheld computers are being used by aid agencies to efficiently manage disasters.
"There are also tools like the ones built around the Geographic Information System (GIS) that can give early warnings of natural calamities or even simulate disaster-like conditions for agencies or even corporates to enable them to manage disasters better," said HOPE Technologies CEO Amit Dutta Gupta.
In the Manhatten relief operations, agencies collected and analysed a lot of area specific data regarding the number of people at the WTC towers, the capacity and occupancy of the adjoining parking lot, and other minute details. The administration used digital maps and image processing to assess the actual damage.
Closer home, GIS, coupled with remote sensing data provided by satellites, is already being used by states to manage disasters. Andhra Pradesh, Sikkim and Maharashtra governments have already deployed technologies to fight cyclone and landslides.
ISRO, too, has started the National Disaster Management Programme in the Himalayan region to study the landslide pattern using latest technologies.
The physical assets apart, there are storage solutions and mirroring software available that can help governments and companies to insulate information assets from disasters, be it man-made or natural.
Source: The Pioneer (
http://www.hindustantimes.com/nonfram/190901/detECO10.asp)
