Top Stories
ESRI announces specialized utility track for EMEA User Conference
ESRI is pleased to announce the creation of a first-of-its-kind utility program as part of the 2001 European/Middle East/Africa (EMEA) User Conference. With the addition of the utility track and other events, this year's conference promises to be the most important geographic information system (GIS) event staged for users of ESRI software outside of the United States. The 2001 EMEA ESRI User Conference will be held in Lisbon, Portugal, October 17-19. The theme for the conference is "GIS and the Web-A New Era." Several utility-focused events will highlight this year's conference. On Thursday, October 18, there will be a meeting during lunch for anyone interested in discussing the formation of an EMEA utility user group. There will be a utility-focused keynote address by Dr. Mounir Yehia, a professor at the American University of Beirut and a member of the Board of Directors of the Lebanese Electricity Company, on Wednesday, October 17, and a utility-focused conference track agenda on Thursday, October 18. Social events will include a gala dinner event held on Thursday, October 18. In addition, on Friday, October 19, there will be a special meeting for all interested parties to discuss ArcGIS electric and gas data models.
Visit:-
www.cpl.pt/esriemeauc/ &
www.esri.com
New Jersey Institute of Technology Assists in Twin Tower Recovery Effort
NJIT is playing a key role in the Twin Tower's recovery effort, helping the government monitor and map the disaster site. A civil engineering unit here is helping to position planes hovering above the wreckage. The planes are taking three-dimensional digital aerial images and maps, which recovery crews then use to assess the damage and orchestrate the clean up. An antenna at NJIT's Global Positioning System (GPS) Center tracks the satellites and downloads the data into a computer at the university. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) hourly taps into the computers and uses the data to track planes and record precise images. Joshua Greenfeld, Ph.D., associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at NJIT, who manages the GPS Center, said for the past two years the Center has helped the government monitor the earth's crust for earthquakes. But after hijackers attacked and destroyed the Twin Towers, the government asked for aerial assistance, which Greenfeld was happy to provide. The planes are equipped with advanced LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging System) technology, which must work along with a GPS Center. The GPS Center, founded two years ago at NJIT, is located 10 miles from the World Trade Center site.
Visit:-
http://www.njit.edu/News/Releases/128.html
Laser-Scan to enhance ground breaking mapping website
Geospatial experts Laser-Scan are working with Edinburgh Data and Information Access (EDINA) of the Edinburgh University Data Library (EUDL), to add new functions to its UKBORDERS™ web service. UKBORDERS is a web-based service that allows users to extract digitised boundaries of the UK, and transfer the data across the Internet in a format suitable for use in their own computing environment. Lecturers, researchers and students in the UK Higher Education Community can then use this Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) funded resource, in their work. EDINA has recently been awarded the contract to be the geographical support unit for the ESRC 2001 census program. Since January 2001 the UKBORDERS™ service has also been available to UK Further Education students; it is estimated by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) that this could boost the future user community to five times its current size. Following the work with Laser-Scan, UKBORDERS will be able to deal effectively with this projected increase in users. Laser-Scan's Gothic environment will also offer a greater range of output formats, including SVG (Scaleable Vector Graphics), GML (Geography Markup Language) and a number of raster formats. These will be exported using Safe Software's Feature Manipulation Engine (FME).
Visit:-
www.laser-scan.com
Wherify's GPS Personal Locator Wins Top Honors at RetailVision
More than 200 leading U.S. and Canadian retailers, representing $60 billion in buying power, selected the Wherify GPS Personal Locator as the "Best Product: Hardware" and "Best New Technology" during this year's "Best of RetailVision Awards(TM)." The "Best of RetailVision Awards were held Sept. 6, as part of RetailVision Fall 2001 in Lake Buena Vista, Florida. Key industry leaders presented the awards to Wherify Wireless, including representatives from Best Buy, CompUSA, Fry's Electronics, Ingram Micro, Office Depot, Target, Radio Shack and Staples. Scheduled to hit the market by the end of the year, Wherify's GPS Personal Locator is unlike any location-based service available today. Through the convergence of Global Positioning System (GPS) and digital wireless technologies, the miniaturized, wrist-worn locator offers a patented, tested and proven safety solution that gives parents peace of mind knowing they can locate their children, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Parents, whether at work, home, or traveling, can use the Internet or any phone to quickly identify their child's location within several feet of their exact location and in less than 60 seconds. In the event of an emergency, either the child or parent can request an emergency 911 response and local police will be dispatched.
Visit:-
www.wherifywireless.com
Ordnance Survey's E-business move gains double boost
Britain's national mapmaker, Ordnance Survey, is toasting a double vote of confidence for its ambitious e-business strategy. The agency has won two separate honours from the Office of the e-Envoy, the organisation working to get the UK online and ensuring that the country, its citizens and its businesses make the very best of the digital age. Vanessa Lawrence, Ordnance Survey's Director General and Chief Executive, has been appointed an e-Champion, one of a small group of officials chosen to drive forward the process of getting the government and its services online. The accolade comes just days after Ordnance Survey's e-business strategy secured a maximum four-star award for meeting the vision that all dealings with government should be capable of online delivery by 2005.
Visit:-
www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk
Dollar Rent A Car introduces DOLLAR NAVIGATOR- voice activated GPS
Dollar Rent A Car has introduced DOLLAR NAVIGATOR(SM), a portable voice-interactive Global Positioning System (GPS), which is now available at 13 DOLLAR(R) locations across the United States. DOLLAR NAVIGATOR is the car rental industry's first 100 percent portable voice-activated GPS navigation system. It utilizes state-of-the-art voice recognition technology and sophisticated software to provide customers with turn-by-turn directions, prompted by voice. "DOLLAR NAVIGATOR was created for our customers' convenience and safety," said Charlie Coniglio, DOLLAR Staff Vice President, e-Commerce. "It's simple to use, using verbal commands instead of a touch display screen that might distract the driver. Additionally, unlike some of the electronic devices utilized by some car rental firms to monitor the activity of the driver, DOLLAR NAVIGATOR simply provides directions." DOLLAR NAVIGATOR can be rented for a nominal fee at the following locations: Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, Reno, Nev., Las Vegas,
Denver, Dallas, Chicago, Detroit, Newark, Atlanta, Orlando and Sanford Field, Fla.
Visit:-
http://www.dollar.com/
Maps.com Introduces Internet Powered Map and Atlas Product Line
Maps.com, a complete mapping solutions company, announced the availability of the world's first
iPowered world wall map, iPowered historical atlases, and iPowered reference atlases. The Maps.com iPoweredmaps(TM) concept allows purchasers of a printed map product to access unique Internet content using a special URL, listed on the map. Users of the new iPowered world political map have access to additional reference information at Maps.com. Purchasers point their browser to an iPowered URL, and gain instant access to an exclusive World Map Center created for iPowered map users. The World Map Center contains in-depth information on every country in the world. Center information includes: Detailed political country maps, detailed physical country maps, up-to-date weather conditions, Business Traveler Guide(TM), up-to-the-minute currency converter, World Factbook(TM) facts and statistics on each country. Maps.com has also unveiled a new line of iPowered atlases, including historical atlases of Texas and California, as well as a world reference and United States reference atlas. Each atlas is accurately printed with full-page historic and thematic maps. With the exclusive iPowered component, readers can access the atlas maps online, print full-page PDF's, and download presentation-ready GIF's.
Visit:-
http://www.maps.com/iPower/
LAND INFO expands management team
LAND INFO International, LLC, a leading producer of worldwide geospatial datasets and services, announced multiple additions to its corporate team in Denver. The company named Kevin Kuvular as Senior Project Manager, Justin Doucette as Project Manager, Matthew Burcham as Junior Account Manager, and Mike Berg as Client Fulfillment Liaison. The new appointments are part of LAND INFO's ongoing commitment to high quality geospatial services and products. During the past several months, LAND INFO has launched a variety of new communication and quality control programs to promote client loyalty. These new hires address the next stage in these loyalty programs.
Visit:-
www.LANDINFO.com
Asia News
Land Records soon to be on the Internet
Kapurthala- The government of Punjab has taken this initiative to provide information of land records on the Internet to facilitate the Punjabi living abroad. To begin with the land records of Phagwara thesil have been digitised as most of the Punjabi NRI's are from this district. According to the proposal all the details regarding the land records like Village map, and other details will also be put on the web. Other important information like the area of the field, irrigation facility, road network, schools, houses, hospitals, population, male-female ratio and geographic details will also be digitised and put on the Internet. Ram Tech Corporation has been awarded the contract to do this project for which initial has also been sanctioned. Read the complete article:
http://216.15.255.34/17092001/kapnews.asp?city=16KPT2D.htm (In Hindi)
Korean IT Standardization Under Way
September 28, 2001 - The Korean IT industry, which currently uses several standards for hardware, components and software, is to be unified under one official standard, the KS (Korean Industrial Standard).
The Agency for Technology and Standards at the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy Korea announced the imminent integration of 256 technology standards, including a "Computer Graphic Interface Standard," one of 479 current standards used by the ministry.
"This integration will eliminate waste and confusion and increase corporate competitiveness," the agency said. The ministry plans to fully unify the IT industry's standards by 2005.
Visit:
http://english.joins.com/article.asp?aid=20010928012325&sid=500
East China City Increases Investment in IT Industry
NINGBO, September 27 (Xinhuanet) -- The port city of Ningbo in east China's Zhejiang province is making more investment in research and development and production capacity building in the information technology (IT) industry.
Several IT industrial parks are witnessing rapid progress in the city with 1.2 million urban residents, including the Ningbo International Software Park, the Top Software Industrial Park, the Dagang Electronics Park and the Semi-conductor and Photoelectrons Industrial Park.
Twenty-five IT enterprises are being built in those parks with a total investment of 250 million yuan (30 million U.S. dollars). The total annual output value the enterprises will generate is expected to reach 10 billion yuan (about 1.2 billion U.S. dollars).
A number of research and development projects have been started in the city by China's leading research institutions in cooperation with the Ningbo city government. The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), the country's top research institution, located its integrated circuit development center and software research center in the city last year.
The Ningbo Shuiyu Group Co has also established its photoelectrons and IT manufacturing center in cooperation with the CAS and other research institutions. Zhejiang University, an influential school in China, has set up a network and software college in Ningbo.
Source: Xinhua News Agency
