GIS in Education

NASA and Japan released a new digital topographic map of Earth Monday that covers more of our planet than ever before. The map was produced with detailed measurements from NASA's Terra spacecraft.

The new global digital elevation model of Earth was created from nearly 1.3 million individual stereo-pair images collected by the Japanese Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer, or Aster, instrument aboard Terra. NASA and Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, known as METI, developed the data set. It is available online to users everywhere for FREE.

"This is the most complete, consistent global digital elevation data yet made available to the world," said Woody Turner, Aster program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "This unique global set of data will serve users and researchers from a wide array of disciplines that need elevation and terrain information."

According to Mike Abrams, Aster science team leader at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., the new topographic information will be of value throughout the Earth sciences and has many practical applications. "Aster's accurate topographic data will be used for engineering, energy exploration, conserving natural resources, environmental management, public works design, firefighting, recreation, geology and city planning, to name just a few areas," Abrams said.

Previously, the most complete topographic set of data publicly available was from NASA's Shuttle Radar Topography Mission. That mission mapped 80 percent of Earth's landmass, between 60 degrees north latitude and 57 degrees south. The new Aster data expand coverage to 99 percent, from 83 degrees north latitude and 83 degrees south. Each elevation measurement point in the new data is 30 meters (98 feet) apart.

"The Aster data fill in many of the voids in the shuttle mission's data, such as in very steep terrains and in some deserts," said Michael Kobrick, Shuttle Radar Topography Mission project scientist at JPL. "NASA is working to combine the Aster data with that of the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission and other sources to produce an even better global topographic map."

NASA and METI are jointly contributing the Aster topographic data to the Group on Earth Observations, an international partnership headquartered at the World Meteorological Organization in Geneva, Switzerland, for use in its Global Earth Observation System of Systems. This "system of systems" is a collaborative, international effort to share and integrate Earth observation data from many different instruments and systems to help monitor and forecast global environmental changes.

NASA, METI and the U.S. Geological Survey validated the data, with support from the U.S. National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and other collaborators. The data will be distributed by NASA's Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center at the U.S. Geological Survey's Earth Resources Observation and Science Data Center in Sioux Falls, S.D., and by METI's Earth Remote Sensing Data Analysis Center in Tokyo.

Aster is one of five Earth-observing instruments launched on Terra in December 1999. Aster acquires images from the visible to the thermal infrared wavelength region, with spatial resolutions ranging from about 15 to 90 meters (50 to 300 feet). A joint science team from the U.S. and Japan validates and calibrates the instrument and data products. The U.S. science team is located at JPL.

For visualizations of the new Aster topographic data, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/20090629.html .

Data users can download the Aster global digital elevation model for free at: https://wist.echo.nasa.gov/~wist/api/imswelcome and http://www.gdem.aster.ersdac.or.jp .

The University of Mississippi's Enterprise for Innovative Geospatial Solutions (EIGS) announced the release of "Mississippi's Guide to Geospatial Technology" a magazine-style publication about geospatial technology.

The guide provides information about how geospatial technology offers everyday solutions for everyday business areas including homeland security, real estate, agriculture, utilities, natural resource management, recreation, transportation, and public health among others.

The Guide was a special collaboration with the Mississippi Business Journal and was featured as a special supplement.

Some of the topic areas covered in the publication includes utilities, media, insurance, natural resource management, real estate, and recreation.

The goal of the publication is to educate potential customers about the innovative and cost effective solutions geospatial technologies can provide to industry and government. This includes decision makers in a variety of private businesses as well as economic development organizations, and all levels of government, but cities and counties in particular.

CSR plc and SiRF Technology completed the merger between SiRF and a wholly owned subsidiary of CSR, creating a pure play provider of connectivity and location platforms and a company with the scale, technology and strategy to enable its customers to address the exciting and emerging opportunities in mobile markets.

The merger yields an enlarged development team, a strong IP portfolio, and a broad base of customers. Customers of the enlarged CSR group will be able to deliver new user experiences of connectivity and location technologies in a diverse range of devices such as mobile phones, personal navigation devices, in-car navigation and telematics systems, laptop and netbook PCs, mobile internet devices, digital cameras, gaming machines, cellular accessories, and consumer electronic devices.

For CSR’s customers, the merger with SiRF means CSR’s Connectivity Centre products are augmented by GPS technologies that are well respected and enjoy widespread adoption. SiRF brings to CSR a strong IP portfolio in GPS and assisted GPS (A-GPS), dead reckoning and location centric platforms.

SiRF’s customers benefit from enhancements to SiRF’s Location Platforms, with CSR’s Connectivity Centre capabilities a strategy of Smart Integration delivering industry leading performance, low cost and small size.

The enlarged CSR group will have its global headquarters in Cambridge, UK, with SiRF’s headquarters in San Jose California becoming CSR’s US headquarters.

DigitalGlobe, a leading global content provider of high-resolution world imagery solutions, today announced that it has signed a contract to extend DigitalGlobe’s Service Level Agreement (SLA) with NGA for $12.5 million per month. The SLA extension provides NGA with continued access to the WorldView-1 satellite. NGA has agreed to extend the SLA through March 31, 2010 for a total of $100 million during the extension period, with an option for NGA to extend the contract for an additional nine months on the same terms, from April 1, 2010 to December 31, 2010.

“This new contract extension is an important milestone in our continuing support of NGA and the U.S. Government. I am very pleased with the DigitalGlobe team’s performance in providing service to NGA,” said Jill Smith, DigitalGlobe’s chairman, chief executive officer and president.

The latest Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite, GOES-O, was launched successfully from Space Launch Complex 37 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

The GOES-O spacecraft lifted off at 6:51 p.m. EDT on a Delta IV rocket. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's GOES-O satellite will improve weather forecasting and monitor environmental events around the world. The satellite is the second to be launched in the GOES N series of geostationary environmental weather satellites.

Approximately 4 hours and 21 minutes after launch, the spacecraft separated from the launch vehicle. The Universal Space Network Western Australia tracking site in Dongara monitored the spacecraft separation.

On July 7, GOES-O will be placed in its final orbit and renamed GOES-14. Approximately 24 days after launch, Boeing Space and Intelligence Systems will turn engineering control over to NASA. About five months later, NASA will transfer operational control of GOES-14 to NOAA.

My dear friend Dr. Karin Viergever sent me an email today disseminating an info regarding a Remote Sensing internship position that is available right now in their company, Ecometrica, in UK.

Read the announcement below and tell your friends about it, especially those in UK.
****

Remote Sensing Internship in Edinburgh, Scotland

Ecometrica, in conjunction with The University of Edinburgh, is offering a remote sensing internship for a current or recently graduated MSc student.

Ecometrica is an independent company that specialises in land use, policy and greenhouse gas emissions projects. We have recently expanded our RS and GIS capacities and have since completed several land use and policy (e.g. forestry and agriculture related) projects using RS. Ecometrica maintains strong links with The University of Edinburgh. The intern will therefore be able to use university facilities such as the library and will be free to join discussion groups of postgraduate students working on remote sensing projects within the School of Geosciences.

The project uses long-term NDVI averages from MODIS for the detection of grassland/pasture degradation (i.e. detection of long-term carbon decrease in grassland). To further assess changes and trends in grassland carbon, precipitation, population and cattle data can be included. The study area is the Argentinian pampas. The project links with an existing Ecometrica project for identifying grassland conversion, which is a very current topic. The project has good scope for a scientific paper as outcome. We envisage the project to last for approximately 3-4 months, ideally starting from August or September 2009.

Apart from an interesting project on a very current issue in an exciting work environment, other advantages of coming to Edinburgh for your internship are:

• Getting acquainted with the private sector and a leading research environment in the UK

• Improving your spoken and written English language skills

• Experiencing the fantastic city of Edinburgh - there's lots to see and do here and the festival and festive season are especially great

• Scotland is fantastically beautiful.

From a practical point of view, the Ecometrica office and relevant university buildings are very closely situated to each other and the city centre (about 5-10 minutes by bicycle).

For more information on Ecometrica and the School of Geosciences: www.ecometrica.co.uk and www.geos.ed.ac.uk.

Send your letter of interest and CV to: Karin.Viergever@ecometrica.co.uk. The vacancy will be filled as soon as a suitable applicant has been found.

The Geospatial Information and Technology Association (GITA) announced the publication of the 2009 Geospatial Technology Report. This 144-page report contains detailed information on the complexity, direction, and completeness of geographic information system (GIS) projects being implemented at 515 organizations—a 9% increase in participation from the 2008 edition.

The 2009 Geospatial Technology Report addresses GIS projects in six infrastructure vertical markets: electric, gas, water, pipeline, and telecommunication utilities, as well as the public sector. Information in each industry section focuses on land base accuracy, sophistication, maintenance cycles, application usage, and interfaces, as well as the top 10 applications and technologies.

"In many ways, we see this Report as the answer to a call for help for our infrastructure. These are real application examples from electric utilities, communications companies, public sector agencies – just to name a few – that are putting geospatial technologies to work to help own, operate, maintain and protect the infrastructure," said Robert M. Samborski, GITA executive director.

Provided free of charge to users who completed surveys that provided the data, the report is available for $299 for GITA individual members and $449 for nonmembers.

Copies of the report may be ordered online at GITA's Web site, www.gita.org/bookstore, or by contacting GITA headquarters at 303-337-0513 or info@gita.org. For information on participating in the surveys for the 2009 report, contact Kathryn Hail at 303-337-0513 or khail@gita.org.

ERDAS announced a free webinar on June 30, 2009; "Presenting a New Face to the World: IMAGINE the Difference", at 11 a.m. (EDT). The webinar will showcase ERDAS IMAGINE 2010, highlighting the new user interface and other helpful features. ERDAS IMAGINE 2010 will be released later this year.

With many advanced software packages, functionality is buried in layers of menus, sub-menus, and sub-menu tabs. Tools continue to diversify, developing their own semantics, meandering onto their own path. ERDAS IMAGINE 2010 combines a heterogeneous set of applications in a simple, easy to use and easy to learn UI. Other useful features include the ability to have multiple views, visualise data in different modes; create custom workflows, allowing the development and packaging of specialised workflows; and a "Shoebox" data repository, enabling project teams to share datasets quickly.

Scheduled to last forty-five minutes, webinar will include approximately thirty minutes of presented material and fifteen minutes for Q&A.

Boeing Co. confirmed the launch of its new GPS satellites to be on schedule, following worries that the global navigation system could degrade or even fail. The timely replacement of aging GPS satellites was a major concern of the U.S. Government Accounting Office (GAO) in a May report and testimony before U.S. House subcommittee.

Following the GAO report, officials at the U.S. Peterson Air Force Space Command sought to assure the public that the GPS system would not fail, but did say there was some potential risk of degradation in GPS performance.

Boeing said that it has shipped one satellite to Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida for tests considered key to the Air Force's deployment of a next-generation GPS system that would reduce the probability of system degradation.

The satellite that Boeing shipped is the second of 12 satellites called GPS IIF satellites, which will undergo ground tests that are part of the preparation for the first launch, and then will be returned to El Segundo, Calif., for further preparation for its own launch at a later date.

Spatialnews reports that the "Our School" mapping classroom pack has been released!

Wildgoose, the education division of aerial mapping company Bluesky International, has launched "Our School" Classroom Pack. Combining up-to-date, site centred aerial photography with both modern and historic mapping, the pack includes multiple copies of each image for individual studies plus display items to stimulate group discussions. The "Our School" Classroom Pack can be centered on any location in England and Wales plus selected areas in Scotland, and is available to purchase online at www.wildgoose.ac.

The Our School Classroom Pack contains 15 laminated aerial prints, 15 laminated Ordnance Survey maps, 15 laminated 19th century maps and 15 laminated 20th century maps, for desktop studies. The pack also contains a foam backed Aeroimage playmat, a CD containing digital copies of the aerial images and maps for use of interactive whiteboards, laminated titles and key words for display, and a Teachers Pack with accompanying notes, activity suggestions, learning objective and key vocabulary.

The State of Florida Division of Emergency Management (DEM) provides the people of Florida with efficient and effective communications during normal periods as well as pre-and-post disaster periods and to serve as the contact point in Florida for communications between local governments and emergency agencies, State government agencies and the federal government.

The State of Florida DEM has licensed Freeance Mobile for the purposes of pushing ESRI map services out to BlackBerry smartphones. Florida DEM plans on utilizing BlackBerry smartphones for storm damage mapping and other related field events that require map viewing and GPS map point logging with digital photos. Freeance Mobile will allow Florida DEM to access GIS maps on different BlackBerry smartphones models from any wireless carrier.

Looking for PhD opportunities in the the Netherlands? Look no further. ITC, currently, has five PhD and one Post Doctoral positions for nationals from East Africa under the research project "EOIA: an Earth Observation and Integrated Assessment approach to the Governance of Lake Naivasha."

EGERTON UNIVERSITY
Egerton University in collaboration with International Institute of Geoinformation Science and Earth Observation (ITC, Netherlands) invites applications for the following scholarships in the Academic Year 2009/2010.

FULL SCHOLARSHIPS: FIVE (5) Ph. D. AND ONE (1) POST DOCTORAL POSITIONS AVAILABLE FOR
NATIONALS FROM EAST AFRICA
These scholarships are offered under the research project "EOIA: An Earth Observation‐ and Integrated Assessment approach to the Governance of Lake Naivasha" is funded by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research under the WOTRO ‐Global Science for Development Programme.

The project will be implemented jointly by Egerton University (Kenya), and the International Institute of Geoinformation Science and Earth Observation (ITC, The Netherlands) and the University of Twente (The Netherlands). Collaborating partners are the University of Nairobi (Kenya), University of Leicester (UK) and the University of Bournemouth (UK). The main stakeholders in the project are Water Resources Management Authority (WRMA), Lake Naivasha Growers Group (LNGG), Lake Naivasha Riparian Organisation (LNRA), World Agroforestry Center (ICRAF) and the World Wildlife Fund ‐ East Africa Regional Programme Office (WWF‐EARPO), all based in Kenya.

The research aims at enhancing sustainability in management of water resources and the environment using Lake Naivasha as a pilot case and adopting Integrated Assessment approach to generate lessons and best practices which can be replicated in other catchments in Kenya and in the East Africa region. Major inputs to the assessment include participatory processes and physical and economic models combined with data derived from remote sensing techniques.

In the framework of this project 5 PhD candidates will be recruited for the following projects.

1. Quantifying the effect of landuse change in upper catchments of Lake Naivasha on water quantity and quality of the Lake ‐ Tenable at ITC/Twente
2. Impact of exogenous and endogenous changes on limnology, fisheries and piscivorous birds – Tenable at Egerton University Kenya
3. Hydrological impacts on terrestrial fringe biodiversity‐Tenable at ITC/Twente
4. Water governance – Tenable at University of Nairobi
5. Socio‐economic linkages – Tenable at ITC/Twente

For a detailed description of the project interested candidates may consult the project document at www.itc.nl/EOIA.

The project also offers 1 Post Doctoral Position The candidate for this position will take up the challenge to integrate the results from the five subprojects and build the Integrated Assessment framework. Applicants, not necessarily African, with a strong background in multidisciplinary modelling and systems integration may contact the PI's /coordinators on this position.

Requirements and modalities.
The positions 1, 3 and 5 are PhD positions for 4 years at ITC with a Doctoral Degree awarded by the University of Twente.

Position 2 entails a PhD position for 4 years at Egerton University with an internship at ITC. Doctoral degree awarded by Egerton University.

Position 4 entails a PhD position for 4 years at University of Nairobi with an internship at ITC. Doctoral degree awarded by University of Nairobi.

Candidates should be nationals of East Africa and hold a Master of Science/Arts degree from a recognized university. All candidates will spend approximately two years in the Netherlands and two years in Kenya and are co‐supervised by the research consortium. Candidates who are below 45 years are preferred. Female candidates are encouraged to apply.

From all candidates a broad and multidisciplinary attitude is required. Candidates for position 1,2,3 should have a strong background in Engineering and Environmental Sciences, and preferably with knowledge of modeling and earth observation as well as earth sciences.

Candidates for position 4 should have a strong background in (environmental/ecological) economics.

Candidates for position 5 should have a strong background in public policy and administration, and capable of closely collaborating with more technical and economic researchers.

Candidates have a period of 6 month to fully develop their research proposals and qualify for the graduate programme. The appointment will be for a period of four years and the fellowship awarded to the successful candidates comprises:
• Medical insurance.
• Waiver of tuition fees.
• Limited resources for research materials and logistics.
• Monthly Personal Maintenance Allowance
• While at ITC‐The Netherlands: Single‐status hotel accommodation will be provided

All candidates interested in the announced positions have to apply online at http://www.itc.nl/research/phd/graduate_registration_application.aspx.

Project title: See above (1‐5); Research theme: GISA; No Project proposal needed;

Funding: WOTRO; Please do not upload large files (max 2MB) and use correct file type as indicated on the registration form.

The closing date of the application is 15 July 2009.

ONLY shortlisted applicants will be invited for an interview either in Kenya or by teleconferencing. Further information can be obtained from the PI's: veen@itc.nl or mathookoj@yahoo.com /Coordinators: becht@itc.nl or jonyando@yahoo.com.

Googling around Google Earth can give lots of surprises! Aside from new updates of satellite images coming in, there are also few places that I just knew actually existed on earth. Have you heard about "Ugly" places?

I landed on one "Ugly" location -- Ugly Ukraine! Ugly is the name of a place in Ukraine. I tried to google the name but could not find a good description of its location. Not a wiki exist! There is one funny thing I noticed while entering the keywords "Ugly Ukraine" in Google, the search engine suggested "Ugly Ukraine Women", instead of the place. LOL. These "ugly" women are more important than the "Ugly" place.

Here is the image captured on Google Earth.

And there's another "Ugly" -- Ugly, Belarus! There is no wiki about the place as well, only maps and some geographical coordinates.

Here is the image of Ugly, Belarus captured on Google Earth.

These two "Ugly" places should be in Google Search engines. They are "Ugly" and the name itself calls for attention. Don't you think so?

Telogis, the global platform for enterprise location based services announced the launch of GeoZone, a free resource for GeoBase developers.

GeoBase is the company’s geospatial engine – enabling mapping, routing and navigation on platforms ranging from mobile to server. Registered members of GeoZone gain access to the latest releases of the GeoBase SDK, sample map data, sample code, tutorials and whitepapers. Additionally, Telogis has assembled a premier list of partners from the LBS ecosystem to provide additional technical resources and samples of their products.

GeoZone is designed to be the central resource for application developers using the GeoBase platform. Augmenting the main GeoBase Software Development Kit (SDK) resources, the GeoZone contains additional technical information, design notes, sample applications and white papers for the GeoBase platform. Premier content providers contribute sample map data, satellite imagery and real-time traffic feeds.

As reported, Dutch digital map maker Tele Atlas is creating new maps faster than ever by collecting data from motorists using GPS devices as they drive, which provides a rich set of information about roads.

Tele Atlas, which was acquired by the satellite navigation device maker Tom Tom in 2007, has been collecting GPS data points from Tom Tom users, recording information such as what roads they use, how fast they drive and even the road's gradient, said Rik Temmink, vice president of global product management. It's what Tele Atlas calls a "community" approach to map making.

"That's radically changed the way we do maps," Temmink said. "They [users] paint of a picture of what the roads look like."

In the past, Tele Atlas sent out vehicles to physically drive the roads in order to create maps. Now, some of that work can be automated using specialized algorithms to sort through the GPS data and build maps.

Tele Atlas still has to send out teams to verify data, but it has made the process of creating high-quality maps much faster, Temmink said. Tele Atlas has used the community approach for updating maps in about 30 countries.

On Monday Tele Atlas released its latest edition of MultiNet, a mapping database. For the first time, it includes maps for more than 11,000 miles of roads in Romania.

Romania is not a core market for Tom Tom. People driving there often have purchased their devices in countries such as Germany but drive in Romania, allowing Tele Atlas to collect the data when people plug their devices into their PCs, Temmink said. Users are asked if they are willing to provide the data.

Tele Atlas sells its map data to companies such as Google and Microsoft as well as device makers such as NavMan and Garmin. Those companies present the data in their own customized formats.

Also on Monday, Tele Atlas opened up another one of its data products, HD Traffic, for customers outside of Tom Tom. HD Traffic provides real-time updates on traffic flows.

It does that by using a couple of different methods. HD Traffic collects data from sensors that have been placed on highway overpasses used to measure traffic, Temmink said. But the problem with sensors is that only major roads are covered, and as people move off those roads, there's little data.

Prior to acquiring Tele Atlas, Tom Tom made an agreement with mobile provider Vodafone to collect information from phone subscribers. As people travel with their mobile phones, the signal is handed off to different transmission towers, and someone's speed and location can be determined.

That's useful for traffic measurements, as the data can show when someone who is on a major highway slows down, there's likely traffic. The data received from Vodafone is anonymized, and subscribers are not asked whether they want to opt in, Temmink said. Tele Atlas uses algorithms to filter out data from people who are not driving and may be, for example, not on a road at all or are jogging in a park.

HD Traffic also incorporates information that comes from government sources, such as road construction projects, Temmink said.

Previously, HD Traffic was available to Tom Tom users only on a few devices, Temmink said. Tele Atlas is now selling the data feed to anyone, such as developers who want to create their own application incorporating the data, he said.

HD Traffic will initially cover Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland, with about 90 percent of the highways and major arterial roads covered.

PCI Geomatics, developer of geo-imaging software and systems announced the release of its geospatial Web conferencing technology.

GeoConference Version 3.0 is a software solution which enables groups to share and view maps and images interactively over the web, in real-time. The announcement was made at the World Conference on Disaster Management in Toronto, Canada.

GeoConference contains tools for hosting interactive geospatial teleconferences, linking clients in remote locations and facilitating connections to geospatial databases.

The benefits of GeoConference include: a cost-effective way to share maps, exchange information and simultaneously receive feedback from colleagues in real-time, reduce travel expenditures, easy set up and implementation, secure distribution of geospatial data without replication, use of open data standards and integration with other geomatics technology.

GeoConference 3.0 gives users control over their sessions through an invitation process they can initiate. This allows anyone who receives an invitation by email to instantly join a GeoConference using a thin client application that installs in seconds. GeoConference includes session recording and review capabilities; an audit trail of activities is stored on the server which can be used for reviewing decisions made in their situational context for a thorough post mortem analysis.

Following an agreement among ESA, Krunichev Space Centre and Eurockot Launch Services, ESA's next Earth Explorer mission SMOS and a secondary payload, the technology demonstrator Proba-2 satellite, will now launch on 2 November 2009.

The new November launch date follows a rescheduling of the previously announced date of 9 September. Both the SMOS satellite and the secondary payload Proba-2 will be launched together on a Rocket launch vehicle from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northern Russia.

The SMOS satellite is currently in the south of France at Thales Alenia Space's premises, where it has been in storage for the past year. The all-important Flight Acceptance Review has already been passed, which signalled that all the elements that make up the mission are in place for launch, so the satellite is ready and waiting to be shipped to the launch site.

SMOS, or ESA's Water Mission as it is known, will make global observations of soil moisture over Earth's landmasses and salinity over the oceans.

Through the use of a novel interferometric radiometer called MIRAS (Microwave Imaging Radiometer using Aperture Synthesis) developed by EADS CASA Espacio in Spain, the SMOS mission will provide global soil moisture maps at least every three days and maps of sea-surface salinity at least every thirty days. This will lead to a better understanding of the water cycle and, in particular, the exchange processes between Earth's surfaces and the atmosphere. Data from SMOS will help improve weather and climate models and also have practical applications in areas such as agriculture and water resource management.

Taking advantage of the launch, ESA's Proba-2, which is a very small satellite, is being carried into space at the same time as SMOS. Proba-2 is the second in ESA’s series of small, low-cost satellites that are being used to validate new spacecraft technologies while also carrying scientific instruments. It serves as a testbed for new technologies and experiments to observe the Sun and do research into space weather.

Hughes Network Systems has announced that it will launch a next-generation, high throughput satellite in the first quarter 2012 to expand its rapidly growing HughesNet broadband Internet service across North America.

Designed to deliver over 100 Gbps throughput, the new Hughes satellite will utilise an enhanced version of the IPoS standard, the world's leading broadband satellite standard approved by ETSI, TIA and ITU.

Employing a multi-spot beam, bent pipe Ka-band architecture, the new geostationary satellite will provide significant additional capacity for HughesNet service in North America .

Space Systems/Loral has been selected to manufacture the new Hughes satellite, based on its SSL 1300 platform, which has the proven flexibility for a broad range of applications and is expected to provide service for 15 years or more.

A 14-year-old boy was robbed by two men of €165 ($230) and his cell phone last September in Groningen, 110 miles northeast of Amsterdam, Netherlands. Recently, while the boy was looking around Google Street View, he surprisingly found himself -- a photo of himself biking that very day that he was robbed. Luckily, the photo also showed the two robbers following him.

After he reported what he saw to the police, authorities asked Google for the original image, with faces unblurred (Google blurs faces for privacy reasons). Google agreed to the request, and when given the photo, a robbery squad detective recognized one of the twins.

Arrests have been made and thanks to Google Street View!

Here is the photo of the "Teenager Spotting Robbery Suspects on Google Street View." The boy with the bike and the two robbers behind him.

And by the way, do you remember "Google Street View captures vomiting British guy"?

The National HIV/AIDS Atlas provides a powerful new tool to the public, health care professionals, policy makers and elected officials to access and map local, state and national data in order to see how HIV/AIDS is impacting their community.

What is the National HIV/AIDS Atlas?
For the first time, the Atlas presents county-level prevalence rates (based on the reported number of people living with HIV (non-AIDS) and AIDS in 2006) in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, depicting the intensity of the disease, rather than the magnitude.

Why was the Atlas created?
Mapping HIV/AIDS is an important step in stemming the tide of the disease. The Atlas was developed to increase awareness of, and public access to, HIV/AIDS data so that communities better understand the reality of HIV/AIDS in the United States today.

What does the Atlas show?
The Atlas allows users to focus on HIV/AIDS statistics by age, gender, and race/ethnicity, where available. It also allows users to see their congressional and state legislative districts overlaid on top of the county-level data.

You can visit the site here.

Optech Incorporated announced to hold its first Innovative LiDAR Solutions Conference (ILSC) from June 24-26, 2009 at the Sheraton Parkway Toronto North Hotel Suites & Conference Centre.

Attendees at ILSC 2009 will be participating in discussions on specific issues surrounding LiDAR data collection, measurement and analysis, and will share their real solutions to real survey problems.

ILSC 2009 will provide a greater understanding of how LiDAR tools and systems can be optimised to take advantage of their full potential. Through extensive presentations and direct interaction with other professionals, this conference will provide an opportunity for LiDAR users to expand their vision of applying these tools.

In addition to stationary and mobile LiDAR scanners, many other technologies are emerging, so a broad range of advanced concepts will be showcased.

A team of expert GIS developers from Belgium has released Geomajas software version 1.4.0. This new version is the stable release of version 1.3.0, announced in September 2008. Geomajas is the open source GIS software enabling geographical editing and support for complex relation models in the Web browser.

The software has an open architecture enabling easy sharing, integrating and updating of GIS data on multiple servers. Geomajas can be used to build Web-mapping applications providing GIS solutions which have a need for complex analysis, editing and integration of geographic data. Since the September release the software has been downloaded 3.000 times.

Developers of Geomajas will present at FOSS4G, the conference for Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial (October 20 – 23, Sydney, Australia).

Leica Geosystems launched SmartNet Europe, powered by Leica GNSS Spider. SmartNet is an award winning GNSS network RTK correction service that has now been adopted in many European countries including UK, Ireland, Denmark, Norway, Italy, Lithuania and parts of Spain, with many more countries relying on Leica GNSS Spider and Leica reference station installations for their commercial or private services.

SmartNet Europe is supported by a new website that provides a hub of information related to all available networks in Europe and includes: an introduction to RTK networks and methods, a glossary of common terms and acronyms, products associated with GNSS networks and links to other SmartNet systems across the world.

SmartNet is built on the powerful Leica GNSS Spider networking software that provides a variety of real-time products; including Leica MAX (based on the RTCM Master Auxiliary Concept) the first and only International Network RTK standard, i-MAX, Virtual Reference Stations and FKP.

The website is not limited to Europe. A World Nets link is also available to access many other Leica enabled services across the world, including: Canada, Philippines, Singapore, Australia, Bahrain and multiple services in the US.

Google Earth updates the satellite images of Tehran, Iran. With the current civil unrest happening in Iran right now, Google takes a step of updating the satellite images of Tehran for public viewing. Google Earth used GeoEye's IKONOS satellite with roughly 1-meter spatial resolution. Below is just a sample image of Tehran from Google LatLong.

You can view the images on Google Earth with this KML file (assuming you already have Google Earth installed on your PC). You can download Google Earth for free if you have not done it yet.

Registration for the 4th International Conference "Earth From Space – the Most Effective Solutions" is open! It will take place on December 1-3, 2009 at the Vatutinki recreation center of the Russian President Administration.

Its organizers — ScanEx Research & Development Center and NGO Transparent World are glad to note that this biennial event now is rated as the biggest conference in sphere of remote sensing in Russia and CIS countries.

A wide range of topics will be discussed:

* domestic and foreign remote sensing programs;
* satellite-based monitoring for region management;
* remote sensing for mitigation of disasters’ consequences and environmental impact assessment;
* technologies and data processing tools;
* Internet and Earth remote sensing;
* education for sustainable development: information technology innovations.

The previous conference, held in December 2007, gathered about 330 participants from 32 world countries, with over 80% of them being the representatives of governmental, private, educational and scientific institutions.

«Earth from Space – the Most Effective Solutions» conference is the strategic platform for demonstration of new achievements and innovations in sphere of space technology, reception and practical application of remote sensing data.

To participate in the 4th International Conference "Earth From Space – the Most Effective Solutions" please register at http://www.registration-online.

Announcement: 6th International Symposium on Digital Earth! You are cordially invited to attend the 6th International Symposium on Digital Earth (ISDE6) with the theme of Digital Earth in Action and to visit Beijing, China in September, 2009. ISDE6 will continue the tradition of gathering world-class scientists, engineers and educators to review the progress of digital earth during the last decade and discuss the achievements of digital earth and its future development.

Digital earth is a virtual representation of our planet and a global initiative aimed at harnessing the world's data and information resources to develop a virtual 3-D model of the Earth in order to monitor, measure, and forecast natural and human activity on the planet. It has a broad domain related to earth observation, geographic information system, global positioning system, virtual reality, computer technology, network communication, geosciences and social sciences etc.

Since the promulgation of the Beijing Declaration on Digital Earth at the First International Symposium on Digital Earth (ISDE) in 1999, digital earth has prospered and made great progress in both theory and applications. The international symposia on digital earth have been held in Canada, Czech Republic, Japan, and the United States every two years since 2001, and Digital Earth Summits were convened in New Zealand and Germany in 2006 and 2008 respectively. The 6th ISDE "Digital Earth in Action" will mainly focus on the technological advances and the various emerging applications linking digital earth and many other relating technologies.

Over the past ten years, digital earth has been widely adopted for dealing with social and sustainable issues. The 6th ISDE will play a crucial role in putting forward international exchange and cooperation in building and developing digital earth theory, technology and applications.

The venue of the symposium is the Beijing International Convention Center (BICC) and the time for the 6th ISDE will be very close to October 1st, 2009, the 60th Anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China. You will have a good opportunity to enjoy the golden autumn of Beijing, with both traditional and modern culture.

We look forward to seeing you in Beijing.

For more info, visit the official site.

NAVTEQ, provider of digital map data for location-based solutions (LBS) and vehicle navigation, announced at an award ceremony that NAVITIME is the Grand Prize winner of the Asia-Pacific (APAC) edition of the 2009 NAVTEQ Global LBS Challenge.

NAVITIME from Japan won in the category of Navigation which is one of five categories: Content, Enterprise, Entertainment & Leisure, Navigation and Social Networking.

The three runners-up also selected by the judging panel include,
1. TenCube (Enterprise): WaveSecure helps users to remotely track down the geographical location of their lost phone and lock down, back-up and remotely wipe out copy of their personal data to protect their privacy.

2. Urban team (Entertainment): FastFoot-Challenge delivers an exciting GPS multiplayer game where, through the use of their mobile devices they can transform any park, forest, even cities into their playing field.

3. Yoose/Fox Mobile Distribution (Entertainment): YLIB-J2ME Edition is a location-based global couponing application that allows users to win coupons from businesses based on their location while playing a game or using a mobile social network on their mobile phone.

The finalists represented a broad spectrum of wireless applications for phones from Nokia, Samsung and Sony Ericsson based on Java ME and Symbian OS, among the sponsors’ selected platforms for this year’s competition.

The 2009 NAVTEQ Global LBS Challenge winners were selected based on commercial feasibility, functionality, ease of use and design of the applications and the finalists’ ability to make an effective pitch to the individual expert judges.

Intergraph announced the recipients of the 2009 Icon Awards recognizing visionary companies and organizations that have innovatively used Intergraph's enterprise engineering and geospatial software to bring significant benefits to their business or industry.

The Icon Awards were announced in Washington, D.C. during the opening keynote ceremonies of Intergraph 2009.

The 2009 Icon Award winners are: Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL); Enersource Hydro Mississauga; Istituto Geografico Militare Italiano (IGMI; Saipem; SINOPEC Engineering Incorporation (SEI), a subsidiary of China National Petroleum Corp., China's largest petrochemical producer and crude oil refiner; and Surrey Police, a metropolitan London police department.

The region of Veneto, Italy will use Intergraph technology to create a centralized spatial data infrastructure (SDI) database to improve access to spatial data across the region and to conform to standards such as INSPIRE (Infrastructure for Spatial Information in Europe).

The project will consolidate and standardise multiple databases into one SDI geographic database, harmonising and securing geospatial data exchange between Venetian government entities, businesses and the public for improved collaboration and productivity and ease of maintenance and administration.

Intergraph and its partners in this project will also enable users to easily catalogue and search for stored information, and will support the use of Web services for the simple publishing, dissemination and display of spatial data.

The Italian government is utilizing Intergraph GIS and commercial photogrammetry products to help manage infrastructure and safeguard the Venice lagoon from the rising tides of the Adriatic Sea.

Intermediate results of forestry activity monitoring in Russia using satellite imagery were summarized. Project of regular survey of the forest condition based on satellite images, initiated by ScanEx Company was ongoing since 2007 under the supervision of NGO Transparent World.

Project of forestry activity monitoring covered local forest divisions of Leningrad, Novgorod, Arkhangelsk, Kirov Regions, Republic of Karelia, Primorsky and Krasnodar Territories.

Forestry activity monitoring using remote sensing data is carried out on behalf of the Federal State Unitary Enterprise “Roslesinforg”.

High-quality aerial photography contours and property, as well as electoral boundary information for the Rodney district and the rest of the Auckland region can now be viewed online.

The new online service available features an easy-to-use search function, so users can find a location using a property address, road name, place name or legal description.
The online viewer can also be used to zoom in and out, pan, measure distances and print maps.

The website has been set-up with data from the Auckland Local Government Geospatial information group, which represents GIS divisions from the eight local councils in the Auckland region.

A link to the online viewer can be found on the home page of the Council’s website www.rodney.govt.nz.

MapQuest today announced the availability of MapQuest 4 Mobile for iPhone and iPod touch on the App Store. This free mobile application represents a leap forward in how people interact with maps, directions and local search on their iPhone or iPod touch.

MapQuest 4 Mobile is the next evolution of maps and directions on the iPhone and iPod touch, offering a set of features that simplify the mobile mapping and directions experience. The app enables direct connection with web-based mapping so users who have saved maps and directions to their My Places account on the MapQuest.com site can access them directly via the app. This unique feature allows users to plan their trips on their computer and easily access their maps and directions from their iPhone or iPod touch while on the go.

MapQuest has also created a place carousel for the app, an easy option for people to conduct one-click local category searches and for businesses to promote their brands. The place carousel features icons, called ‘place widgets,’ that allow easy, one-tap searching for hotels, movie theaters, gas stations and more, making it easy for users to find leading brands, such as, Walmart, Autozone and Best Western, along their route or near their destination. iPhone and iPod touch users can customize their place carousel with any of the 20+ place widgets available, with more to come in future releases.

“We continually look for ways to make it easier for our guests to find us and are excited to be featured on MapQuest’s new application for iPhone and iPod touch,” said Dorothy Dowling, senior vice president, marketing and sales at Best Western. "MapQuest has already delivered fantastic returns for our Member hotels, and now that people will also be able to locate Best Westerns on MapQuest 4 Mobile, we expect those results to be even stronger. Best Western's integration into the MapQuest app is an important element of our plan to enable guests to book our hotels when, where and how they want to.”

MapQuest 4 Mobile provides several other innovative features such as an easy and intuitive interface that makes the best use of the large display and innovative Multi-Touch technology. Driving directions can be read in landscape or “Max Maneuver” mode in which each maneuver fills the entire screen. Simply “swiping” the screen to the right or left progresses to the next or previous maneuver. For trips that include more than one stop, MapQuest 4 Mobile on iPhone offers multi-point routing and draggable re-ordering capabilities. Users can also customize the icon that represents their location on the map, either with a stock “My Position” icon that is chosen from a list of options or by using their own photos.

The MapQuest 4 Mobile app is available free from Apple’s App Store on iPhone and iPod touch or at www.itunes.com/appstore.

For more information regarding MapQuest 4 Mobile visit http://wireless.mapquest.com.

Avenza Systems Inc., producers of MAPublisher cartographic software for Adobe Illustrator and Geographic Imager spatial tools for Adobe Photoshop, announced the release of MAPublisher LabelPro, a rule-based collision-free label placement system for MAPublisher.

MAPublisher LabelPro functionality is included with the new MAPublisher 8.1 release, the latest version of this mapmaking software used to produce high quality maps from GIS data. MAPublisher LabelPro is available immediately as an add-on to MAPublisher 8.1.

The MAPublisher LabelPro labelling engine offers advanced labeling capabilities beyond those available in the standard version of MAPublisher 8.1 including:

1. Sophisticated algorithms that provide the ability to solve many of the most commonly occurring map labelling problems such as
o complex conflict resolution across multiple layers
o the ability to specify existing vector map features as obstacles
o the ability to create complex labeling conventions via user-defined rules
2. Use map data attributes for labeling with a much greater level of sophistication using an intuitive configurable interface maps.

Visit www.avenza.com for more details.

Intergraph introduced a new spatial data infrastructure (SDI) application software to ensure harmonized geospatial data exchange within the enterprise and between government, businesses and the public for improved communication, collaboration, productivity, ease of maintenance and reduced costs.

Intergraph's SDI application now includes the GeoMedia SDI Pro product, which provides advanced Web services for implementing spatial data infrastructures and enables organizations to meet government data collaboration and compliance mandates.

Intergraph's SDI application also includes GeoMedia Fusion, Intergraph's existing esktop data harmonization product, for facilitating compliance with INSPIRE and other government directives that ease geospatial data sharing. Future Intergraph SDI application components will include the GeoMedia SDI Portal, which will provide the building blocks for empowering existing browser applications with SDI technology.

With GeoMedia SDI Pro, organisations can now seamlessly share this harmonised data with internal and external audiences in the most ideal formats.

Intergraph GeoMedia SDI Pro will be available in July 2009.

Autodesk is working on free AutoCAD 2010 software, its flagship product for 2D and 3D design and documentation. The software will be available for free to members of its global Student Engineering and Design Community.

The Student Community is an online resource that offers numerous benefits to students and educators, including free design software, self-paced training, innovative curricula, global social networking, job listings and more.

The latest release, AutoCAD 2010, includes groundbreaking new capabilities introducing free-form design tools, parametric drawing, and enhanced PDF and 3D printing capabilities to help users tackle their most challenging design problems

The addition of AutoCAD 2010 to the Student Community allows students to take full advantage of these new design tools, while adding to the portfolio of products they can use to develop skills in key industry concepts such as Digital Prototyping, building information modeling (BIM) and sustainable design. With the addition of AutoCAD 2010 software, the Student Community now offers more than two dozen free software products.

The aerospace company Astrium completed construction of the German radar satellite TanDEM-X, created in collaboration with the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR).

The satellite has now been transported to Ottobrunn, a town near Munich. The satellite will undergo trials until mid-September 2009 to confirm its suitability for operation in outer space. It will be subjected to extreme temperatures and radiation and, in particular, the loads experienced during launch will be simulated. Once the tests are completed, the satellite will be transported to the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

The provisional launch date, on board a Russian Dnepr rocket, is October 2009. TanDEM-X stands for "TerraSAR-X add-on for Digital Elevation Measurement".

The TanDEM-X project – just like its 'sister' mission, TerraSAR-X – is being implemented on a joint basis by DLR and Astrium, in an arrangement known as a Public-Private Partnership (PPP). This PPP agreement defines many aspects of TanDEM-X, including the financing arrangements and the intended use of the data. [via]

Blue Marble Geographics announced the release of Geographic Calculator 7.3 and Geographic Transformer 6.1 via the Blue Marble Desktop 2.0, the all-in-one geospatial data management platform for Blue Marble’s popular data transformation tools.

This release will introduce the Spatial Connect 7.3 Module for working with a variety of spatial databases. Whether it is coordinate, vector, or raster data the Blue Marble Desktop allows you to address your data conversion challenges in the same application interface with powerful conversion and transformation tools. Blue Marble’s geospatial data manipulation and conversion solutions are used worldwide by thousands of GIS analysts at software companies, universities, oil and gas companies, civil engineering, surveying, technology, enterprise GIS groups, government and military organizations. Let the Desktop save your staff time and money by creating new efficient workflows.

Blue Marble Desktop 2.0 introduces the Spatial Connect Module 7.3 giving users the ability to read and write to ESRI Geodatabase, ArcSDE, and Personal and File Geodatabase along with Oracle Spatial and PostGIS native spatial database objects. Spatial Connect is used in conjunction with the Geographic Calculator in the vector file conversion tab enabling individual or batch file work. Blue Marble Desktop 2.0 also has Windows Explorer application integration available for all major GIS and CAD file types – make Blue Marble your default program to open certain formats. There is an updated viewer for area calculation on polygons and view attributes for all features in your data layers.

This release features an upgrade of the Geographic Calculator to version 7.3, which now contains added support for ATS, GARS, and BNG string point data formatting. Performance enhancements for the ESRI / Geographic Calculator extension, additional XLS read write support, and a new arbitrary scale and translation for point database conversion jobs are also featured. Additionally there is a new projection recovery tool for finding the projection information on vector files when there is none present.

The update for Geographic Transformer, 6.1, also contains the new projection recovery tool but for raster datasets. Projection recovery is perhaps more applicable to raster data in that it is far more common for raster data to lose its associated projection information. Use the projection recovery tool to conduct a forensic research of your data to produce a quick list of the most likely candidate projections for your data. This process will save time and money when working with secondary data with lost projection information.

To learn more about the Blue Marble Desktop 2.0 with Spatial Connect, please visit our website at http://www.bluemarblegeo.com/products/desktop.php.

Space-travel reports that Vietnam plans to launch its second satellite in 2012, according to a local newspaper Tthe New Hanoi.

This is an important plan which was included in the strategy of research and application of space technology to 2020 of the country, said the newspaper.
The satellite, called VNREDSat-1, is of small size and low orbit. It will be used to monitor and take picture of the earth surface of different sizes and types and provide those pictures to centers gathering earth-surface satellite pictures.

A controlling center will be built on an area of two hectares in the Hoa Lac High-Tech Park in Hanoi.

Vietnam is expected to spend about 60 to 70 million U.S. dollars on the launching project, including expenses for manufacturing and launching satellite, building controlling center, and training human.

Eagle Aerial Imaging, supplier of aerial imagery in southern California, expanded its portfolio to include engineering-quality accuracy, 4-inch pixel resolution ortho imagery. “Providing 4-inch current, high-resolution, NMAS-accurate, flown-in-stereo, aerial photography is now part of our standard imagery,” said Wayne Tate, President, Eagle Aerial Imaging. Eagle Aerial fills the need for current, high-resolution imagery for today’s customers’ demands.

Eagle Aerial has provided many satisfied customers with high quality 6” imagery and is now proud to offer that same high quality ortho images in a 4-inch resolution. According to Ray Wang, of the Irvine Company.

Other municipalities, such as County of Orange Survey Department, and many government and engineering organizations through-out Southern California have been using Eagle’s 6-inch imagery and are now making the decision to go with the newest 4-inch imagery Eagle has to offer. The level of detail on the images just gets better every year, with every flight Eagle takes.

Many organizations are discovering a payback using high resolution high accuracy photography. They are realising not only does an “off the shelf” solution save them significant money over custom flying, it also allows them to save hundreds of hours in field time by accurately seeing precisely what is going on from their desktop. Many items including code enforcement and site planning are done simply and accurately with “current” high resolution and accurate ortho photography.

Eagle Aerial Imaging’s goal is to provide clients with solutions to the challenges they face in the numerous industries aerial photography serves. Annually updated and off-the-shelf aerial products bring cost-effective, seamless digital color photography into GIS applications for powerful project analysis. Eagle is dedicated to staying on the cutting edge of technology and bringing these products and services forward to customers. Along with the new 4-inch imagery, they offer seamless 6-inch imagery, 1-foot pixel resolution color ortho photomaps, wall murals, and an extensive stock library of color aerial photographs covering Southern California for over 22 years.

SuperGeo Technologies Inc., a leading provider of complete GIS solutions is going to announce the enterprise class GIS software—SuperGIS Server by the end of June, 2009.

SuperGIS Server is a set of comprehensive and server-based GIS software which is featured with out-of-the-box, centrally managed, and rich standards-based. Besides facilitating enterprises to centrally manage GIS data, SuperGIS Server also allows enterprises to integrate numerous GIS services, analysis applications, etc to the server and distribute the services by the Internet. Therefore, end users can access and manipulate the data or services provided by the server via desktop software, mobile GIS applications, or browsers; the value of GIS data becomes increased.

Furthermore, SuperGIS Server enables enterprises to host and distribute all of the GIS applications and services to multiple servers in order to improve the efficiency of enterprise interior GIS functions.

The Greater Amman Municipality (GAM) launched the "Amman Explorer" project to help the capital's residents and visitors navigate the city through the Internet.

By using the "Amman Explorer" website, www.ammancitygis.gov.jo, citizens can save time and effort when obtaining information and data from GAM, Hassan Kiswani, director of the geographical information system (GIS) department said.

The project provides several direct services through the Internet including search engines for street names and building numbers in addition to categories of land plots and usage, according to the municipality.

The Arabic-language website also provides search engines for major city destinations and infrastructure services for each street and area, including electricity and sewage networks.

Citizens can file complaints through the website directly to concerned departments in GAM, which in turn will inform citizens of efforts to solve the issue in question via e-mail and SMS, according to GAM.

Meanwhile, GAM will issue electronic versions of its structural plan, after it has connected the capital's 27 neighbourhoods to the GIS, Kiswani said.

According to the GIS department, citizens can now obtain an accurate an up-to-date land layout within minutes.

Do you wanna learn how to create maps using ESRI templates? ESRI now offers map templates as a new resource to help ArcGIS software users make great-looking, professional-quality maps for print, the Web, and mobile applications.

Getting Started with Map Templates, a live training seminar airing at www.esri.com/lts on Thursday, June 25, 2009, will walk GIS professionals and cartographers through the process of working with the templates. The times will be 9:00 a.m., 11:00 a.m., and 3:00 p.m. (Pacific daylight time).

The templates, created by ESRI's cartographers, include examples of map documents, data models, and geoprocessing tools. Each template is a complete solution for a given type of map. The seminar's presenter will explain how to get started using the templates and how to adapt the cartographic and data designs to other maps.

Attendees will also learn about:

• How to download map templates from the ESRI Resource Center at
• What the map template kits contain
• How to use data with a map template
• Different kinds of map templates (e.g., street, topographic, and local government maps)
• Publishing map templates as mapping services via ArcGIS Online

For more information about this free live training seminar, as well as upcoming classes, visit www.esri.com/training.

SiRF Technology has made available the new version of its GPS navigation processor called SiRFatlasIV. This ARM11 based GPS application specific processor is made for designing mass-volume GPS integrated mobile systems with location awareness features at low cost.

SiRFatlasIV can provide 64 channels, 34 more channels compared to AtlasIII. SiRFatlasIV multifunction location system processor employing multi-satellite system location engine, with more than 1,000,000 correlators is strong enough to receive signals in locations with poor signal reach such as urban concrete jungles, dense foliage, and steep ravines. SiRFatlasIV provides -161-dBm simultaneous tracking of both GPS and Galileo satellites SiRFatlasIV has 500-MHz ARM11 processor core with vector floating point unit connected by a 64-bit system bus and a high-speed memory controller with DDR 400/Mobile-DDR 333-memory module support. The built-in hardware video post-processing accelerator handles video rendering and display, allowing popular mobile digital TV applications such as TDMB, DVB-H and CMMB to run with minimal impact on CPU performance.

SiRFatlasIV complements SiRF's SiRFprima multifunction location system processor introduced last year in building media rich GPS navigation systems.
The built-in NAND and SD controller interfaces to both single and multi-layer cell (SLC/MLC) flash memory. The on-chip functions include GPS/Galileo baseband, LCD touch-screen controller, 10-bit ADC, video input and high-speed USB 2.0 PHY.

Due to its high sensitivity nature, a simple low cost patch antenna is enough for receiving signals and also to save further on the external components, this device require low cost 2.5 ppm crystal oscillator. SiRF has attempted to save the BOM cost in designing low cost GPS enabled consumer products by using this GPS processor.

MapKing Virtual Singapore, a consummation of MapKing’s many years of expertise and experience in navigation software, has been launched here . MapKing Virtual Singapore provides an enlarged numeric pad designed specifically for quick and easy search of all 6-digit Singapore post codes licensed from Singapore Land Authority (SLA).

It has the following features:

Easy Post Code Search with Numeric Pad
MapKing Virtual Singapore provides an enlarged numeric pad designed specifically for quick and easy search of all 6-digit Singapore post codes licensed from Singapore Land Authority (SLA).

Chain Store Search
MapKing Virtual Singapore Chain Store Search Engine covers more than 8,000 chain stores and restaurants. They can be easily searched and set as destination for route planning and navigation.

Realistic Signboard, 3D Junction View and ERP Avoidance
MapKing Virtual Singapore is designed to make driving fun and stress-free by realistic pop-up signboard and junction views. The route planning function also features an ERP Avoidance mode to help drivers minimize ERP cost.

Supports all four Singapore Official Languages
To better serve the polyethnic society of Singapore, MapKing Virtual Singapore supports all four Singapore Official Languages, offering turn by turn vocal guidance in English, Chinese Mandarin, Tamil, and Malay. User interface (menus and buttons) can be switched between English, Chinese and Malay. Audio cues for road names are also provided by English TTS (Text-to-Speech) function.

Updated Feature-Rich Maps
MapKing Virtual Singapore deploys the most updated dataset licensed from SLA (Singapore Land Authority), enhanced and supplemented by internally collected data and data contributed by reputable user group communities.

MapKing’s CEO, Mr. Stanley Ng is grateful and excited by the successful launch of MapKing Virtual Singapore, “We are proud to offer the first ever navigation software that supports all four Official Languages of Singapore. We are committed not just to pure functional excellence, but also dedicated localization to make our product more user-friendly to the polyethnic society of Singapore.”

Via press release.

Have you visited the VirtualGlobetrotting site?

Virtual Globetrotting is an atlas of the best satellite, aerial and street view imagery from around the world submitted by community members via Google Maps, Microsoft Live Maps and Yahoo Maps!

It is very interesting sites and updated all the time! Try it, you might see Tiger Woods Hawaii house from there :-)

Link is here: www.virtualglobetrotting.com

Map Asia 2009, is an initiative aimed to enable convergence, sharing and use of Geospatial technologies and offers a unique branding, networking and marketing opportunities. With the aim to disseminate geospatial knowledge by means of sharing and exchanging ideas and insights pertaining to geospatial domain, we would like to invite you to participate actively in this event and submit theme centric papers focusing on various aspects of Geospatial technologies and applications for presentation.

Various sessions of Map Asia 2009 will provide opportunities to the Asian Geospatial community to showcase their work and innovations through paper and poster presentations. Abstracts of various Technical Sessions of Map Asia 2009 are invited.

Conference Date
August 18-20, 2009

Conference Venue
The Suntec Singapore International Convention & Exhibition Centre, Singapore.

Important Dates
Abstract Submission - June 15, 2009
Abstract Acceptance Intimation - June 30, 2009
Speakers Registration - July 15, 2009
Submission of Full Paper - July 25, 2009

For queries related to Papers, contact Akanksha Tyagi at papers@mapasia.org.

Visit Map Asia 2009 website for more.

Science Applications International Corporation has launched a Web-based processing system delivering custom Landsat imagery directly to customer desktops.

Landsat programme is a series of Earth-observing satellite missions jointly managed by NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). Landsat satellites collect images of Earth from space that can be used to evaluate changes to our planet caused by natural processes and human practices. In January of this year the USGS opened access to the Landsat archive allowing users to download scenes in a standard format. SAIC's new system fills a need in the Landsat user community by providing value-added processing of these standard products.

SAIC's custom imagery can be used by land-use/cover professionals (researchers, resource managers and policy makers) for crop management, drought monitoring, climate change detection, disaster relief, water resource management and other applications. With SAIC's new system, users can browse the USGS archive, select specific scene(s), and apply a powerful array of spatial and spectral processing options to generate products tailored to meet their needs.

The new SAIC system provides fast and reliable data supported by experienced scientists and imaging experts, leveraging the 37-year-old USGS Landsat archive made available by the USGS Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center in Sioux Falls, SD.

For more information visit www.saic.com/landsat.

ScanEx RDC has facilitated the reception of CARTOSAT-2 data at UniScan, the universal ground receiving station in Russia, thus increasing the total number of RS satellites handled by the station to 16.

In May, ScanEx performed the first test reception of data from CARTOSAT-2 satellite. As a result, cloud free images of Moscow have been acquired – the most updated highly-detailed imagery of the Russian capital now. Data analysis confirmed a high quality of images acquired. Reception tests were successful and CARTOSAT-2 data can now be delivered on a regular basis to the local ground reception stations.

CARTOSAT-2 spacecraft was launched on January 10, 2007 and is currently the best Indian space vehicle of IRS series in details of delivered images (spatial resolution of 0.8 m). The satellite has been designed to provide panchromatic data at a high revisit period of any Earth area. Sub-meter imagery of CARTOSAT-2 can be applied in cartography for development of digital topographic maps and large-scale GIS-layers (1:5 000 – 1:2 000) based on the DEMs.

According to the terms and conditions of the license, signed between ANTRIX Corporation Ltd and ScanEx RDC in April 2008, the latter is allowed to upgrade its UniScan ground receiving stations with the CARTOSAT-2 data reception hardware, thus enabling to streamline access of the users to Indian satellite data covering Russian and CIS territories.

ERDAS Inc. announces that TECNOGEO S.L. is now the official ERDAS distributor to customers in Spain and Andorra. Based in Barcelona, TECNOGEO has offices throughout Spain.

As the master ERDAS distributor in Spain, TECNOGEO will specialise in the full portfolio of ERDAS products and the provision of all associated services. With more than 10 years of experience in Territorial Information Systems, TECNOGEO is a leading IT provider for the public sector in Spain.

TECNOGEO will provide sales, technical support, training and services, including software customization and project consulting of all ERDAS products. ERDAS technologies solve business and interoperability problems, increasing customers’ performance and functionality to meet a wide range of geospatial needs.

American TV journalists, Laura Ling and Euna Lee are kept in one of North Korea's prison camps. North Korea sentenced the two Americans to 12 years of hard labor.

The map was published by the U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea via CNN's Anderson Cooper’s blog. The document shows satellite images of the camps.

I posted below a research work by David Hawk, U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea entitled "The Hidden Gulag: Exposing North Korea’s Prison Camps Prisoners’ Testimonies and Satellite Photographs."

This is a great pleasure to invite you to attend the prestigious "3rd International Conference on HealthGIS 2009", which is going to be held in Hyderabad, India during 24-26 July 2009. The Conference Theme for year 2009 is "Enabling Better Health Geospatially". The Conference will hold Keynotes, Technical Sessions, Workshops, Exhibitions, Plenary Sessions and other exciting events. We believe your active participation in the conference will make it really fruitful and promote the better healthcare and prevention of diseases using Geoinformation Technology. Be assured of an excellent networking experience with executives from government and non-government organizations and delegates from many countries around the world.

The detail information about the conference, submission of your abstract, important dates, venue, registration and accommodation are in our website:
http://www.e-geoinfo.net/healthgis2009/

The submission of your abstract can be done "ONLINE"
http://www.e-geoinfo.net/healthgis2009/submission.html

The deadlines are:

Abstract Submission: 15 June 2009
Full Paper Submission :25 June 2009
Complete Registration for Inclusion of the paper in the proceedings: 25 June 2009

Proceedings will be published as a book from a reputed publisher. This will provide wide readership to your paper/abstract.

For any difficulty in online submission or for any inquiry please feel free to contact us. Group discounts available on registration.

Contact Person:
Dr. Nitin Kumar Tripathi
Organising Secretary, HealthGIS 2009
Director, Academic Quality Assurance and Accreditation (AQAA)
Editor-in-Chief, International Journal of Geoinformatics
Director, UNIGIS@AIT Centre
Associate Professor, Remote Sensing and GIS
Asian Institute of Technology
P.O. Box: 4, Klong Luang, Pathumthani 12120
Thailand
Phone: +66-81751 8384 (Mobile), +66-2-524 6392 (Office), Fax: +66-2-524 5597
e-mail: healthgis9@gmail.com, nitingis@gmail.com

GPS Daily reports that the number of operational satellites in Russia's Glonass grouping has been increased to 17 while three more remain inactive, Russia's Federal Space Agency Roscosmos said.

Glonass - the Global Navigation Satellite System - is the Russian equivalent of the U.S. Global Positioning System, or GPS, and is designed for both military and civilian use. Both systems allow users to determine their positions to within a few meters.

"According to Glonass information center, one of the four satellites under maintenance was added to the grouping on May 30," Roscosmos said in a statement on its website. As of June 1, the Glonass system comprises 20 satellites. A total of 17 satellites are operational while three remain under maintenance. The system requires 18 satellites for continuous navigation services covering the entire territory of the Russian Federation, and 24 satellites to provide services worldwide.

A total of 9.9 billion rubles ($360 million at the current exchange rate) was allocated for Glonass from the federal budget in 2007, and 4.7 billion rubles ($170 million) in 2006.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin signed a directive on September 12, 2008, allocating an additional $2.6 billion to develop the system. Two Proton-M launch vehicles are expected to lift off this year to put six more Glonass-M satellites into orbit.

Global Map Systems Inc. (GMS) announced free map viewing solution. GMS has partnered with Glyph & Cog to offer map users an industry-specific free PDF viewer for spatial analysis. This new release offers map-makers an ideal way to deliver location intelligence and true GIS analysis to field technicians, construction crews, military and Homeland Security personnel that need an easy way to work with native mapping data.

LOGIQ PDF map users now get the following advanced mapping functionality for free:

* Identify features (in topmost layer or all layers): perform point-on-geometry analysis and display attributes and length and area of feature geometry in map units;

* Find features: query features by attributes and highlight geometry of results;

* Measure: interactively draw lines and polygons on the map and display lengths and areas in desired units;

* Export to shapefile: export map features to a shapefile for import into a GIS application;

* Statistics: calculate statistics for a numeric field or feature geometry length or area;

* Frequency table: creates a summary report of occurences for map features, with optional spatial join for point features;

* Display GPS position.

“This new geographic version of a PDF file is excellent for organizations that want the high graphic quality of a conventional PDF file, combined with some of the functionality of a GIS. LOGIQ Viewer allows distributors the ability to publish real map documents in an easy to use, standard format to users with little or no GIS experience, at a cost that is very affordable. This product is on the cutting edge of potentially opening up GIS to the whole world", said Karl Phillips, CEO of JollyRogerMaps.com.

Map users with no GIS training now have free access to powerful GIS analysis tools all running inside a portable PDF map. For the download link, visit http://www.globalmapsystems.com.

GPS shoes for Alzheimer's patients. A shoe-maker and a technology company are teaming up to develop footwear with a built-in GPS device that could help track down "wandering" seniors suffering from Alzheimer's Disease.

According to Andrew Carle, an assistant professor at George Mason University who served as an advisor on the project, the technology will provide the location of the individual wearing the shoes within 30 feet, anywhere on the planet.

The shoes are being developed by GTX Corp., which makes miniaturized Global Positioning Satellite tracking and location-transmitting technology, and Aetrex Worldwide, a footwear manufacturer.

Carle said embedding a GPS device in a shoe was important because Alzheimer's victims tend to remove unfamiliar objects placed on them but getting dressed is one of the last types of memory they retain.

He said a "geo-fence" could be placed around a person's home and a "Google Map" alert sent to a cell phone, home or office computer when a programmed boundary is crossed.

The shoe should help authorized family members, friends, or caretakers reduce their stress and anguish by enabling them to locate their loved ones instantly with the click of a mouse.

The next-generation release of ArcGIS Business Analyst Online, ESRI's popular hosted GIS, provides a rich and intuitive Web 2.0 experience for customer segmentation, market analytics, and site evaluation. The new version takes full advantage of the latest Web technology and has been designed to allow users to start analyzing data and performing investigation without any software training.

ArcGIS Business Analyst Online provides reports and maps to help organizations understand the lifestyle and buying behaviours of the households in their market as well as answer questions such as, Where are the optimal sites for new store locations? How do I effectively market to specific customer segments? and How do I profile my best customers and find more like them?

ArcGIS Business Analyst Online 9.3 doesn’t require any programming and users can start solving their business problems immediately. It was developed with a Flex-based application interface and streamlined business logic that meets the needs of both new and existing users. Existing users can still perform the sophisticating analysis they've always done, while newer users can make use of the intuitive interface that makes the most popular analytic operations easy to perform.

ArcGIS Business Analyst Online is available in different subscription levels, from onetime-only reports purchased using a credit card to premium subscription packages and specialized development services.

As reported: Get lost in the woods and a cell phone in your pocket can help camping buddies find you. Drive into a ditch and GPS in your car lets emergency crews pinpoint the crash site. But when a transcontinental flight is above the middle of the ocean, no one on the ground can see exactly where it is - in the air, or worse, in the water.

The disappearance of Air France Flight 477 and its 228 passengers over the Atlantic Ocean this week has critics of radar-based air traffic control calling on the U.S. and other countries to hasten the move to GPS-based networks that promise to precisely track all planes. Current radars are obsolete more than 200 miles from land.

"The technology's there - we've had this stuff for 15 years and little's happened," said Michael Boyd, a Colorado-based airline analyst. "My BlackBerry can be used to track me, so why can't we do it with planes?"

U.S. officials have discussed setting up such a network since the 1990s and the technology is being tested in parts of the country, including Alaska and off the Gulf Coast. A few carriers, like Southwest, already use GPS to help planes make quicker landings that burn less fuel.

But full implementation, estimated at a cost of $35 billion, has languished amid funding delays and disputes over technical complexities. Although Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has said the project will be among the Federal Aviation Administration's top priorities in the Obama administration, the existing radar system is likely to remain for at least another decade.

"It's a crude system they're using now," said Robert Poole, an aviation expert with the free market-oriented Reason Foundation. "For 100 dollars, you can run down and buy a GPS system, put it in your car and know exactly where you are. But planes don't have it."

Some European and Asian countries are moving more quickly toward establishing pricey satellite systems. But many other countries lag behind, including Brazil, where the ill-fated Air France took off Sunday.

Current air traffic systems do not allow controllers to see a transoceanic plane on radar until it is within about 200 miles of land. Instead, controllers often estimate a plane's location based on flight plans and departure times. Such imprecision leaves planes vulnerable in emergencies, such as water landings, Boyd said.

A reported electrical system failure aboard Flight 477 likely would have knocked out any GPS devices even if the flight had been equipped with that technology. But under a satellite system, rescuers would have known the aircraft's precise location when the failure occurred, presumably making the search area much smaller and helping authorities locate the wreckage faster. That timeliness that can also be crucial in determining a cause of a crash.

Radar quality varies from country to country. For example, many U.S. control centers at least enable planes to send more frequent updates about their location, even when beyond radar's reach.

But over oceans, including vast blind spots in the middle of the Atlantic on U.S.-European routes, pilots usually have to resort to calling controllers with estimated positions every hour or so. The call-ins can frustrate pilots, especially in and around South America, where radio and radar coverage can be patchy, said retired airline pilot Vaughn Cordle, who lives in the Washington area.

"There's nothing worse than going through the painful exercise of trying to talk to someone and letting them know where you are," Cordle said. "The South American region can be more dangerous because pilots are sometimes on their own."

A plane failing to check in after more than two or three hours can be an air traffic controller's worst fear, said New York-based controller Pat McDonough.

GPS proponents say satellite-based air traffic systems provide another benefit that could have directly affected Flight 477, which disappeared into a band of towering thunderstorms. Such systems would collect information from around the globe and allow for real-time weather maps to appear on cockpit displays, giving pilots a tool to better determine how to navigate oncoming weather.

"The point is if we have GPS to monitor airplanes, could it save lives?" Boyd said. "The answer is clearly yes."