GEO: connexion articles from October 2003

GEO: connexion archives from October 2003

Turning fiction into fact.(upfront)
October 1, 2003... Just as London's 22 Baker Street has Long been a shrine to something that only ever existed in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories, so those who are disposed to turn fiction into fact are again busy, this time assigning real to...

Geographical underwriting vital.(GEO:news)
October 1, 2003... GDC (London, England) has announced the Location Based Risk Evaluation (LBRE) Toolbox, a definitive suite of software tools designed for the insurance industry. GDC believe that re-insurers will soon be demanding a much more detailed...

Swedes bridge the gap for ESA.(GEO:news)
October 1, 2003... Spacemetric (Stockholm, Sweden) has been awarded a contract by the European Space Agency to develop a software interface that bridges the gap between the Multi-Mission Catalogue for Earth Observation satellite imagery and the OpenGIS...

Saving time, saving lives.(GEO:news)
October 1, 2003... The European Commission has adopted a Recommendation that will help switchboard operators locate people calling the EU-wide 112 emergency number (although UK users can still dial 999). The Recommendation, based on extensive consultation with...

Hyperspectral imagery over Europe.(GEO:news)
October 1, 2003... HyVista Corporation (Sydney, Australia) has collaborated with Germany's aerospace research organisation, DLR, to acquire high quality airborne hyperspectral imagery over a number of sites in Spain, France and Germany. The mission was designated...

Geodan goes Dutch with AND.(GEO:news)
October 1, 2003... Geodan and AND (Amsterdam & Rotterdam, the Netherlands) have agreed to extend their joint co-operation until at least 2005. Geodan uses AND Global Road Data for several of its products and services, as well as offering the data directly to...

Eurimage lends a helping hand.(GEO:news)
October 1, 2003... With Landsat 7 imagery no longer available due to technical problems, Eurimage (Rome, Italy) has stepped into the breach by agreeing to acquire Landsat 5 data at its Matera ground station. The accord with the US Geological Survey and European...

SAGE move by Euro group.(GEO:news)
October 1, 2003... A 28-strong European consortium headed by Infoterra GmbH (Friedrichshafen, Germany) has commenced work on one often European Space Agency Global Monitoring for Environmental and Security (GMES) Service Elements or GSEs, worth 1.5 M [euro]....

3 million [euro] win for Russian joint venture.(GEO:news)
October 1, 2003... Romona GeoSolutions (Moscow, Russia), the joint venture between Thales GeoSolutions (London, England) and its Russian partner, Romona Ltd, has been awarded its first major geoscience contract. The 3 million [euro] deal, negotiated with the...

Satellite view of forest fires helps Portugal plan ahead.(GEO:news)
October 1, 2003... Following this year's devastating forest fires in Portugal, a co-ordinated effort is being made to assess the scale or the disaster and plan ahead. To this end, European Space Imaging (Munich, Bavaria) has acquired high-resolution IKONOS...

Agricultural theme for PROGIS.(GEO:news)
October 1, 2003... PROGIS (Villach, Austria) held its International Conference at Faak am See in Carinthia during September. Like the spring conference in Budapest, it concentrated on the use of geographic information in support of the EU's reformed Common...

Consortium wins IGN contract.(GEO:news)
October 1, 2003... A consortium headed by EADS subsidiary, Infoterra Ltd. (Leicester, England) is to map two new areas in a further phase of the BD-TOPO Pays[R] mapping programme instituted by IGN (Paris, France). The areas in question cover the departments of...

Transatlantic venture targets utilities sector.(GEO:news)
October 1, 2003... Miner & Miner (Fort Collins, USA) and AED-SICAD (Munich, Germany) have entered into a partnership to embed ArcFM within the next generation of SICAD-UT based on the ESRI ArcGIS platform. The development is being targeted to meet the special...

Fire service application for aerial imagery.(GEO:news)
October 1, 2003... Durham Fire Brigade has recently purchased complete coverage of MAPS[TM] ORTHO aerial photography from UK Perspectives (UKP, Leicester; England). The 25cm resolution data will integrate with the Brigades's mapping and will be used in a range of...

Polish GIS server on the .NET.(GEO:news)
October 1, 2003... TatukGIS (Gdynia, Poland) has released the Internet Server (IS) "LITE". This ASP.NET GIS server component utilises the visual design capabilities of any ASP.NET IDE, such as Microsoft Web Matrix, Microsoft Visual Studio.NET, or Borland...

Film star objects to being caught on camera.(GEO:news)
October 1, 2003... Actress/singer Barbara Streisand has been making a song and dance over an aerial perspective of her Malibu blufftop estate, placed on the Web by a group of environmentalists. Kenneth Adelman, originator of the California Coastal Records...

A revealing look at London's transport.(GEO:news)
October 1, 2003... The Group Property & Facilities Directorate of Transport for London (TfL) has recently acquired a departmental licence for Cities Revealed[TM] aerial imagery from The Geoinformation Group (Cambridge, England) to assist with major transport...

Utilities focus on PAI.(GEO:news)
October 1, 2003... United Utilities and BT were among nearly 40 of Britain's leading companies from the utility sector at a Positional Accuracy Improvement (PAI) seminar hosted by Ordnance Survey (Southampton, England). The seminar focused on how utilities...

OFT clears takeover.(GEO:news)
October 1, 2003... In July this year it was announced that Sitescope (Bromley, Kent), the privately held online property information firm, was to be acquired by the Daily Mail and General Trust who already own Landmark Information (Exeter, England) offering...

Oddbins drinks to QuickAddress.(GEO:news)
October 1, 2003... Oddbins, a leading UK wine merchant, is employing QuickAddress software from QAS (London, England) at its Wimbledon-based contact centre to help process up to 5,000 orders a week. While QuickAddress Pro captures accurate postal addresses for...

Hamburg migrates to ALKIS.(GEO:news)
October 1, 2003... The Surveying and Geoinformation Authority in Hamburg has awarded AED-SICAD (Munich, Germany) a contract to develop programs for the migration of cadastral data to the new ALKIS data model created by the AdV Working Committee of the Landes....

Web boost for latest MapInfo release.(GEO:news)
October 1, 2003... MapInfo Corporation (New York, USA) has released MapInfo Professional[R] v7.5, with full support for the Open GIS Consortium's Web Mapping Service standard... one that enables users to access remote or local servers over the Internet or...

London under your feet.(GEO:news)
October 1, 2003... Aerial photography from Getmapping (Hartley Wintney, England) has been used in creating the London Photomat, a key feature of City Hall, the Greater London Authority's headquarters. The Photomat is a huge 16 x 10 metre aerial photograph of...

Galileo test satellite from Surrey.(GEO:news)
October 1, 2003... The European Space Agency (ESA) has awarded Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd (SSTL, Guildford, England) a contract to construct the first test satellite for Europe's global navigation system, Galileo. The contract is worth 28M [euro] and the...

Correction.(GEO:news)(Correction Notice)
October 1, 2003... Our apologies for an error in September's GEO:aware (page 64) in which the image relating to MDL's new Boretrack cable deviation system was incorrectly attributed to an earlier news item on the same page. The Web address for MDL was also in...

New MAP&GUIDE products for UK.(LBS News in Brief)
October 1, 2003... MAP&GUIDE GmbH, (Karlsruhe, Baden-Wurttemberg) is making its Object Viewer available to UK users who need to monitor GPS-enabled vehicle fleets. Used in conjunction with the company's route planning software and real time information on road...

Intergraph goes to Popkomm.(LBS News in Brief)
October 1, 2003... The German Federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia has implemented Geographical Mobile Information (GMI) in support of large public events. The location-based services technology being deployed--IntelliWhere[TM] from Intergraph Mapping and...

Personal navigation systems make progress.(LBS News in Brief)
October 1, 2003... Tele Atlas (Ghent, Belgium) anticipates a steep rise in the sales of PDA-based personal navigation systems. In Europe, the company forecasts that 750,000 units will be sold this year, not least because they can be used in vehicles and are...

Vodafone goes MapWay.(LBS News in Brief)
October 1, 2003... m-spatial (Cambridge, England) has signed Vodafone UK for MapWay, its managed service solution that delivers maps and walking directions to mobile phone subscribers, m-spatial has integrated the pedestrian navigation service for Vodafone live!...

Mobile location from a single source.(LBS News in Brief)
October 1, 2003... Mobile Commerce (Cirencester, England) is the first location-based services provider to go live as a single source for approved third party applications. Agreements with O2, Orange, T-Mobile and Vodafone mean that application developers can add...

Opportunities.(GEO:news)
October 1, 2003... European Commission * With PHARE programme funding made available to implement the Natura 2000 network in Poland, the Foundation Cooperation Fund seeks GPS equipment, GIS and data management software Plus colour laser printers and plotters...

New Forest District Council has awarded coastal monitoring contracts to Titan Environmental Surveys Ltd.(Awards)
October 1, 2003... New Forest District Council has awarded coastal monitoring contracts to Titan Environmental Surveys Ltd and Gardline Environmental Ltd.

In Germany, the authorities in Karlsruhe have awarded an aerial mapping contract.(Awards)
October 1, 2003... In Germany, the authorities in Karlsruhe have awarded an aerial mapping contract worth 325,612 [euro] to Terra Vista Umweltdaten GmbH

Kildare County Council in Ireland has awarded a 1.295m [euro] contract to Archaeological Consulting Services.(Awards)
October 1, 2003... Kildare County Council in Ireland has awarded a 1.295m [euro] contract to Archaeological Consulting Services to undertake archaeological investigation for the Mayfield motorway scheme

Department of Highways.(Awards)
October 1, 2003... The Department of Highways in Corsica has awarded topographical services contracts to Cabinet Barnay, Cabinet Pignodel/Martini, Cabinet Medori Jean-Luc, and Groupement Poggi/Lopez/Achara/Geotopo.

Global accord on Earth Observation.(Earth Observation Summit)
October 1, 2003... High-level delegates from 30 countries met in Washington in August and agreed to improve cooperation in Earth Observation and remove barriers to information exchange. The declaration issued at the end of the Earth Observation Summit...

Getmapping plc.(Results: all values converted to euros)
October 1, 2003... Britain's Getmapping plc reported sales of almost 5 [euro] million in its preliminary financial results for 2002. During the year, the Group extended its range of aerial photographic products and specialist services and grew Internet sales by...

Autodesk Inc.(Results: all values converted to euros)
October 1, 2003... Autodesk Inc., announced global revenues For its fiscal 2004 second quarter ended July 31 2003 of 196 million [euro], up 0.9 million [euro] over the preceding quarter. Q2 net income was 30.2 million [euro] and the company realised a one-time...

MapInfo Corp.(Results: all values converted to euros)
October 1, 2003... Results from MapInfo Corp., for its third quarter fiscal 2003 show revenues, at 26.2 million [euro], up 24 per cent on the same quarter in 2002. Net income of 0.45 million [euro] reversed a net loss of 0.47 million [euro] in the same quarter...

PriceWatch *.(GEO:news)
October 1, 2003... PriceWatch * stock price change Autodesk 16.95 [up arrow] +3.7 Intergraph 22.09 [up arrow] +3.26 MapInfo 9.87 [up arrow] +3.68 Trimble Navigation 25.23 [up arrow] +2.42 * Share...

Telespazio takes stake in GAF.(GEO:news)
October 1, 2003... Italy's Telespazio SpA, a Finmeccanica subsidiary specialising in satcoms and Earth Observation (EO) services, has secured a controlling interest in Munich-based GAF AG, another leading player in the European EO market through its Euromap...

Satellites join search for source of Ebola.(GEO:Africa)
October 1, 2003... The European Space Agency (ESA) is employing satellites to track down the jungle-based organism that hosts the deadly Ebola virus. Its Data User Element project, Epidemio, will create detailed vegetation maps of the Congo and Gabon from EO...

GPS catches the fly.(GEO:Africa)
October 1, 2003... Tsetse-transmitted trypanosomiasis (sleeping sickness) is a disease unique to Africa. It is found in 37 sub-Saharan countries and threatens 50 million people and 48 million cattle. An estimated 500,000 people, many of whom face death from lack...

Egypt: putting poverty on the map.(GEO:Africa)
October 1, 2003... The Egyptian Government and UNDP (Cairo, Egypt) intend to map poverty and human development trends across Egypt over the next two years, a programme that will probe the lives of 68 million people in 451 local municipalities and 5,000 villages....

Showing the way in Senegal.(GEO:Africa)
October 1, 2003... Franco-Senegalese co-operation is evident in a project where SCOT (Toulouse, France) is helping the West African nation develop GIS and Remote Sensing skills at regional level, notably for geographical database handling and land cover...

Maps of Iran from east view.(GEO:Middle East)
October 1, 2003... East View Cartographic (Minneapolis. Minnesota) is offering 2,654 map sheets that cover the entirety of Iran at 1:50,000 scale. Produced by the National Geographic Organization of the Armed Forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran, they are...

Geo Tech projects in Saudi Arabia.(GEO:Middle East)
October 1, 2003... Geo Tech Consulting (GTC, Ankara, Turkey & Riyadh, Saudi Arabia) is collaborating with King Saud University on a two-year project for Saudi Telecom to acquire Landsat, IKONOS and QuickBird images, conduct geodetic control surveys, and create...

Mapping Al-Madinah.(GEO:Middle East)
October 1, 2003... Near the Red Sea coast of Saudi Arabia, Al-Madinah (Medina) was the seat of the first Islamic state and is the site of the Prophet Muhammad's tomb. Today it has a resident population of 800,000 but has another 4 million Moslem pilgrims from all...

Africa scoops cartographic awards.(GEO:Middle East)
October 1, 2003... The 'Atlas of Namibia: A portrait of the land and its people' won the Best Map Overall and the Best Thematic Map awards in the 2003 MAPublisher Competition staged by Avenza (Mississauga, Ontario). The Atlas was produced by Namibia's Directorate...

Going for Saudi gold.(GEO:Middle East)
October 1, 2003... Scott Wilson Mining (Ashford, England) has been awarded a contract to assist with the proposed development of a new gold mine, 125 km southeast of Zalim in central Saudi Arabia. Ma'aden, the state-owned mining organisation, has commissioned SWM...

Shopping around in San Diego: GEO:connexion sampled the fare on offer from vendors at this year's ESRI international user group conference in San Diego.(GEO:connect)
October 1, 2003... Having set the stage in September's issue, we focus here on the exhibit pavilion where more than 200 public and private sector organisations set up shop and vied with each other to catch the eye of delegates. The ADAM Systems Group...

MUGUKI bridges, north-south divide.(GEO:connect)
October 1, 2003... Somewhat unusually, but no less logical for that, the MapInfo UK and Ireland User Group (MUGUKI) staged its 2003 conference at two premier league venues--Manchester United's Old Trafford ground in early July and the second, a week later, at...

Laser-Scan: business as usual.(GEO:connect)
October 1, 2003... The Moller Centre in Cambridge provided a fitting venue for Laser-Scan's 2003 User & Partner Conference, being a modern, purpose-built addition to the Churchill College campus. Not unlike Laser-Scan itself--a company with deep roots adapting to...

Building better neighbourhoods.(AGI View)
October 1, 2003... In recent years, the UK has entered an era of rich geographic information datasets--data that are of better quality, higher resolution, more accessible and deeper in content. About four years ago many AGI members made input to the Government's...

AGI United Kingdom Association for Geographic Information.(EUROGI Profile)
October 1, 2003... Date of foundation: 1989 Status: Membership association President: Lord Chorley Chairman: Spencer Chainey Director: Mark Linehan Deputy Director: Sallie Payne Language: English Literature: Newsletter (five times...

What's it all about? Chris Corbin outlines progress on a Europe-wide initiative to tackle political and institutional shortcomings.(GEO:strategies)
October 1, 2003... While the role played by Geographic Information (GI) in government and industry is now readily acknowledged, a European Geographic Information Strategy (EGIS) is still lacking, The goal of the Geographical Information Network in Europe (GINIE)...

Geoinformation and competition law: Nick Pimlott explores key provisions of Britain's Competition Act 1998.(GEO:legal)
October 1, 2003... In May 2003, Britain's Office of Fair Trading (OFT) launched an investigation rote alleged and competitive behaviour by the Environment Agency. The probe followed a complaint by Sitescope that the Agency was charging excessively for...

X marks the point for Alder.(GEO:people)
October 1, 2003... PointX (Exeter, England) has appointed Phil Alder as general manager in succession to Peter Staniczenko who managed the company for its first two years on secondment from the Ordnance Survey. Alder arrives from IBM's Software Business where he...

Pawlyn homes in on new managing director for Landmark property.(GEO:people)
October 1, 2003... Landmark Information Group (Exeter, England) has appointed Richard Pawlyn as managing director of its Property Business Unit based in Henley-on-Thames. The unit is best known for Promap digital mapping which has over 13,000 users within the...

Hill shortlisted for BCS award.(GEO:people)
October 1, 2003... Alastair Hill of SIA Limited (London, England) has been shortlisted as a finalist in the IT Trainer of the Year category for the British Computer Society's IT Professional Awards, Hill has been with SIA for 18 months, during which time he has...

Genesys takes a Gander.(GEO:people)
October 1, 2003... Genesys International Corporation (White Plains, New York) has set up Genesys International (UK) Ltd to address UK and European markets with Gayle Gander as Business Development Manager. Gander has ten years professional experience of the GI...

Going forth.(GEO:people)
October 1, 2003... Forth Valley GIS (Stirling, Scotland) has made a number of new appointments to meet the growing demands for its services. Headed by Alan Moore, FVGIS has operated for seven years as a unique public sector partnership, providing services to...

Board appointments at Cadcorp.(GEO:people)
October 1, 2003... Cadcorp (Stevenage, England) has appointed two new board directors:, Martin McGarry for sales and marketing and Trevol Armstrong as financial director. Mike O'Neil, managing director, said, "The existing board has been impressed with the...

A helping hand for Tajikistan: Andy Murdock and Craig Hutton of Southampton University's GeoData Institute relate how the central Asian republic is acquiring much-needed skills.(Focus On ...)
October 1, 2003... The GeoData Institute recently delivered a Global Positioning Systems (GPS) training course to 14 staff from the National Statistical Department of Tajikistan (GOSKOMSTAT) at its offices in the capital. Dushanbe This work was Phase I of...

Bentley Systems Inc.(Newsround)
October 1, 2003... Bentley Systems Inc., has added virtual classrooms to its training subscription program. The 'live' instructor-led Web sessions promise an interactive environment where attendees can ask questions and contribute to dialogue much like a...

Visual Learning Systems.(Newsround)
October 1, 2003... Virtual learning has also been introduced by Visual Learning Systems Inc, in respect of its Feature Analyst extension for ESRI ArcView/ ArcGIS extension and ERDAS IMAGINE. The on-line course covers basic feature extraction approaches, as well...

The Geoinformation Group.(Newsround)
October 1, 2003... The GeoInformation Group, publishers of Cities Revealed[TM] high-resolution aerial photography, has extended and enhanced its EduServ CHEST Agreement for the UK academic community. The revised agreement, effective from July, offers CHEST...

ESRI Ireland and IRLOGI, the Irish umbrella organisation for geographic information are now adjudicating entries.(Newsround)
October 1, 2003... ESRI Ireland and IRLOGI, the Irish umbrella organisation for geographic information are now adjudicating entries received for the 2003 ESRI Ireland Student Prize Competition. Post graduate students in the Irish Republic were invited to...

UNIGIS.(Newsround)
October 1, 2003... UNIGIS, the international GIS distance learning programme, has issued a Call for Papers for the UNIGIS Conference "GIS: A tool for Sustainable Development", which convenes at the Port Elizabeth Technikon in South Africa, 1-2 December (details...

"To learn perchance to speak ...": professional linguist Catherine Cook asks why more and more employers send their staff on language training courses, but all too often get it wrong.(GEO:skills)
October 1, 2003... To commit or not to commit that is the question, whether it is nobler to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous training or by committing oneself, dare to succeed. Sincere apologies to the Bard, but it's about time that businesses...

Rising STAR: not content with a lion's share of the French-speaking market for GIS, Belgium's STAR Informatic is staking-out new territory. GEO:connexion explores the boundaries with general manager, Manuel Pallage.(interview)
October 1, 2003... Having established its CAD and GIS credentials over the past two decades, Liege-based developer (www.star.be) has achieved prominence as a premier supplier of geospatial solutions in French-speaking Europe and North Africa, with 3,000 large...

Germany's GI technology hits the Mark(et): Wolfgang Steinborn continues last month's column with a trip down the aisles.(Central European eye)
October 1, 2003... Futuristic lighting dominates an interior where crates of beer and lemonade glide silently overhead. At floor level, plastic trolleys (now designated Personal Shopping Assistants) trundle to and fro, the purpose of their plasma touch-screen...

Addressing. The crisis: Robert Barr concludes his observations on national addressing by contrasting progress being made elsewhere in Europe with Britain's plethora of disjointed initiatives.(dangling segment)
October 1, 2003... Returning to Europe, we find countries such as Denmark tackling addressing issues on a national level. Here, the National Survey and Cadastre has implemented a co-operative scheme involving national and local government to produce, maintain and...

Keeping the show on the road: staging live events across Europe can be a fraught business, not least in keeping tabs on vehicles and equipment. New technology gives KB Event a helping hand.(transport and logistics)
October 1, 2003... Most people will have been to a large-scale event and wondered just how on earth it all comes together. Who belier to ask than KB Event, a business providing specialist logistics and management services in the entertainment, conference and...

Map-based fleet management via the Web: Oren Nissim sings the praises of the latest breed of fleet management solutions.(transport and logistics)
October 1, 2003... In today's rapidly developing mobile marketplace, map based location technology is becoming a central feature of fleet management applications. Thanks to advances in data centric networks and GPS technology, those working with every type of...

Czeching-in to profitable routing and scheduling: Jim Bauman studies the case of one enterprising Czech haulier.(transport and logistics)
October 1, 2003... When ICOM transport a.s., one of the Czech Republic's largest hauliers, was awarded a major contract last year to make nation-wide deliveries for food giants Nestle's, Opavia-LU, and Danone, it was presented with a particular challenge. Tomas...

PTV AG.(Newsround)
October 1, 2003... PTV AG of Karlsruhe, Germany, has introduced a new logistics platform that integrates order management, transport planning, fleet management and Freight calculation to provide a complete transport chain planning and management solution. ...

Britain's Department for Transport, in conjunction with the Engineering & Physical Science Research Council, is part-funding development of a software suite.(Newsround)
October 1, 2003... Britain's Department for Transport, in conjunction with the Engineering & Physical Science Research Council, is part-funding development of a software suite for urban street re-design. To be developed by the Transport Studies Group at the...

Masternaut.(Newsround)
October 1, 2003... Hopkins Catering Britain's biggest supplier of equipment to the fish-and-chip trade, has equipped its nationwide delivery and service fleet With Masternaut, the Web-based vehicle information service from the French logistics resource company of...

GGP Systems.(Newsrounds)
October 1, 2003... Sibcas, a leading UK supplier of mobile classrooms and modular buildings, is using mapping technology from GGP Systems as pare of a real-time transport planning system developed by Glasgow-based IT company, Specialist Services. The...

Navigation Technologies.(Newsround)
October 1, 2003... Three logistics solutions companies have recently signed up with avigation Technologies as resellers of NAVTECH map data--Thales Telematics, Sandpiper Logistic Solutions and Sidewinder Europe. Navigation Technologies' marketing director,...

A new in-vehicle navigation terminal, claimed to be the first to incorporate voice, data and GPS tracking.(Newsround)
October 1, 2003... A new in vehicle navigation terminal, claimed to be the first to incorporate voice, data and GPS tracking, has been jointly developed by InfoWave and Positioning Resources. VehicleGIS is based on the InfoWave 728, a vehicle mounted tablet...

Psion Teklogix, a global supplier of rugged mobile computing solutions.(Newsround)
October 1, 2003... Psion Teklogix, a global supplier of rugged mobile computing solutions has announced the availability of a transport management service for fleet operators. The move builds on the company's seven year partnership with UK transport systems...

Follow me! With 14,000 flights a year, efficient runway operation is critical at Palma airport. Showing the way, quite literally, is a new development from KNOSOS.(Applications showcase ...)
October 1, 2003... The Balearics, one of Europe's top holiday destinations, depends on the smooth running of Palma de Mallorca airport to keep a million passengers a year winging their way to and fro. Contributing to efficient airside operations for the...