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NEWSBRIEFS – UPDATE

May 2009 | Comments Off

INDUSTRY | LBS | GPS | GIS | REMOTE SENSING | GALILEO UPDATE

Norway joins Galileo project

The Norwegian government will give a boost by providing 68.9 million euros (92.5 million dollars) towards the 3.4 billion euro project. While Norway is not a member of the 27-member bloc, the

country’s economy and business minister Sylvia Brustad said it was important that Oslo took part in Galileo’s development. “The project will be of huge importance for the development of the European space industry and it is therefore important that Norwegian businesses are now able to compete,” Brustad said in a statement. In

September, the European Commission and the European Space Agency, which includes Norway as a member, shortlisted 11 European firms which are bidding for future contracts connected to Galileo. www.newsabout- space.org/story/157986254.html

Ukraine hopes to join Galileo project

Ukraine has aired interest to join the European navigation satellite project Galileo. The project however is facing increasingly competition, EE Times reported. According to the National Ukrainian broadcast organization NRCU, the president of the Ukrainian national space agency, Olexandr Sintchenko, aired interest in a closer collaboration with the European Space Agency ESA. Besides participating in the Galileo project, he also offered collaboration with regard to the European launch vehicle `Vega`. Vega`s first launch is scheduled for late in 2009. Sintchenko announced to travel to Paris in May in order to meet ESA representatives to discuss the matter. www. unian.net/eng/news/news-312755.html

EU plans to track cars raises hackles

The EU is planning to install sinister spy devices in all new cars that will constantly transmit the location, speed, and heading of the car to a central database. ABD spokesman Nigel Humphries said: “This nightmarish level of intrusion into people’s private lives was something even George Orwell did not imagine. It is something the secret police of communist and fascist countries would have relished, so why is it being proposed for a supposedly ‘free’ Europe?”

Officially known as the Cooperative Vehicle-Infrastructure Systems (CVIS) project, the plan is being supported by some car manufacturers and some telecomms companies. Why some car manufacturers are aiding and abetting such government spying in these times of financial difficulties is unclear, it is certainly going to discourage anyone in their right mind from buying a new car. Involved telecomms companies will, as usual, simply want to make money with scant regard to the consequences to society, including their own shareholders, employees, and customers. The project is believed to be dependent upon the EU’s hugely expensive ‘Galileo’ satellite navigation system. Although the world already has a perfectly good satellite navigation system, it is run by the USA, and that hurts the EU`s ego, so they`re spending 3 billion euros on their own (at the last count — it’s already 2 billion euros over budget). To recoup the cost of this you can be sure they intend to use it to introduce road charging and blanket speed enforcement. It is also tied in with a massive IT project that will link traffic lights and motorway gantries. Source:ABD/Motoring4Media