Taiwan’s National Space Organization (NSPO) says it is planning to launch the satellite FORMOSAT-5 in 2013. The satellite will carry a high-resolution optical remote sensing instrument for earth sensing and earth observation. The instrument was designed, manufactured and packaged in Taiwan. FORMOSAT-5 is Taiwan’s first remote sensing program. The project is part of Taiwan’s plan …

Galileo Application Days, 3-5 March, kicks off the competition with a conference and an ‘Application Village’, where demonstrations will occur. The annual ESNC competition, or ‘Galileo Masters’ as it is also known, is designed to stimulate commercial applications using Europe’s satellite navigation programmes. The event is being organised by the GSA, and the Application Centre …

The Director of the Galileo Programme and Navigation related activities, Mr René  Oosterlinck, and the CEO of OHB-System AG, Berry Smutny, signed the contract for the development and construction of 14 Galileo satellites. These signatures implement the decision made by the European Commission to nominate OHB-System as prime contractor for the 1st 14 satellites.
With a …

Jean-Yves Le Gall, Chairman and CEO of Arianespace, and René Oosterlinck, Director of the Galileo Program and Navigation-related Activities at the ESA, signed the launch contract for the first ten FOC (Full Operational Capability) satellites in Europe’s planned Galileo satellite positioning system at ESTEC (European Space Research & Technology Centre) in Noordwijk, the Netherlands. The …

BlueSky Positioning and EMT announced that EMT has completed its initial field testing of BlueSky Positioning’s A-GPS (Assisted-Global Positioning System) technology. The tests were conducted using both GPRS and USSD (Unstructured Supplementary Services Data) for retrieving assistance data in a live 3G network. EMT Estonia is the first network operator to test a USSD connection …

Appello Systems introduced Maploader – a service which enables the user to pre-load high quality maps to the mobile phone and always have them available, regardless of connectivity. Wisepilot Maploader enables end-users to pre-load high quality maps directly to their mobile phone in batches of country by country. Wisepilot Maploader will offer pre-loading of maps …

Flannery Hire has implemented a geofence antitheft system from Masternaut Three X. Used to protect high-value equipment such as excavators and telehandlers, the Masternaut Asset Track system provides automatic, self-monitoring surveillance of Flannery Hire’s equipment used on sites throughout the north of England. The cloud computing security system provides real-time visibility of equipment and Flannery …

Latitude Technologies released a configurable “G” switch accelerometer to the UDG100 and S100/S200 SkyNode product lines. The configurable six-axis accelerometer will have basic factory settings mirroring the common aircraft emergency locator transmitter but can be customised to user defined settings. The technology marriage allows aircraft to be tracked from take-off through customised flight profiles to …

CloudMade announced it has integrated Location Based Advertising (LBA) into the CloudMade Mapping Platform. The service enables developers to display highly targeted location-based advertisements in their web or mobile applications. CloudMade’s LBA offering provides developers with the ability to tailor the advertisements they display to their application type and user location. With no additional development …

TomTom is starting the commercialization of its Personal Navigation Devices in Morocco. TomTom is entering the market with two products: the mid-range TomTom XL (including maps from Morocco and Europe) and the entry-level TomTom Start (including maps from Morocco). Both products have a free two years map update. These devices will be distributed by MCI, …