ISRO to forecast crop behavior
The Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics has tied up with the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) for the project to forecast crop condition and drought-like situations with the

help of satellite images. Satellite images of the ground where the crops are harvested will be matched, analysed and calculated with the data provided by the India Meteorological Department (IMD) and a conclusion will be arrived at. Initially, the project will be carried out in Karnataka on a pilot basis. Later, it will be implemented in other major agricultural states like Maharashtra.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/

GLONASS-K Birds go into production
Information Satellite Systems – Reshetnev Co. has begun the production of the K-series of GLONASS satellites for Russia. The first launch of a GLONASSK satellite is scheduled for launch in 2010, according to Russia’s Federal Space Agency. GLONASSK is the third generation of Russia’s GLONASS positioning satellites. In contrast to GLONASS and GLONASS- M satellites, which have relatively short service lives of only a few years, GLONASS-K has a planned service life of 12 years, a depressurized platform, and a decreased weight, according to Reshetnev.

EMRI joins hands with GEOMED for enhancing emergency response service
Emergency Management and Research Institute (EMRI) and GEOMED Research Forschungsgesellschaft mbH signed an MoU to work together on shared goals regarding the improvement of GIS based emergency health systems data utilization and related research and emergency response services internationally.
GEOMED’s focus is on the development and application of geography-based methods and technologies in public health and health care. Research and development projects deal with planning
and allocation of resources in emergency or secondary care, innovative health monitoring and surveillance applications or decision support in the context of urban health. Continuous cooperations exist
with research institutions, health services and authorities across Europe, Northern America as well as in India and China.
PHR to map health medical centres with GIS in Yemen

Yemen Partners for Health Reforms (PHR) project funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), is training a group of decision makers in the Health Ministry Bureau,
launched a course to target provinces that are instructed in the use the GIS in order to map the health medical centers in all Yemen’s provinces. www.yobserver.com
AU Professors to evaluate GIS project

To ensure quality and take guidance in the implementation of the GIS project, the Vijayawada Municipal Corporation (VMC) is contemplating hiring the services of faculty of the civil engineering department of Andhra University. The VMC had asked the civil engineering department to evaluate the job of Hyderabad-based Speck Systems, which was entrusted the task of satellite imaging
of the city. The VMC would enter into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the civil engineering department of the university shortly. the latter would play the role of a ‘third party’ in implementing the project. www.thehindu.com

The study areas are situated in the Arabian Gulf. -It is a shallow sea with its long axis oriented in NW-SE direction, and its average water depth is about 36m. The Evaporation and wind are the main driving forces for water circulation in the Arabian Gulf. Evaporation is stronger in winter due to high wind speed, than summer when the water surface temperature is higher. The overall circulation in the inner Arabian Gulf is cyclonic…

US PND market doubles in Q2
Shipments of portable navigation devices (PNDs) in the United States almost doubled in the second quarter (Q2) of this year at 3.7 million units, compared to the 2.8 million units in Q2 2007, but
prices are still dropping, according to market research firm Canalys. At this time last year, unit volume shipments were depressed following an inventory buildup resulting from extremely high sales into the channel in the final quarter. While shipments have grown,
Canalys estimates that average selling prices have dropped approximately 40 percent drop year over year.
Canalys estimates that Garmin remained the US market leader with 47% share, up 4% on its Q1 position, but down slightly on the 50% it had a year ago. TomTom, in second, saw year-on-year growth substantially above the market average, almost trebling its shipments, and giving it a share of 25%. Despite this high growth, this was down on the 28% it had in Q1, meaning that Garmin increased its lead by several percentage points sequentially. Magellan retained its third place with a reduced 11% share. These three vendors have consistently taken more than 80% of the market for several quarters. Outside of the top three, several vendors posted high year-onyear
growth, notably Mio Technology, Navigon and Nextar, albeit on much lower volumes. www.canalys.com

Honeywell selects Spirent GPS simulator for NASA’s Orion project
Honeywell has selected a Spirent GPS/ Inertial simulator to develop, integrate, and verify the navigation system for NASA’s Orion project. The simulator includes comprehensive modeling of the space environment and will provide multiple radio frequency outputs. It will include multiple SimINERTIAL units Spirent Inertial interfaces that provide Honeywell engineers the capability of emulating Inertial sensor output while simultaneously simulating GPS RF signals.

The patented TIDGET® (“tracking widget”) sensor operates by taking brief snapshots of GPS data when activated [1]. These snapshots are stored in the flash memory and forwarded to the LocatorNet Server through the data link for processing [2]. The TIDGET is built using the RF front-end of a commercial GPS chip (see Figure 2). The device is designed to operate with a variety of different types of data links providing a low-power location solution…

The system presented in the paper is designed according to the scheme of compensation and processes navigation data with use of a Complementary Extended Kalman Filter (CEKF). The INS/TACAN/ALT system works with a feed-forward correction, i.e. there is no feedback to INS and its errors are corrected externally. The structure of system is shown in the Fig. 1…

The LBS market has been segmented into 3 main categories: • B2C: Business to Consumer • B2B2C: Business to Business to Consumer • B2B: Business to Business Details of this segmentation are provided in Figure 2. This segmentation highlights the diversity of services that can be offered by an operator. This diversity of services is also a diversity of business model. The LBS market has been especially Figure 1…

For reasons unknown, the “GIS/Geographic” has quietly crossed its rightful “domain

It was up to 1985 that everything …