With applying modern technologies to generating spatial data, the amount of spatial data is increasing dramatically and huge amounts of data sets are being created and stored by different agencies.
Despite the growth of spatial datasets and the expansion of their use in different applications and new emerging services, they are being acquired and maintained by different organizations under different policies and even by organizations from different political and administrative levels. In such organizational arrangement, the spatial data providers produce and manage their own datasets without considering the reuse and integration of the datasets by other users, so most of the datasets have been produced and managed for a single purpose…

SIRGAS (Sistema de Referencia Geocéntrico para las Américas) is a joint project of South, Central and North American countries in cooperation with some international institutions for the establishment and maintenance of a geocentric reference frame for practical and scientific use. A unique reference frame for the American continent was established by two extremely successful geodetic observation campaigns…

US LBS market to grow to 1 million subscribers by 2010
Depending largely on the cellular operators actions, the US LBS business market is forecast to grow to from 582,000 to 1.1 million subscribed devices by the end of 2010, reports In-Stat. Location-enabled enterprise applications constitute a small but important segment of the market for mobile IT applications, the high-tech market research firm says. Applications for this technology include fleet management/dispatch, workforce and sales force management, as well as a variety of public sector location applications.
www.instat.com

ISRO and NASA Sign MOU on Chandrayaan-1
The Indian Space Research Organization and National Aeronautics and Space Administration of USA have signed an MOU on inclusion of two US scientifi c instruments on board India’s first mission to Moon, Chandrayaan-1. These instruments are – Mini Synthetic Aperture Radar (Mini SAR) developed by Applied Physics Laboratory, Johns Hopkins University and Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3), jointly built by Brown University and Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) of NASA.
www.isro.gov.in

Ambulance Trusts join mapping agreement
Every ambulance trust in England is to benefit from greater access to Ordnance Survey’s most detailed digital geographic information (GI) from this month. It follows the launch of a pilot agreement aimed at encouraging the use of computerised mapping across the NHS. The plan is to ensure health providers have the reliable information they need to improve patient care while making the most effi cient possible use of their resources.
www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk

ProLink patent on Payfor- Play approved
ProLink Holdings Corp. the provider of GPS golf course management systems, announced that the United States Patent and Trademark Office has awarded patent number 7,031,947, Method And Apparatus For Continuing Play With Cart-Based Navigation/ Information System Display, effective April 18, 2006.
www.goprolink.com

Rural development may be defined as structural changes in the socio-economic situation to achieve improved living standard of low-income population residing in rural areas and making the process of their development self sustained. It includes economic development with close integration among various sections and sectors; and economic growth specifically directed to the rural poor. In fact, it requires area based development…

Leica MobileMatriX v1.51 launched
Leica MobileMatriX is said to support a Multi-Sensor GIS. Within a Multi- Sensor GIS fi eld crews can attach several sensors – TPS, GPS, Levels and Laser Range Finders – at the same time and also can measure with various sensors simultaneously. Multi-Sensor GIS is an emerging trend for mobile GIS and mapping applications.
Leica also announces the upcoming release of Leica GradeSmart 3D (V5.2), a smart machine automation dozer and grader solution for the construction industry. It will introduce new features and improvements designed to enhance speed of operation, support and usability and streamlining of the data transformation process.

In the 1970s, the US Department of Defense began GPS development as a military force enhancer. In 1983, President Reagan offered GPS civil services to the world, free of direct charges, as a result of the KAL007 disaster. This global offer sparked widespread civil use of GPS and significant investment in civil GPS technologies, to include GPS civil augmenting satellites (e.g. US Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS), European…

Galileo to be scaled down?
The Financial Times claims the EU may be forced to operate the Galileo constellation with fewer than the currently proposed 30 satellites. The FT quotes Philippe Busquin, a former European research commissioner who now oversees the Galileo project as a member of the European Parliament as saying: ‘It’s not clear that we really need 30 satellites. We could certainly make Galileo a success with 24 or 25.’ Jack Metthey, a director handling research in the European Commission, also describes the Galileo budget situation as ‘very, very tight’, adding: ‘Having less satellites would certainly help address the money issue.’’ However, it is acknowledged that a reduction in the number of satellites could undermine the quality of the system, by reducing coverage and precision, two of Galileo’s trump cards as a 21st- Century constellation. www.rin.org.uk