Topcon and Sokkia merge
The merger between Topcon Corporation and Sokkia Co, Ltd, both with corporate headquarters in Japan, was confirmed on 5 February. Both companies are the two largest Japanese manufacturers of survey equipment. Sokkia will become a wholly owned subsidiary of
Topcon Corporation.

Norwegian Prime Minister opens new Antarctic satellite station
“The Norwegian satellite station TrollSat is a milestone in satellite surveillance of the environment”, Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg said. It offers better and quicker access to vital climate, environment and weather data. The data will be used in research and in other environment surveillance. He also laid the foundation stone for the Galileo station next to TrollSat. The station will be ready in 2009. The Galileo station in the Antarctic will be part of the European navigation system Galileo, which will be operational in 2013 and be based on space satellites. www.norwaypost.no

Indo-Norwegian pact on developing TOPAZ
WAn Indo-Norwegian agreement was signed to collaborate in developing an operational ocean modelling and data assimilation system for the Indian Ocean—the TOPAZ Indian Ocean forecasting system. The parties from Norway are the Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Centre (NERSC) and the University of Bergen (UoB), while the Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS) and Nansen Environmental Research Centre-India (NERCI) Kochi are from India. According to a press release issued here, the TOPAZ Indian Ocean system has been implemented, assessed and used by a group of scientists of Bergen and Kochi. www.hindu.com

Chinese vice-premier urges scientific outlook
Chinese Vice-Premier Zeng Peiyan has urged authorities responsible for statistics, surveying and mapping, food and tobacco to implement the government’s scientific outlook on development and innovate to improve accuracy and authority. Related authorities should improve their surveying and mapping work to provide a quality service for the country’s construction, he said. http://news.xinhuanet.com

Topcon GNSS first to add China’s Compass signal
Topcon Positioning Systems (TPS) is the first to announce to have successfully tracked signals from the Chinese Compass satellite constellation. It also developed the world’s first GNSS technology to pick up signals from GPS, GLONASS, the planned Galileo satellite system.

Real-time traffic information to reach more than 83 million users
According to ABI Research, real-time traffic information services will reach more than 83 million paid or registered users worldwide by 2012. It sees three elements to the puzzle of providing truly useful traffic data for navigation systems.

First, the traffic data collection ecosystem is very complex. Infrastructure measurement systems (road sensors, cameras, radar, or loop sensors) are expensive and hard to install. A second challenge is traffic data aggregation. As the basic data becomes more available, the complex data derived from floating-car probes or predictive modeling will become the differentiator. But such data are harder to integrate into navigation routing. A third factor is market landscape. ABI Research expects INRIX and NAVTEQ/Traffic. com to become the two players in traffic data. www.gpsbusinessnews.com

Price war eminent in PND market
The PND (portable navigation device) market in Taiwan is likely to set into a price war due to the planned importation of ultra low-priced GPS devices from China. GPS makers in China plan to establish a ‘Triple Nine’ alliance, aiming to push sales of PNDs at prices below 999 yuan (US$135) in the China market. Vendors of Garmin, TomTom and Mio – stated that they are not concerned about the price competition, and will differentiate from China-made products with improved quality and innovative software. www.digitimes.com

Trimble technology for largest Road Project in Western Australia
Trimbles machine control systems and two-way data communications technology are being used for the construction of the New Perth Bunbury Highway—the single largest road project ever undertaken in Western Australia. The project is expected to be constructed over three years and will include the placement of approximately nine million cubic meters of soil to raise the road alignment. www.trimble.com

Galileo gets the go-ahead
Galileo finally got the go-ahead at the end of November when European nations involved in the project agreed to build the EUR 3.4 billion satellite navigation system. Thirty satellites will be placed in a mid-earth orbit and supported by ground stations in Italy and Germany. A third ground centre dedicated to civil protection, in particular in the area of maritime, air and rail security, will be based in Spain. This control centre is expected to take on further responsibilities as the Galileo system is developed. www.djnewswires.com/eu

Better ‘eye’ in space for Malaysia
Weighing 180 kg and with a 2.5 m resolution, Malaysia’s second remotesensing satellite shall provide images every 100 minutes. The RazakSAT is expected to be launched into space by the middle of this year. The satellite was jointly developed by Astronautic Technology (M) Sdn Bhd and Satellite Technology Research Center Initiative Co Ltd, South Korea. The cost of the RazakSAT programme is RM60 million. http://www.nst.com.my/