Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath
Hurricane Katrina severely pounded the Gulf Coast of U.S. with great force at daybreak on the 29th of August. Arriving with 145 mile an hour wind speed, the storm left more than a million people in three U.S. states without power and submerged highways. Hurricane Katrina, formed in the Bahamas in mid-August and struck South Florida on 25 August, killing nine people and leaving a million more without electricity. European Space Agency’s multisensor Envisat satellite has gathered a unique view of Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf of Mexico. Envisat simultaneously acquired these images at 1550 UTC (1150 US Eastern Daylight Saving Time) on 28 August, with its Medium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MERIS) and Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar (ASAR). While an optical image shows characteristic spiralling cloud patterns, a simultaneous radar observation pierces through the clouds to show how Katrina’s 250- kilometre-an-hour winds scour the sea surface. www.sciencedaily.com

Indigenous community in Australia maps cultural data
Traditional landowners in north west Queensland, Australia will soon be recording and mapping their own cultural heritage sites under a new arrangement with the State Government. The Mt Isa-based Mitakoodi-Juhnjlar aboriginal people will be the first to be taught the technical skills needed to gather their own data. They will be learning skills on using GPS programs and secondly being able to record those results onto software which will then go to offi cial authorities for insertion into the official maps.
www.abc.net.au

Bangkok to introduce GPS to its fleet of taxis
Bangkok has opened the first of 150 new electronic taxi stands that will allow pedestrians to summon a taxi by pressing a green button, signaling a dispatcher to send a taxi. The devices will display the estimated arrival time and license plate number of the approaching taxi. Taxis will be equipped with GPS as part of the service. The first arch-roofed electronic taxi stand was unveiled last week outside a superstore on the city’s Phahonyotin Road, while the remaining stands are expected to be installed across the city by November. Besides helping Bangkok pedestrians easily hail taxis, the stands are meant to keep cab drivers from wasting fuel by driving around the city in search of fares. www.chinapost.com.tw

Road Construction Project uses positioning technology
Trimble announced that it has been selected as the preferred supplier of machine control and survey equipment for Thiess John Holland, the lead contractor building Australia’s largest road project¯EastLink in Melbourne. With total construction costs of AU$2.5 billion (US$1.9 billion), the scale of work required for timely completion of Melbourne’s EastLink is beyond that ever tackled before on any single infrastructure project in Australia. EastLink’s three-lane, freeway-standard road is expected to be built over three and a half years. Construction includes two million square meters of paved road, more than eighty bridges, seventeen interchanges and 1.6 kilometers three-lane twin tunnels. The project will deliver Melbourne’s second fully-electronic tollway, comprising about 45 kilometers of freeway-standard road connecting the city’s eastern and south-eastern suburbs.
www.connecteast.com.au

Galileo – the European Programme for Global Navigation Services for civil purposes is an initiative led by European Union. We provide regular updates to our readers on the Galileo programme.
China gets three Galileo application projects
A Chinese general contractor for the European Galileo Project recently obtained three application projects. The Galileo Joint Undertaking (GJU) endorsed China Galileo Industries (CGI) to develop the fishery application system, the location-based services and special ionospheric studies for the Galileo regional augmentation services.
The EU and the European Space Agency had kicked off the 3.5 billion- billioneuro Galileo Project in March 2002 euro to develop a satellite-navigation system independent of the U.S. The first Galileo navigation satellite is expected to be launched later this year. China was the first country outside Europe to join the Galileo Project, agreeing to invest a total of 200 million euros into the global consortium. About 70 million euros of the Chinese investment have been put into technologies development and the remaining 130 million euros into deployment of space and ground infrastructure. The EU estimated that by 2020, the Galileo Project will bring Europe tens of billions of euros in revenues and tens of thousands of job opportunities. Chinese experts expected revenues worth 260 billion yuan (23.6 billion euros) in Galileo systems applications by 2020.
http://news.xinhuanet.com

Microsoft releases a beta of Virtual Earth
Microsoft released a beta of Virtual Earth, its web-based mapping service that combines local search with maps and aerial photography according to a recent report. The move comes some three weeks after Google released a beta of its Google Earth, and nearly a month after MSN unveiled a service combining satellite imagery with maps with its local search results. However, MSN’s Virtual Earth, like Google Earth, is focused primarily around maps and aerial views, allowing users to zoom in and out of maps or images and drag them around within the display area. MSN Virtual Earth for now covers only the U.S. and major Canadian cities, and offers fewer local-search options. http://www.marketingvox.com

China’s first digital long distance pipeline
Ji-Ning line is China’s first pipeline featuring digital technologies. World advanced technologies are applied in it, including remote sensing technology, GIS, large database, virtual reality technology, web application technology, project management, enterprise resource planning, exploring a new idea and method of in the design and operation management of long-distance pipeline. Welding has been completed for over 700 kilometers along the Ji- Ning line (from Hengshui in north China’s Hebei Province to Nanjing in east China’s Jiangsu province) for West-East Gas Transmission project. The line extends across north and east China and connects the area around Bohai Sea with Yangtze River Delta. It is expected the main pipeline will be put into operation at year-end. The pipeline will put an end to the coal-dominated energy structure in the areas alongside.
http://english.people.com.cn

USS Cape St. George is first ship using digital mapping system
Sailors on the USS Cape St. George is the first in the U.S. Navy fleet to switch from paper maps to a new digital charting system, linked to GPS and instant updates on ocean obstructions. The Navy, which has been working on the new technology since 1998, plans to install and use the new digital maps on the entire flee by 2009.
http://www.estripes.com

MapInfo Delivers OGC Compliance
MapInfo Corporation the announced that its MapXtreme® family of products has been certified as fully compliant with the Open Geospatial Consortium’s (OGC) OpenGIS® WMS Specifi cations.

Galileo – the European Programme for Global Navigation Services for civil purposes is an initiative led by European Union. We provide regular updates to our readers on the Galileo programme. India is likely to sign an agreement whereas Ukraine seals deal with EU on Galileo.
Galileo Joint Undertaking, Chinese RS Centre to sign contract
Galileo Joint Undertaking (GJU) and National Remote Sensing Centre of China (NRSCC) will sign seven contracts soon, said a GIU official. The cooperation between China and European Union (EU) on satellite navigation is “crucially important” and expected to have a very successful future, said executive director Rainer Grohe in a press release.
According to Zhang Guocheng, acting director of NRSCC, the seven projects in the segments of space, ground and applications will be contracted to Chinese companies and organizations by the end of July. According to a cooperation agreement signed by the NRSCC and the Galileo Joint Undertaking last October, China pledged to invest in research and development on space technology, ground equipment and application systems for the Galileo Programme. As the first non-EU partner for the programme, China agreed to invest 200 million euros, including 70 million euros in the first phase of the cooperation.
http:// news.monstersandcritics.com