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$3 billion generated by Indian geo services industry in 2011

The Indian geo services industry generated $3 billion in revenue in 2011 alone while accounting for approximately 1,35,000 jobs, according to a BCG report commissioned by Google. The report said that the impact of the geo services industry is valued at approximately 15 times it’s own size. In India, geo services help Indian businesses drive $40-45 billion in revenue, save $70-75 billion in costs and affect 8-9 million jobs in India. The BCG report also found that Indian consumers are also willing to pay $1.5- 2 billion more than they currently do for geospatial services such as online maps, navigation systems and local searches. www.telecomtiger.com/

Spatially enabling national sport and recreation data

A collaborative project between Centre for eCommerce and Communications (CeCC) and the School of Health Sciences at the University of Ballarat, in partnership with the Australian Sports Commission, Victoria University and VicHealth, which involves the development of a spatial ICT system of sporting and recreation data, is gaining much interest from peak sporting organisations in Australia.

The Sport and Recreation Spatial project, which is being lead by Dr Rochelle Eime, joint VicHealth Research Practice Fellow (Physical Activity) at the University of Ballarat and Victoria University, provides a national system for presenting spatial data about the sports industry. The spatial ICT system has wide application and appeal. Not only will it have the potential to offer a greater understanding of the current sport and recreation industry in Australia, but it will provide the industry with evidence to make informed decisions to systematically grow their sport participation in the future. In addition, Sport and Recreation Spatial will provide the capacity to investigate the ‘value of sport’ in terms of participatory health beneô€‚¿ ts via access to national health and well being measures. h.thompson@ballarat.edu.au

OS MapFinder app launched

Ordnance Survey’s first official mapping app is proving popular with nearly 40,000 downloads in the first two weeks. The app includes free overview mapping with the option of purchasing more detailed 1:25 000 and 1:50 000 mapping in small easily accessible 100km 2 tiles. For the first time, mapping will be updated for free for the lifetime of the app, meaning users will always be able to access the most up-to-date mapping on their mobile devices. www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/

Oxera quantifies the benefits of Geo services to global consumers

Google has published an Oxera report that estimates the revenues from global Geo services at $150 billion to $270 billion per year. For context, these findings suggest that this growing industry is already larger than estimates of the size of the video game industry, and generates around onethird of the annual revenue generated by the airline industry. This study is one of the first to consider Geo services as an industry in itself, encompassing all digital mapping and location-based services. http://www.oxera.com/

Tracking crime with GIS

The Chandigarh police, India plan to turn to technology to gain an upper hand over criminals and check crimes. They will improve surveillance with the introduction of the GIS soon. Police said in phase one of the drive to prepare a record of accident prone areas, the GIS system will depend on the already maintained record of the police control room. A private firm has already been given the task for compiling data for the system.
http:// articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/

Malaysia determines suitability of project locations with GIS

The Economic Planning Unit of the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) in Malaysia will be launching a GIS application this year which will help government agencies better identify a suitable location for their projects. http://www.futuregov.asia/

SuperSurv 3.1 fi eld data collector

Supergeo Technologies has unveiled the Android-powered mobile survey application, SuperSurv 3.1. It integrates with GIS and GPS technologies to help filed surveyors collect spatial data with ease. The mobile GIS application supports common vector layer format (GEO and SHP). www.supergeotek.com

Blue Marble Desktop merged into Geographic Calculator 2013

Blue Marble Geographics has released the Geographic Calculator 2013, merging the various modules of the Blue Marble Desktop into one software application. Blue Marble’s geospatial data manipulation, visualization and conversion solutions are used worldwide by thousands of GIS analysts at software, oil and gas, mining, civil engineering, surveying, and technology companies, as well as governmental and university organizations. bluemarblegeo.com

China, UN cooperate in geological information development

The Chinese government and the United Nations (UN) signed an agreement in November to jointly promote geological information management. Known as the cooperation on geospatial information management capacity development, the Chinese government will invest 4 million U.S. dollars in a UN trust fund. The money will be used in projects to strengthen China and other developing countries’ capacities of geospatial information production, management and distribution. The five-year program, to be carried out from 2013 to 2017, will be conducted in workshops, shortterm consultations, medium-term training as well as visits and exchanges. http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/

The Philippines to introduce new topographic maps soon

The National Mapping and Resource Information Authority (NAMRIA) in partnership with the Mindanao Development Authority (MinDA) will be introducing a total of 227 topographic maps of Mindanao island at scale 1:50,000 by March 2013. Mindanao is the second largest island in the Philippines and currently the eight most populous island in the world with a population of approximately 21, 583,000. The island group of Mindanao is divided into six regions, which are further subdivided into 26 provinces.

Kashmir state of India to improve power distribution system using GIS

The Power Development Department (PDD) is working on two projects worth Rs 1100 crores to improve power distribution system in the State. “The first phase of project worth Rs 192 crore is in the advanced stage of completion. It will make the distribution system more automated and consumer friendly,” according to PDD chief engineer Manzoor Ahmad Matoo.“We are going to use Information Technology in our distribution system and we will have a live map of each user up to electric poll,” said Mattoo. PDD is going to use GIS mapping, consumer service line mapping and asset mapping of PDD property in entire 30 towns. http://www.risingkashmir.in/news/

Sustainable Building Performance Monitoring

Autodesk and NASA Ames Research Center have announced collaboration to research and develop new technology that can monitor and optimize the operational life-cycle of high performance buildings. Researchers from Autodesk Research and NASA will implement Autodesk Project Dasher technology at the NASA Ames Sustainability Base, a 50,000 square foot of􀂿 ce building and showcase for technologies enhancing efficient resource utilization, including those developed by NASA for its space and aeronautics missions. Autodesk Project Dasher is an experimental Building Information Modeling (BIM) based platform that can provide building owners and operators with insight into full life-cycle real-time building performance. www.dexigner.com/news/

NGIS for Sustainable Development

The NSDI-12 Annual Event on “National Geo-Spatial Information System (NGIS) for Sustainable Development” was organised by Office of the Registrar General & Census Commissioner, India during 20-21 December, 2012 at the Convention Centre, Auditorium – II of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi. The Event was inaugurated by Shri Ajay Maken, Hon’ble Union Minister for Housing and Poverty Alleviation on 20th December, 2012 at 10.00 am

During the event, the Atlas on ‘Houses, Household Amenities and Assets 2011’ prepared by the Office of the Registrar General, India was released by Hon’ble Union Minister. The Atlas is based on the data captured during the “Houselisting and Housing Census 2011”. It contains the map on Administrative set up of the country as on 01-01-2010, thematic maps on condition of occupied Census Houses, Household Amenities & Assets possessed by the households at State/ UT and District level. It would be quite useful for policy formulation, planning and decision making.

The document on NSDI Content Standards – Soils was also released and the Survey of India’s Suveykshan Portal was unveiled by the Hon’ble Union Minister.

An exhibition was also organised at this occasion which was inaugurated by the Hon’ble Union Minister. Various Central/State Government Organizations involved in generating geo-spatial database are participating and exhibiting their map/data products. The exhibitors include Census of India, Survey of India, Forest Survey of India, National Remote Sensing Centre, National Atlas & Thematic Mapping Organisation and National Spatial Data Infrastructure.

At the closing of the two days’ Conference, the valedictory address was delivered by Dr K Kasturirangan, Hon’ble Member (Science), Planning Commission, Govt of India on 21st December, 2012.

China’s first state key laboratory for GIE established

China’s first state key laboratory for Geographic Information Engineering (GIE) was established on January 16, 2013 in a surveying and mapping institute affiliated to the General Staff Headquarters (GSH) of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA). It is reported that this is the only state key laboratory in the field of military surveying, mapping and navigation in China, mainly engaging in basic research and application research of global geospatial information with the focus on exploring and innovating space-time benchmark calibration and new theories and technologies related to navigation. http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/

GSI to buy Korean made vessel to conduct coastal survey

Geological Survey of India (GSI) will soon have a new state-of-the-art research vessel to carry out coastal survey. GSI deputy director general and head, natural energy resources, NR Ramesh told that the new vessel worth Rs 500 crore will have all modern gadgets to carry out research. “The vessel will have all facilities to go deep waters and conduct survey. It will find out polymetallic nodules and many other things. The work of vessel is progressing in Korea and it will arrive within six months,” Ramesh. http:// articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/

Uganda mapping out its municipal presence

Digital mapping services and solutions provider, mapIT has announced the launch of the National Postcode & Addressing System. Since joining hands in May 2012 with SatNav East Africa, the company has been working on the pilot project of the Entebbe SatCodes solution. This addressing solution allows for every property to have a unique “address” and enhance the performance of service. This includes GIS solution with five layers; the implementation of a National Property Identifier using SatCodes to provide address codes for “turn-by-turn” navigation; the placement of address placards on all houses in Entebbe as well as a marketing campaign to demonstrate and educate service providers on the benefits. www.itnewsafrica.com/

ITT Exelis nabs $2.2m contract for GPS augmentation

ITT Exelis has won a $2.2 million contract from the Air Force Research Laboratory for research in support of the current GPS program. It will research the development of a small satellite navigation payload, known as GPS NAVSAT, to augment this system. The GPS NAVSAT seeks to provide affordable capabilities to aid end-users located in difficult to access environments. http:// washingtontechnology.com/