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| INDUSTRY |
| January 2007 |
| Sales contract from Cessna
Aircraft Company to Leica |
The Metrology Division of Leica
Geosystems, Switzerland announced
USA based Cessna Aircraft Company,
a Textron company, has signed a
sales contract for eight portable Leica
Geosystems CMM systems used for
industrial measurement and inspection.
The acquisition consists of four
Leica LTD840 Laser Trackers, and
four Leica LTD640 Laser Trackers.
Cessna is a manufacturer of general
aviation airplanes. Leica Geosystems'
3D coordinate measurement systems
are used by manufacturers worldwide
in the aerospace, automotive
and shipbuilding industries.
www.leica-geosystems.com |
Philips backtracked
plan for GPS devices
Philips Electronics, Netherlands has
backtracked on its previously stated
plan to enter the satellite navigation
market. In June the company
spread the word about a new line of
portable products that it planned for
September. After the announcement,
shares in TomTom International, the
market leader in navigation devices,
sunk 3 percent within the hour. But
now Philips said it was no longer
interested in selling the devices.
Spokeswoman Nanda Huizinga said
the company kept a close eye on the
market in the past few months and
decided it was too crowded. “It’s a
very competitive market and it puts
a lot of pressure on profit margins,”
she said. “We decided we need some
focus, and navigation devices like
these don’t fit within this focus.”
The company remains interested in
GPS in general, but not for standalone
products. “We don’t want to go
further with GPS as a single device,
but it’s an interesting technology
to implement in other products,”
Huizinga said. Mobile phones or
digital music players are possible
candidates for GPS capabilities,
she said. www.pcadvisor.co.uk
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| ER Mapper licenses
GeoCalc |
Blue Marble Geographics has
announced that ER Mapper
recently licensed the GeoCalc 6.3
C++ software developer toolkit to
enhance and greatly expand their
coordinate system definition and
conversion support. Blue Marble's
coordinate conversion technology
is used worldwide by thousands of
GIS analysts at software companies,
universities, oil and gas companies,
civil engineering, surveying,
technology, enterprise GIS groups,
government and military organizations.
www.bluemarblegeo.com |
| u-blox announces
miniature GPS module |
u-blox AG, Switzerland launched the
NEO-4S GPS module which packs high
sensitivity, low power consumption and
a USB port into a miniature 12.2 x 16
mm package. The module's -156 dBm
SuperSense tracking sensitivity extends
positioning coverage to deep indoor
locations and enables solutions that use
smaller or covert antennas. The absence
of a costly Flash EPROM and the
ATR0635 single chip that powers the
module, developed jointly by u-blox
and Atmel, keeps the module's footprint
small and the price tag down. Its low
power needs and built-in power saving
modes ensures power usage is kept at
a bare minimum.
www.u-blox.com |
| PCI Geomatics signs
MoU with LIESMARS |
PCI Geomatics has announced
the signing of a Memorandum of
Understanding (MoU) with the State
Key Laboratory of Information in
Surveying, Mapping and Remote
Sensing (LIESMARS) in China. The
MoU outlines plans for cooperation
in a variety of areas including the
introduction of emerging imagecentric
geospatial technology in
China and outlying regions. It also
highlights plans for further promotion
of geoinformatics along with a
better understanding of the Earth
and space. www.pcigeomatics.com |
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| Trimble to acquire
@Road |
Trimble, USA announced that it has
entered into a definitive agreement
to acquire @Road, Inc. of Fremont,
California. @Road, Inc. is a provider
of solutions designed to automate
the management of mobile resources
and to optimise the service delivery
process for customers across a variety
of industries. The acquisition would
enable Trimble to gain leadership
in Mobile Resource Management
(MRM).
www.trimble.com |
| Optech introduces 100
Hz scanning capability |
Optech Incorporated announced
another technical advance in airborne
Lidar mapping: an accelerated scanner
rate of 100 Hz. Optech's ALTM Gemini
now scans at rates up to 100 Hz. This
accelerated scan frequency will directly
benefit all surveyors using Optech's
ALTM Gemini. www.optech.ca |
| Electric utility to implement
Enterprise GIS software |
ESRI has announced that it has been
selected to provide an Enterprise GIS to
ČEZData, s.r.o. of the Czech Republic,
part of the ČEZ Group, the largest
electric utility provider in central
Europe. The enterprise site license
will enable ČEZData to deploy the
full suite of ESRI's ArcGIS products
in an open, scalable, and standardsbased
GIS architecture throughout
the entire ČEZ Group operation. The
GIS will integrate with and leverage
existing ČEZ information technology
(IT) resources to meet a broad range
of business and engineering needs
now and in the future. www.esri.com |
| Lockheed Martin gets $50
million US Air Force deal |
The U.S. Air Force has awarded
Lockheed Martin, USA a contract
valued at approximately $50 million
to execute a System Design Review
for the next generation Global
Positioning System Space Segment
program, known as GPS Block III. GPS III will address the challenging
military transformational and civil
needs across the globe, including
advanced anti-jam capabilities and
improved system security, accuracy
and reliability. The program will
enhance space-based navigation and
performance and set a new world
standard for positioning and timing
services. www.lockheedmartin.com |
| i-Blue 757 solar bluetooth
GPS receiver |
Manufactured by Transystem of
Taiwan, i-Blue 757 is a solar powered
bluetooth GPS receiver. Featuring
space saving clamshell design.,
these devices contain the 16 channel
Nemerix GPS receiver and also
have an embedded rechargeable
1000mAh Li-Ion battery. Without
seeing any daylight it should run for
about 30 hours, and upto 100 if you
can harness the power of the sun.
At the expense of a little consumption
of battery power the Bluetooth stack on
the i-Blue 757 is kept alive even when
no connection is active. As soon as your
PocketPC or Smartphone or Notebook
establish a Bluetooth connection the
757 will wake up the GPS receiver
part, and regain a fix within a few
seconds.
www.navigadget.com |
Antrix revenues at
Rs 400 crore
ANTRIX Corporation, the
commercial wing of Indian Space
research Organisation (ISRO)
would earn Rs 400 crore this year
through Launching satellites for
other countries and selling space
products. The space agency’s
commericial arm has roughly abort
25% growth over the last year. “For
this year, Antrix’s total turnover is
roughly about Rs 400 crore.Out of
which Rs 200 crore comes from
launch vehicle area and remaining
from space products, including
the transponders we are leasing
and the images we are sending,”
ISRO chairman G Madhavan Nair
said here. economictimes.com
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