Originally published February 8 2006
Interactive digital map of India unveiled
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
The prototype of the multilingual, interactive digital map uses Microsoft’s Virtual Earth technology. This means users do not need to download or install any software to use the maps.
The country's first prototype of a multilingual, interactive, digital map of India was unveiled on Thursday by Minister of Science and Technology Kapil Sibal at Microsoft Research India's annual research symposium, TechVista 2006.
Congratulating MSR India on completing its first anniversary, Mr Sibal said, "Earlier, the Defence Ministry felt that detailed information in the public domain will have an adverse impact on the security of the country.
Now, for the first time since Independence, we have a new mapping policy that allows digitised maps.
The Virtual India digital map will be useful to all the State Departments and Municipal Corporations and can solve problems that exist in tourism today.''
Our MoU with the Dept of Science & Technology has blossomed into a full-fledged collaboration whose fruit is the digital map," he said.
The web-based interactive digital maps use Microsoft's Virtual Earth technology, which also powers the Windows Live Local mapping service.
Hence, users do not need to download and install any software to use the maps.
This prototype, developed in collaboration with the Survey of India, also includes an online map of Bangalore in several languages.
A special feature enables users to add information relevant to their own communities tagged to specific locations on the map.
The prototype enables the addition of information such as the location of polling booths and other data that empowers citizens to create and maintain maps that are uniquely relevant to their communities.
MSR India and the Dept of Science and Technology plan to leverage experiences from this prototype to develop effective countrywide mechanisms for spatial data creation, collection and dissemination.
More information about this project can be found on MSR India's web site at http://www.reseach.microsoft.com/india.
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