12 Dec 05. ITT Industries announced the opening of its new UK based night vision maintenance facility. Based at ITT Industries’ Defence Limited Basingstoke, Hampshire site, the facility will service the Head Mounted Night Vision Systems (HMNVS) used by the UK ground forces. ITT’s US based Night Vision division – the manufacturer of the devices – collaborated with ITT Defence Ltd to provide this in-country maintenance and repair service. Benefits include a quicker repair time and savings on shipping costs. The UK military currently utilises the ITT Series F6015 HMNVS in a dual battery configuration. ITT Defence will complete the conversion of these to a lighter weight, single battery monocular, providing greater mobility, reliability and comfort under normal operational conditions. The HMNVS is designed specifically for use by individual service personnel in a variety of ground-based night operations.
09 Dec 05. The Inauguration of the New Detection and Control Center in Mont-de-Marsan. The new Detection and Control Center located at the air base in Mont-de-Marsan was inaugurated two months ago. France can now boast one of the best systems in the world in terms of power, reliability and functionality. Working in close collaboration with the Air Force and the DGA, ThalesRaytheonSystems was able to ensure the successful renovation of this center. This renovation falls under a more general effort to optimize the STRIDA system. The reliability and capacities of these operational centers will henceforth be largely improved. In Mont-de-Marsan, ThalesRaytheonSystems implemented technical and functional improvements that will be replicated in other centers including, the improvement of the system reliability for processing information, a new training function for controllers, a renovation of visualization techniques, and an augmentation of the processing capacity. The center’s architecture was reworked, eliminating the old mainframes and replacing them with a more flexible, powerful and high-performance system. In order to ensure the high quality of its aircraft control and surveillance missions, the Detection and Control Center at the air base in Mont-de-Marsan performs the following responsibilities: synthesizing the information received by sensors and by adjacent centers and transmitting them, in real time, to the authorities; intercepting any suspect aircraft; controlling military air traffic; participating in training for controllers; and conducting SAR (Search and Rescue) operations. The center allows France to strengthen its Permanent Posture of Security (PPS).
13 Dec 05. Demonstrating an affordable and proven capability to strengthen America’s port security, Raytheon Integrated Defense Systems (IDS) officials and Rhode Island legislative leaders recently commemorated the opening of the Athena Maritime Domain Awareness Fusion Center with a ribbon cutting ceremony. The Athena system fuses a large number of existing sensor data to provide
decision makers with the real-time maritime situational awareness they need
to enable quick, responsive actions to protect the country’s shoreline.
11 Dec 05. India’s information technology industry faces a shortfall of 500,000 professionals by 2010 threatening its dominance of global offshore IT-services, warns a report to be published this week by business consultancy McKinsey and Nasscom, India’s leading IT association. The prediction comes as multinationals, such as Microsoft and JPMorgan, increase their presence in the world’s largest offshore services industry, adding to labour-market pressures caused by a widening mismatch between the supply and demand for technology talent. The “war for talent” is one of the most striking signs of the success of India’s offshore IT sector. It expanded by about 30 per cent from 2003 to 2005 and is expected to grow by at least 25 per cent a year over the next five years, sustaining the county’s rapid economic growth. The surge is pa