New Uses for GIS: Metrology

Maybe this is not news, but it’s news to me. The acquisition of FabSolve LLC by semiconductor yield management and manufacturing equipment provider KLA-Tencor Corp tipped me off. In an article about the aquisition is this:

“FabSolve’s geographical information systems (GIS) database structure as applied to integrated circuit (IC) design databases is used as a reference for accurately locating and classifying defects that otherwise might avoid classification using traditional methods,” [FabSolve President Paul] Proctor also said.

FabSolve is actually a development partner with a Vietnam-based GIS releated business.

So, what’s metrology? The science of measurement. (I have to look it up every time!)

- EDN

TomTom Patent on Augmented Reality for Nav

GPS Business News (free subscription required) reports that TomTom is moving into the realm of virtual reality with a new patent, “Navigation device with camera-info”, the European patent number WO2006132522” (Dec 2006). The key idea:

By superimposing or combining navigation directions over a camera image, a user-friendly view is presented to the driver that allows easy and rapid interpretation.

Ludovic Privat notes that TomTom recently acquired Siemens VDO DCE (Development Centre Eindhoven) which has research interest in this area. But, he’s not optimistic we’ll see anything like this soon.