Wayland, MA, 28 July 2010. The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC®) recently concluded the OGC Web Services, Phase 7 (OWS-7) Testbed initiative. Interoperability architectures, enhancements to existing OGC standards, and candidate standards developed in the testbed for sensors, video change detection, database synchronization, information cataloguing, web processing services, event architecture and aviation will be presented in a 2 hour webinar. The webinar will start at 10:00 pm US EDT on August 19, 2010 for the Asia/Australia time zones, and at 10:00 am US EDT on September 8, 2010 for the North America/Europe time zones. For information and registration, see http://www.opengeospatial.org/event/ows7webinars .

The OGC has also issued a call for sponsors for the upcoming OGC Web Services, Phase 8 (OWS-8) Testbed. OWS-8 will build on OWS-7 and explore new requirements in areas such as data fusion, augmented reality, cloud computing, security architecture, aeronautical information systems, and compliance testing. Activities will address interoperability in emergency management, homeland security, defense, Earth observation, transport, logistics, e-commerce and other domains.

Potential sponsors are invited to a planning meeting on 12 August 2010 in the Washington, DC area to review OGC standards, discuss OWS-7 results and document OWS-8 requirements. Attendance does not constitute a commitment to sponsor OWS-8. Sponsor and participant commitment will be solicited in a subsequent Request for Quotation / Call for Participation (RFQ/CFP).

The OGC is also seeking partnerships with other Standards Development Organizations to develop sponsorship of the OWS-8 Testbed.

If your organization is interested in this initiative, contact David Arctur at darctur@opengeospatial.org or George Percivall at gpercivall@opengeospatial.org.

OGC testbeds, pilot projects and interoperability experiments are part of OGC's Interoperability Program, a global, hands-on collaborative prototyping program designed to rapidly develop, test and deliver proven candidate specifications into OGC's Specification Program, where they are formalized for public release.

The OGC® is an international consortium of more than 395 companies, government agencies, research organizations, and universities participating in a consensus process to develop publicly available geospatial standards. OGC Standards empower technology developers to make geospatial information and services accessible and useful with any application that needs to be geospatially enabled. Visit the OGC website at http://www.opengeospatial.org/contact/.