Project: DVPro&tm; Fleet Management System Software
See the Rosco Dual Vision Website for more information

Rosco, a leading provider of mirrors for a wide range of commercial vehicles, including trucks, buses, vans and specialty vehicles decided to expand their product line to “In Vehicle” recording equipment. A small device mounted on the dashboard of a commercial vehicle, enables the recording of front and back video, GPS location, speed and G-Shock information as the vehicle is moving. Data is recorded to an SD card which can be removed for playback and archiving.

Working with this NY based company, the 408 Group implemented a desktop cataloging system and player which enables fleet operators  to monitor multiple drivers and vehicles , and archive and report incidents. Integrated with GPS, Shock, Speed and Panic Sensors the software provides a range of instrument readouts to show driver locations, speed, accidents, and rough driving.

Technologies Used:

C# .NET, Windows Presentation Foundation, H264 video decoding, SQLite

Elements:
Architecture, Database, Video Compression

• A large web sites containing thousands of documents
• An Electronic Teachers Guide for a major High School Biology Curriculum
• A routing application for the NYC Department of Homeless Services
• A video cataloging system for an in vehicle recording system

Project
www.foundationscience.org

Foundation Science is a comprehensive high school science curriculum being developed by EDC’s Center for Science Education with funding from the National Science Foundation. Foundation Science comprises four full-year introductory courses in chemistry, physics, biology, and earth science.  Because the curriculum addresses national science standards (AAAS, MCREL, and NRC), students using these materials will be well prepared for advanced science courses.

408 Group has developed the electronic teachers guide for the biology section of the curriculum. The site includes an electronic reader for the textbook, a notes builder for teachers to use in lesson planning, and a research tool to tie key concepts to Google searches.

Technologies Used:

PHP, MySQL, JavaScript, JQuery, HTML.

 Elements:

Architecture, Database, AJAX

Project:  
ifar.org

The International Foundation for Art Research (IFAR) is a not-for-profit educational and research organization dedicated to integrity in the visual arts. IFAR offers impartial and authoritative information on authenticity, ownership, theft, and other artistic, legal, and ethical issues concerning art objects.

408 Group working with Behavior Design developed a comprehensive content management system to catalog and retrieve thousands of complex documents relating to international art law. We created an searchable online database of Catalogues Raisonnés for hundreds of major artists.The site is browsable through a number of content hierarchies as well as searchable using full text search.

Technologies Used:
PHP, MySQL, Google Checkout and Lucene Full Text Search.

Elements:
Architecture, Content Management, Content Management System with Workflow, Database, E-commerce / Shopping Cart, Full Text Search, User Personalization.

Project:  
www.tutopia.com

Tutopia, a division of IFX Networks, wanted to create a portal for Latin America on the lines of a My Yahoo. The portal would serve as the starting point to the internet highlighting local and international information.

We created a highly scalable technical architecture to handle user personalization, dynamic content and high demand. This was accomplished with an extensively redundant design that allows the site to run on multiple servers simultaneously.

A number of feeds were incorporated from news services and other syndicated content providers such as currency rates, weather and entertainment.

Users could personalize their home page for city and interests, and could perform full text searching across multiple domains such as articles, news, listings for restaurants, entertainment, hotels and more.

We developed an extensive, custom content entry and management system that allows concurrent entries by multiple authors, in different countries.

We deployed the site including functional testing and load testing. Extensive load testing was performed to assure that the site met the high-capacity requirements.

(Tutopia.com has discontinued this strategy and now offers an augmented ISP service.)

Technologies Used:
ASP, COM, MS SQL Server, XML, Content Management, Windows, DT Search.

Elements:
Adaptive Interface uses click-stream for individualized views, Content Management System with Workflow, Data replication, Feeds for syndicated news and other services, Full Text Search, Portal, Relational Database, Scalability, User Personalization.

Project:  

Merrill Lynch is one of the world’s leading financial management and advisory companies. With 60,000 employees needing access to information on benefits, personal information, holiday schedules, corporate policies, corporate forms, 3rd party forms and over 1700 HR documents in seven languages, Merrill Lynch needed a way to reduce the workload of the Human Resources Department.

We built a Portal that made it quicker and easier for employees to get the information and forms they needed without resorting to personal assistance.

A highly personalized view was dynamically created for each employee, presenting key information, documents and forms they use the most. This view was created based on term of service, type of employment, country of employment, business unit and language spoken. In addition a full text search of the site was provided through the integration of an Oracle Intermedia search engine.

We created a Vignette Story Server content management system to enable the HR staff to publish new materials to the site without any technical knowledge. A noteworthy feature of the content management system is that it allowed the author to specify multiple ways to navigate to the content being posted. The content management system also included an advanced workflow feature that assured compliance with requirements for multiple levels of approval before an article was published.

To get the site up and running quickly, we provided scripts to automate the conversion and reformatting of numerous existing documents making them compatible in with the new site structure. The scripts worked with multiple, document formats and included a testing routine to ensure the accuracy of the conversion.

The HR Portal was architected to integrate with the internal Merrill Lynch IT security infrastructure and was certified for compliance with security policy.

Technologies Used:
Oracle 7.x db, Vignette Story Server, Solaris, Oracle Intermedia search engine

Elements:
Content Management System with Workflow, Full Text Search, Information Architecture, Intranet, Multilanguage capability, Portal, Relational Database, Scalability, Security, User Personalization.

Project:  

liveuniverse.com was created by Rare Medium, one of the top website and intranet development agencies, wanted to expand their business holdings and add a new revenue stream through an advertising-supported, community portal site. The site allowed users to create and manage their own services such as: email, list servers, chat rooms, and discussion boards.

We provided a technical architecture for the site, creating an easily extensible framework that allowed for substantial personalization and easy addition of services. We integrated software and services from a variety of 3rd party providers, maintaining a unified look and feel.

This line of business was discontinued.

Technologies Used:
Java, JSP, MySQL, Linux.

Elements:
Community, Portal, Relational Database, Scalability, User Personalization.

Project:  
www.nyc.gov/finance

The Mobile Property Tax Assessment Pilot Project is designed to evaluate the effectiveness of assessors’ use of hand-held devices to support their field activities using Windows Mobile Handheld Computers. Assessors have a full set of tax parcel maps and property data for the five boroughs of New York City loaded on their devices. The pilot project was funded by a grant from the New York State Office of Real Property Services. The piloted solution was jointly developed by the New York City Department of Finance (Property Division & Finance Information Technology),the CUNY Center for Urban Research, and 408 Group. The Department of Finance is evaluating the results of the pilot project for potential expansion to its entire field assessment team.

Technologies Used:
ESRI Arc Server, ESRI Mobile ADF, ESRI ArcMap

Elements:
Database, Information Architecture, Relational Database.