Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Cross-Greenland Ski Trip Tracked with Google Maps

Posted by timothy on from the quick-before-it-melts dept.

notmartinfrobisher writes "Around Guardian Mobility offices we have been excited to support an exploratory ski trip across Greenland. Anne Marte Pensgaard is skiing across Greenland with only a friend and some husky dogs for company. She has been outfitted with one of our Tracer units which has a GPS receiver and send data to our backoffice through Globalstars Low-earth orbit satellite network. We're tracking her progress using Google Maps and using MyGMaps. to map multiple points onto Google Map's satellite imagery. When asked about her trip Anne Marte wrote: "Our expedition consist of two phases. This year we (Marit and myself and 12 greenland huskies) are going to find a passage into the inland ice (the icecap itself) where we will be able to bring all the dogs and our sledges up on the ice. We will start in Ilulissat on the west coast and then travel north.(around 70degrees N) How far north we will go this year depends on the conditions. Our main expedition will be a more than 1000 km trip from Ilulissat to Qaanaq (Thule Air Base) in the north, either in 2006 or in 2007." We provided her with a Tracer unit set up to wake up every 30 minutes but to transmit only when she has moved at least 200m, this way she won't have to worry about turning off the unit when she's camping at night. We'll be updating you on this exciting trip by posting maps of her current location every couple of days. Maps and satellite imagery are courtesy Google Maps."

6 of 101 comments (clear)

  1. Blatant Advertising by fourtyfive · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Gee that wasnt blatant advertisement at all. I mean Come on the article is on the same page as the company that sells the freakin GPS unit.

  2. Nice fuckin' slashvertisement, Timmy! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Holy shit, you're not even _trying_ to disguise these fuckin' things anymore, are ya? When did this turn into fuckin' "Ads for nerds, press releases that matter" anyhow?

    In conclusion, a hearty fuck you, and I hope you got a decent price for whatever was left of your journalistic integrity.

    1. Re:Nice fuckin' slashvertisement, Timmy! by prockcore · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Isn't pretty much everything posted to slashdot an advertisement?

      The latest gadgets, software, etc.

      The whole point of slashdot is to link to *other* people's sites. Does it matter if the owner of the site submitted it?

      Whenever we run a story that might interest the slashdot audience, we submit it. Whenever we run a strange or bizarre story, we submit it to fark.

      When linus posted his announcement on Linux 11 years ago, was he shamelessly exploiting newsgroups to advertise his project?

  3. Dirty secret by Maskirovka · · Score: 3, Insightful
    Anne Marte Pensgaard is skiing across Greenland with only a friend and some husky dogs for company.

    Two words:
    Emergency Rations

  4. Tracking by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    While this IS increadibly cool to do, and helps ensure arrival, etc..... But what happens when something like this becomes mainstream? Parents logging into thier gmail account and clicking "maps", and boom, there kids last known locations pops up on the screen. Updated from the cell phone, or something you can hide in a bag or something....

  5. where's the map to track her with? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    I see the links for the gps, but no links to anything actually showing her location, what the hell is going on? if your gonna spam us, at least give us something a bit interesting to click on.