Cross-Greenland Ski Trip Tracked with Google Maps

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."

Comments

Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

I had to use Google Maps to make it through that paragraph.

Who cares....

[Anonymous Coward]

Really... nothing to see here... hike along

Globalstar's coverage near the poles?

[_merlin]

I thought I read somewhere that because of the pitch of the GlobalStar satellites' orbits (they aren't quite polar), you get poor coverage near the poles. Or is this ski trip far enough from the pole to get good coverage.

Re:Globalstar's coverage near the poles?

[tylernt]

You appear to be correct, from the very bottom of this page: http://www.skycallcommunications.com/Coverage.html

Re:Globalstar's coverage near the poles?

[GileadGreene]

Not only is the Globalstar constellation design such that polar coverage is essentially non-existent (a Walker constellation IIRC), the service itself is only supported over major population areas (partly because that's where they thought their market was, and, IIRC, partly because they rely on ground-based relay stations). Despite the name, Globalstar really isn't global.

Your bets bet for truly global coverage is Iridium. It uses a streets-of-coverage style constellation that covers the polar areas, and uses inter-satellite links to relay calls so the service is available globally.

Blatant Advertising

[fourtyfive]

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.

Re:Blatant Advertising

[XorNand]

What's more, looks like the submitter created a /. account just to submit this story. ::rolls eyes::

The Slashdot helped cement the term "astroturfing" in the public vernacular back in the late 90's--the irony is so sharp it almost hurts. Just another example of how media placement has become the new norm on the 'net, since that whole advertising experiment didn't quite work out as expected.

Re:Blatant Advertising

[cdunworth]

Well, as long as we're just advertising in this thread....why not come by and try Earthcomber! (I'm one of the engineers there...)

We've built a free (as in beer) location finding utility with integrated mapping which runs on the PalmOS. Lets you mark spots out in the field (with or without GPS), then push them back to the mothership where you can share them with location-based interest groups in the Earthcomber Community area (think Yahoo Groups with maps). It's an early version, so we've got lots of issues (coverage area is US-only right now, our maps aren't the prettiest, the desired features list is a mile long, etc.).

And technically, you don't even need a Palm to use the interest groups -- we let you mark and view spots right on the web. But the Palm makes it cooler. You could use this to keep a travel log, go geocaching, start a group for great photography spots -- whatever you want. Come on by and let us know what you think. We'd love to get feedback from tech savvy users.

Regards,
-Chris

Someone should suggest that

[Mr Ambersand]

...to the president of Opera before he makes his big swim.

Re:Someone should suggest that

[fourtyfive]

I guess you didnt hear about this catastrophe... Dont ya hate it when the boat pops? Curiously it looks as if they were very close to shore... Like they hadn't left yet ;)

Dirty secret

[Maskirovka]

Anne Marte Pensgaard is skiing across Greenland with only a friend and some husky dogs for company.

Two words:
Emergency Rations

Re:Dirty secret

[flyingsquid]

Worked for Roald Amundsen. He gets criticized for that, but his plan to eat half his dogs meant his men and the other half of the dogs got back alive. Scott, on the other hand, killed his men because he didn't know what he was doing.

_Last Place on Earth_ tells the story (it's one of the best nonfiction books I've ever read). While it's pretty clear that the author has an axe to grind- he's very much an admirer of Amundsen and a detractor of Scott- from the facts he marshals, he makes a pretty strong case. Amundsen did everything possible to ensure victory; he had basically won before he even left camp. Scott did virtually everything he possibly could to ensure total failure. The guy even brought ponies to Antarctica. Thing is... ponies eat grass. And as you may have noticed, there's not a lot of that in Antarctica. Amundsen, on the other hand, knew what he was doing, because he learned from the world experts in arctic travel- the Eskimos.

Speeding

[mollyhackit]

I hope those skis aren't rentals, they could issue her a ticket based on this data.

Re:Tracking

[Hork_Monkey]

So kids get smarter about messing around...

It's been happening for generations.

This time though, the tinfoil hat might come in useful.

A giant leap for mankind

[LastNickAvailable]

Whow they used points on a map to track their progress ... What a mind blowing achievement!

I'm sorry but I can't find anything remotely interresting about this article.

What reason for the trip again?

[switcha]

we have been excited to support an exploratory ski trip across Greenland ... onto Google Map's satellite imagery.

Maybe I'm a numbskull, but with Google Maps, I've done a full exploratory trip around my neighborhood; sidewalks, backyards, the whole shebang. Why not just call this out as a "publicity stunt" instead of calling it "exploring" the same snow and ice you can look at on a computer in front of a cozy fire with a hot chocolate?

Tracking Daughters

[tgrigsby]

After reading that article, I turned to my daughter and solemnly informed her that before she can date, I will not only make sure her car as OnStar, but I will have one of these handy dandy GPS units surgically implanted in her hip. Then I can track her on Google maps. She asked, why both? Because the car might be where she says she's going to go, but her butt might be at the beach party I told her she couldn't attend. Better safe than sorry.

Re:Tracking Daughters

[Motherfucking Shit]

I will not only make sure her car as OnStar, but I will have one of these handy dandy GPS units surgically implanted in her hip. Then I can track her on Google maps.

So can I, so I say go for it... :)

Re:Tracking Daughters

[DaneelGiskard]

Good idea. And by having it implanted in her hip you can also extrapolate what she is doing, by monitoring her hips movement. Hell, you can even call her and point out that based on the speed of her hip's movement she should have had an orgasm by now.

That should definitely give her a lesson ;-)

Thank you.

Re:Nice fuckin' slashvertisement, Timmy!

[prockcore]

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?

This is ALSO very impressive...

[i_want_you_to_throw_]

This is my friend's site (also in the .sig). He begins an around the world bike trip in July for a documentary and he has built one hell of a mapping routine for his site.

He's using NASA's data and Perl.

Qaanaaq = TAB?

[qabi]

... from Ilulissat to Qaanaq (Thule Air Base) in the north ...

Qaanaaq isn't Thule Air Base, it's 180 km. away.

Thule Air Base is also called Pituffik.

Impressive area though. I wish these people the best of luck with their trip. It looks like they'll need it...

-qabi

Distortion at high latitudes

[kbmccarty]

Greenland is horribly distorted on the satellite images (it doesn't exist in the normal map view) due to the map projection used. Which brings up a pet peeve of mine -- why don't any of the online map companies convert to the most appropriate map projection for any given region? This shouldn't be too hard. It's very annoying to see the huge horizontal stretching distortions in maps of Alaska and Canada.

Re:MyGMaps

[follower-fillet]

More accounts are now available.

--Phil. (myGmaps.com developer)

Note: myGmaps is not a Google service.