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ExWeb proudly presents: Contact 4.0 GEO!

The new CONTACT 4 interactive multi-layered Flash map is updated direct via satellite. (Click to enlarge)

Viewers can zoom in on the camps and drag the image around for a closer look! Use the link below this story to try the various features.

Different layers with information can be turned on and off: This image shows a climbers daily altitude curve, layered over the camps. And here's the best part - the expedition/webmaster can add any layer (snow conditions, weather etc) of their own choice! (Click to enlarge)

The Flash maps are combined with the hottest web tech today - Ajax - resulting in all the action taking place on one page only - no boring reloads! (Click to enlarge)

Birth of Contact: Desperation is the mother of all invention. Our first trials took place on Everest and the South Pole, back when Iridium was bankrupt and PDA's unheard of. Instead, we were forced to use head mounted displays and text message satellites. (Click to enlarge)

Did you know? The first Contact customer was a blind climber! This image however by a later pioneer, who shot over the ONLY live pics of the wicked storm that wrecked 200 tents on Everest high camps in 2003. "We have now used Contact Software from Mt. Everest to Kazakhstan ... in today's world full of technology, easy of use is a huge consideration," he wrote. Image courtesy Scott Woolums, Adventure International. (Click to enlarge)

HET-staff continously test all new technology first hand: On Everest, the South Pole, the North Pole, the Oceans - and latest - on the Amazon river. Future explorers around the world join in. (Click to enlarge)

11:25 pm CST Feb 22, 2006
(HumanEdgeTech.com) When we introduced the new tech store a few months back, we promised to add extended power solutions, and to present cool customized systems such as multi-layer location maps. Solar Blazt hit the virtual shelves only last week, and today, time has come to present the brand new Contact 4.0 GEO: A customized system of multi-layer location maps in a one page user experience with seamless transitions.

After 6 months of 24/7 programming, the basic technology is done and get this - the new GEO will be all yours for 260 bucks.

Is it a blog? Is it a pod cast?

You have seen the dispatches, arriving from hundreds of expeditions around the world; ocean rowers, polar skiers and Himalayan climbers transmitting live from high camps - all using Contact technology. Although often their only option, it's not the only reason: Contact is actually more affordable than laptop/satphone/webpage solutions. PDAs and small power solutions are cheaper than laptop setups, while fast transmissions cut a lot of expensive airtime.

We often get questions from media about the Contact system. Is it a blog? Is it a pod cast? What is it - really? Last week an editor from a big American tech mag called us, asking; "how do you know it works?" Duh! The problem is that the beauty of Contact doesn't reveal itself until you use it - that's why explorers are so stoked about it after the expedition.

"A revolution," ruled polar ace skier Rune Gjeldnes and end last week we received another email - this time from a bunch of happy Venezuelans, just back home from the South Pole: "All the communication set: Iridium, PDA, contact 3 worked perfect!" read the message. No wonder, only a few years back, their dispatches would not have been possible.

Understanding Contact

To understand Contact, let's check what's available out there should you decide to take off on a remote expedition.

The explosion in expedition technology is often attributed to satellite phones. Yet a sat phone is just that - a phone, and a simple one at that. Unlike the latest 3G mobile phones, sat phones simply won't allow you to send dispatches, pictures, videos and positions. You need a computer to process the information.

So why not add a computer and use a free Blogging software? To begin with, you'll need a full-power laptop, and a regular connection. If you try to connect to a normal webserver via a slow satellite connection, you'll most often timeout. Should you be lucky to get through, you'll have to work online - at a cost 30 times that of Contact.

Blog software that will allow off-line editing (you will send your stuff in emails or FTP to the server and your files will get posted automatically on crude webpages and maps) are unavailable for PDA's and battle their own wars. And ftp over satellite is simply no easy task.

Pod cast?

So what about Pod casting - even NASA is using it from the shuttle after all? If you used iPod outside the shuttle in Space, it would fail. The PDA instead, would work. In order to use an iPod above camp 3 on Everest you'll have to travel in a pressurized chamber. The poor hard-drive of this MP3 player simply fails at altitude, as many Everest climbers learned the hard way on summit push .

Second, all an iPod can do is to store voice files. It can't transmit, process information or be connected to a sat phone. Pod casting from Everest simply means you'll record your message on the iPod, upload the voice file to your computer, connect to sat phone and send.

Better then to skip the gadgets altogether and send voice messages straight from your sat phone to simple web-based file publishing systems (included in Contact as a backup).

About Contact

So what to do if you are a high altitude or big wall climber, a polar skier, an ocean rower, a hunter or just anyone who need to move fast and travel light? What if you want to update video, voice, dispatches, and positions straight to your website without lugging a computer and huge power solutions around?

When we set out to create Contact, our vision was to develop the ultimate virtual reality for armchair warriors. The unique part is that the entire transmitting system is operated from a small PDA, hand held satphone and a solar panel that all fit in your pocket, integrated with software solutions using latest technologies, created by explorers - for explorers!

The central engine in the Contact 3.0 dispatch system is a custom made software designed to minimize time losses in sat com procedure. The software is built to safeguard reception of dispatches from the satellite networks, and operates from one of the world's most secure servers in Texas, US. The Contact server software is built to make efficient the entire process of transmission over slow connections. You won't be timed out.

Nothing like it

"Easy of use is a huge consideration," wrote an Everest climber who continues to use Contact world-wide. And here goes a plug by a Royal Navy communications manager on Everest:

"The majority of the support treks had little or no computer experience, with some even being computer phobic; the simplicity of Contact's layout and simple connectivity to our chosen communication devices both for the pda's and laptops came into it's own when instructional classes were held allowing easy simulation and then practical experience to be gained in no time at all."

Another unit of the Navy is using the tech on a current expedition to the Magnetic North Pole (check story on ThePoles.com today.) The testimonies go on and on.

Simple to use is the key. Try to email, ftp and upload images in the deathzone or floating on a freezing ice floe...no easy task. Contact was created exactly for situations like that.

The process takes place automatically and instantly - from your fingertip straight to your visitor, without long cords, Indian web technicians or Western webmasters involved. Post your nail biting dispatch on summit night and it will show that very minute - not the next morning after your webmaster woke up.

The interface is customized for extreme conditions (frozen fingers and confused brains). You'll type a few quick lines, add pic, position - and push send. In that very minute, your message is updated on a flash map that is truly interactive (more on that below).

The integrated hardware/software solution is 100% automated, it works everywhere, and is small enough to fit in your pocket. There's simple nothing like it in the world.

Introduction to the new Contact Maps, step 1 - checking what's out there

If you look at online expedition maps today, you'll routinely find one dimensional pictures with routes added by hand. Then there are the costly, ambitious projects (such as the Everest fly by map on Discovery a few years back or Steve Fossets recent Virgin flight). Although very cool - these maps are a passive user experience - much like TV. You can watch, but not really do anything - missing out on the very essence of internet.

What about the new Google maps then? Although great for urban areas, Google maps are painfully slow over vast areas such as the Atlantic Ocean (check the Woodvale event). Don't even try Everest or other mountains. The distorted images you'll find are only the beginning of the problem.

The new Contact system

The brand new Contact GEO system changes the scenario. Very affordable, truly interactive maps allow your armchair warriors and media to:

- Zoom in on your camp and positions
- Follow your route
- Switch on and off different layers of information such as history of reached altitudes (i.e. your stage of acclimatization)
- Apply real time satellite images (as we will show in our collaboration with the European Space Agency).

As locations on mountains are plotted in meters or feet instead of GPS positions (another reason why automated climbing positions on Google and other maps are not possible), we have created a tight grid for these areas where climbers are placed according to their route and current altitude. Inter-connected with the map are daily dispatches with pics, sound and video - the second part of the new Contact 4.0 upgrade.

As of February/March 2006 the new mapping technology is available for all PCs' (96% of world users), but will later be made available also for Mac (4% of users). This week we present Everest, next week North Pole goes up (with satellite overlays), and oceans are up after that.

The technical goal

When building the new Contact 4.0, our goal in terms of the technology was to reach a one page user experience with seamless transitions between information layers.

To achieve that, we have used two different technologies:

1. We built a map server in flash with an admin interface: Use the publisher to create your own map layers and change the look and feel of the user interface, without owning knowledge of flash or web programming!

2. We used Ajax technology for equally seamless transitions between present and historic dispatches.

The choice of Ajax allows for fast loading time and no webpage reloads. For the same reason (fast loading) we have restricted use of Flash only to flash superior features in interactive movies.

The result is an intelligent, interactive communication system for explorers and other people on the move. Fast, easy and cheap to use over slow satellite connections, it also loads quickly on the internet.

Add only a PDA, a sat phone and the cool, new foldable solar panel - and get out there!

Everest demo try it out here

The Everest map is created from classic Everest pictures by the legendary Bradford Washburn. The maps are treated and projected on 3D models of the mountain by Swiss scientists. CONTACT 3.0 brings it all together with interactive positioning systems.