Feedit-global - feed the need!.

Just say theoretically you were going on a remote area expedition and needed to take an anvil with you. A good place to buy your anvil would be from the German Ernst Refflinghaus who makes them.

Speaking to Ernest you would likely say: Ernst, can I buy one of your anvils?” And he would likely say “Ja”.

That would pretty well wrap up the conversation because anvils are very simple.

So what about Pod casting; even NASA is using it from the Shuttle? If you used an iPod outside the Shuttle in space, it would fail. The PDA instead, would work. One consideration in terms of high altitude use is that in order to use an iPod you'll have to travel in a pressurized chamber and this has proven to be inconvenient. Also the hard-drive of a MP3 player often simply fails at altitude as many people have learned the hard way.

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 at high altitude simply means you'll record your message on the iPod, upload the voice file to your computer, connect to Sat Phone and send.

The better alternative would be to skip the gadgets altogether and send voice messages straight from your Sat Phone to simple web-based file publishing systems (which by the way is 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 needs 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 HET set out to create Contact, their vision was to develop the ultimate virtual reality experience for everyone else who is not on the expedition.

For a Himalayan expedition you’d need to be outfitted with HET’s 7-Summits Package which includes a GEO-equipped, satellite-phone-compatible iPaq PDA; an Iridium satellite phone, a Sony Cyber-Shot digi-cam and all cables and chargers that are needed; the entire setup weighs about 1.5kgs and to buy costs about US$3,000.

Henrik Marik, the chief programmer at HET says: "It's not a big deal to transmit images from Everest" and additionally the use of the Contact system eliminates the need for very expensive satellite stations at base camp.

Another huge factor is that this system eliminates the need to take laptops as they are comparatively heavy, have rotating hard drives and are usually bloody fragile. Also communication often drops out, a problem that is eliminated because of HET’s dedicated server.

The beauty is that after transferring data from the camera to the PDA, the expeditioner simply types a headline and text into the e-mail-like interface,  attaches the images, date and GPS position and hits "submit." And seconds later, the data uploads on the expedition's website.

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 dispatch and it will upload that very minute and not the next morning after your webmaster wakes up.

And additionally, with Contact Maps there are none of those dimensional pictures with routes added by hand or the costly, ambitious projects like pilot Steve Fosset’s Virgin flight. While pretty impressive, these maps are a passive user experience much like watching TV. You can watch but not really do anything which misses out on the very essence of the internet.