June 21, 2011

By Stephen Regenold

The sailboat bobbed in swells, our view to land obscured by a thick fog. It was early one morning this spring, and I was sailing along the Californian coastline en route from San Francisco to LA. Beyond cell-phone range, and out of touch with the world, I woke up my iPhone and started to type.

Moments later a simple communiqué was being sent around the Earth -- "Sailing this week! Off coast of Calif." -- and with it a notation of my precise place on the planet: 34.00024 latitude, -118.76839 longitude. Further, a link appeared with the message, which was seen on Facebook and Twitter, where anyone interested could click to zoom to a Google map and view in real-time my position in the Pacific Ocean swells.

For the full blog post, click here.