3D Immersive Web Experience Engages Users with Earth’s Environment

(Silver Spring, MD and Denver, CO) – February 11, 2008 – EffectiveUI, an interactive design and development firm that specializes in rich Internet applications (RIAs), and Discovery Channel today announced the launch of Earth Live, discovery.com/discoveryearthlive,
a three-dimensional, immersive web experience that enables people to engage with environmental data in real time. Earth Live provides unique insights into the state of the planet by enabling users to visualize the impact scientific data has on environmental phenomenon including global climate change, deforestation and polar melting.
 
“People hear about climate control every day, but it's challenging to visualize the impact it has on the environment,” said Randy Rieland, senior vice president, Digital Media, Discovery Channel.  “With Earth Live, we wanted to create a compelling application where people can engage with environmental data in real time.  For example, consumers will see changes in water temperatures or chemical emissions over time, and be able to obtain reports from scientists from all over the world. From the beginning, EffectiveUI understood what we were trying to convey and together we’ve developed a truly informative and engaging experience.”
 
Earth Live visually delights users in educational and informative ways by enabling them to share, collaborate, and easily interact with multiple layers of scientific data from government agencies, including National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA). Through rapid 3D rendering, new data layers will be added to the application on a regular basis, allowing users to follow the course of storms in real time and track how increasing temperatures at the earth’s polar ice caps threaten to raise sea levels.
 
“Our collaboration with Discovery Channel on Earth Live reinforces our commitment to providing powerful customer experiences through interactive and innovative content,” said Anthony Franco, president, EffectiveUI. “The Earth Live application not only connects individuals and communities to important environmental issues in visually exciting ways, it puts huge amounts of scientific data into everybody’s hands in a format that is easy to understand.”
 
Built on Adobe® Flex® technology—a free, open-source framework for building and maintaining expressive RIAs that run on all major browsers, desktops, and operating systems— Earth Live encourages users to easily and playfully interact with information by turning data overlays on and off, and by combining them in fascinating ways. Earth Live promotes a global sense of community by allowing users to share, collaborate, and inform by embedding Earth Live widgets into blogs and social networking pages, including MySpace and Facebook. Earth Live also produces weekly state-of-the-planet podcasts and provides users with the ability to forward 3D visualizations to friends.
 
“EffectiveUI used Adobe Flex software to create a truly innovative, high-performance RIA for people to interact and learn about today’s global issues,” said Tim Buntel, senior product manager, Adobe Flex at Adobe. “The Earth Live application from Discovery Channel and EffectiveUI demonstrates how immersive RIAs revolutionize the way people engage with their world through the web.”
 
About EffectiveUI
EffectiveUI is an award-winning provider of rich Internet applications (RIAs) that maximize business performance while offering compelling interactive experiences. Focused on user-centric design and application development, EffectiveUI helps today’s most respected brands—including eBay, NBC Universal, Discovery Communications, Dow Jones, and Adobe—deliver exceptional online experiences and results. For more information and examples of EffectiveUI’s work, please visit www.effectiveui.com.
 
About Discovery Communications
Discovery Communications is the world’s number-one nonfiction media company reaching more than 1.5 billion cumulative subscribers in over 170 countries.  Discovery empowers people to explore their world and satisfy their curiosity through 100-plus worldwide networks, led by Discovery Channel, TLC, Animal Planet, Science Channel, Investigation Discovery and HD Theater, as well as leading consumer and educational products and services, and a diversified portfolio of digital media services including HowStuffWorks.com.  Discovery Communications is owned by Discovery Holding Company (NASDAQ: DISCA, DISCB), Advance/Newhouse Communications and John S. Hendricks, Discovery's founder and chairman. For more information, please visit www.discoverycommunications.com.

• AJAXWorld Keynote Speaker on the Risks and Rewards of RIAs