In the future, you'll be able to "TiVo" your vacation

By Sean O'Neill
October 3, 2012
blog_jonathanharrispoptech_original.jpg
Courtesy <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/poptech2006/1636793222/" target="_blank">Pop!Tech/Flickr</a>

Digital cameras continue to shrink in both size and weight year after year. Clever people are coming up with inventive uses for the smaller devices, especially for travel.

For instance, visual artist Jonathan Harris developed a creative way to record his nine-day whale-hunt in Barrow, Alaska, in 2007. He snapped 3,214 photographs in five-minute intervals. His camera snapped images even while he slept, with the assistance of an automated photo-taking device called a chronometer. After his trip, he put the photos together into an online slide show. See the result by visiting his website. "The Whale Hunt."—and don't hesitate to just click around to your favorite parts, skipping the rest.

The equipment Harris used two years ago was expensive and cumbersome, but manufacturers are making new cameras that are cheaper and more versatile. Pretty soon, you may be able to buy a camera that lets you perform a similar trick to Harris's. A company called Metascopic is developing a "wearable," lightweight, still-image digital camera that will let you record tens of thousands of pictures a day. The images will be high-resolution and wide-angle, according to a presentation recently given by the company to a panel with technologist Kevin Kelly.

The advantage of taking so many images is that whenever there's a priceless moment—such as an encounter with a street performer, a cute animal, or a meteor shower—you can rest assured that the moment will be captured because your camera will be perpetually, noiselessly snapping away.

High-speed software will let you quickly fast-forward through the recording of your vacation (or wedding, workday, or whatever else you wish to record). Find the precious moment, and clip it out to share it.

In other words, you'll be able to "TiVo" your vacation.

Post images of your favorite moments online. Turn it into a mini-video (such as an audio slide show, with your voice-over narrating events). Then, your friends will be able to "annotate" your video clip by posting their comments on it, perhaps using a technology recently purchased by Google and added to selected YouTube videos in a trial period.

What do you think? Would you like to have a "perpetual camera" snapping fleeting moments from your vacation?

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