If you happened to be present at a rock concert recently, you probably noticed many people in the audience holding their phones up in the air and filming the show. This phenomenon, which has become very common in our time, will seem very strange to future generations, as in their time no one will have to hold a phone up in order to document any part of their life - it will be done automatically for them by hovering micro drones.
The history of documentation Ever since the days of the caveman, people have been documenting themselves and their surroundings. We can't control it - the eagerness to document everything seems to be an inherent part of our human nature.
The oldest evidence for human documentations are drawings painted on cave walls from about 40,000 years ago. As civilization evolved, more sophisticated techniques to document our lives were invented: In 1839 it was first camera, in 1895 it was the first motion picture and in 1975 the first digital camera was developed.
But the greatest documentation revolution is happening right now. The entry of smartphones with high quality cameras into our lives has enabled each and every one of us to document anything we like at any given time, and even to share it instantly via social media.
The rise of the drones
During the last two decades, a new gadget is starting to enter our life - the mini quadcopter drone. The quadcopter drone is a Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV), which as its name suggests, uses four turning rotors in order to hover in the air.
The quadcopter drone uses a three axis gyro technology that enhances its stability and allows it to move easily and smoothly in all axes. This ability, along with its low production costs, had made this device very poplar recently in a variety of application - from militarily to leisure.
The popularity of drones today is incomprehensible: Thousands of new drones are sent into the air each day, and the trend is constantly growing. Several months ago, Google presented its UAV air traffic control platform - a system that is meant to guide a massive volume of airborne drones and keep them from crashing into buildings, people or each other.
The documenting drones
In May 2015, a company named Lily Robotics introduced a revolutionary drone called Lily Camera. It was a quadcopter equipped with a GPS and with special vision technology that enabled it to record still photos and video of users autonomously via a wearable tracking device - a small bracelet that the user needed to wear on his wrist.
The idea was groundbreaking. People from all around the world got exited from the idea of having some sort of a private flying photographer that follows you wherever you go. The company received approximately 60,000 pre-orders for the product, collecting over $34 million in pre-sale revenue!
Lily Robotics eventually failed to deliver of this product, refunded all of it customers and announced bankruptcy. Nevertheless, the seeds were planted and it was not long before many other companies answered the challenge and tried to deliver an autonomous filming drone.
Today, there are several similar products that you can actually purchase including Hover Camera, DJI Spark, Airdog, PowerEgg Drone, the recent interesting kick-starter campaign Pitta and more.
Solving the battery issue One of the main limitations of the drones is their relatively short battery life, which usually doesn't exceed 20 or 30 minuses at most. While this may seem like a glass ceiling for these drones' capabilities, one company has found an interesting solution for this problem:
Instead of using one drone, the product of H3 dynamics includes several drones that replace each other continuously, so that if the battery runs on one drone, another one will take its place while the first goes into a charging area. This smart solution actually allows the drones to be active and provide their service 24/7.
Drones vs glass
Many people believe that the future of documentation will be based on first person perspective via smart glasses such as Google Glass, or smart contact lenses like the ones presented in the TV series Black Mirror. Nevertheless, autonomous drone have several significant advantages over these optical gadgets:
Drones can produce a stable video image - in most cases, first person video footage will contain unpleasant shaking and vibrations.
Drones can provide photos and videos that include the user him\herself. with glasses and contact lenses, one can only document others.
Drones can better handle batteries - while drones can address battery issues by replacing one another, as mentioned before, the battery life of smart glasses remains limited.
Drones don't require the user to wear anything special on their face - many people don't like the idea of wearing glasses, let alone contact lenses.
The documenting drones of the futures
In the future, we can expect drones to become cheaper and smaller. If today there are already filming drones smaller in size than a human hand, future drones will probably shrink to the size of a small bug or maybe even smaller than that.
In the future, there will probably be there main types of documenting drones:
Private drones - drones that will be used by individual people who wish to document themselves and others
Government drones - drones that will bee used by government bodies and municipal services like the army, the police, or the fire department.
Commercial drones - these drones will be used by private companies that offer videos and photos taken by them to whoever is willing to pay. A bit like today's professional photographers, but at a much greater scale.
Soon enough, these drones are going to be an inseparable part of our life. At any given moment, millions (or even billions) of drones will be flying around, filming us and constantly uploading all of this captured data to internet. Face recognition technology will allow people to automatically find new photos and videos of themselves, and to then determine what will be showcased on their social network profiles.
Say goodbye to privacy
Maintaining our privacy is going to be much more challenging task in the future. While today we are already being constantly filmed by satellites and street cameras, soon dozens of drones will be documenting each and every one of us throughout our day.
There will probably be some regulations regarding filming people against their will, but in practice this will be something that is very difficult to enforce. All of us will have to get used to the idea of being watched and filmed all the time - a bit like been a celebrity.
In conclusion
The rise of the drones is probably another inevitable stage of the IoT and social network revolutions that are sweeping the world. Soon enough, a huge swarm of micro-drones will get into the air and start filming everything. One thing is for sure - if the human race will one day destroy itself, it will be well documented.