Tag Archives: GoPro

November 22, 2022 · 06:51

The arms race

It sounds weird, but whenever I see two brands fight each other for market I think of the old arms race (when Russian equipment allegedly worked). In this war it is GoPro Hero versus DJI Osmo and would you have it, a man named Matt Gonzalez posted one really good review putting both against one another. Now two things I like about it was the neutral flavour of the review. He was giving both sides a fair chance and gave what he thought mattered. The review called ‘GoPro Hero 11 VS DJI Osmo Action 3 – DON’T MAKE A MISTAKE’ (at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNHWjUXxtHs) is excellent. For me the GoPro won, but there was another side that Matt was unaware of. You see he gave you correctly the information, but in Australia the two differ by a mere $10, and at that point the larger sensor by GoPro owns the entire field in my personal opinion. DJI had a few other things that worked in their favour, like the touch screen front display and the ease of their connector (magnetic), yet I personally come from the world of photography and a larger sensor is a massive advantage in my mind. Their are a few more advantages, but as he states, it is a personal choice in the end and he is correct. Because he is on the fence, not taking a side this review is much better than some other comparing reviews and it is well appreciated. I have been looking at the GoPro Hero 11, especially if things go my way, and I have been smitten by all these walkthrough videos, yet the idea of having a GoPro is enticing for a few ways. It was also the stage where we hear that not much changed, but for a player like Google (or Amazon) a lot changes. When we consider that these videos also get advertisement, the idea of a software solution that can identify the video, the location, map it out and have advertising that connects to that specific street is one that is currently not completely researched. Deeper machine learning opens that field for more directed advertising, optionally opens the pricing. You see 5G will take localisation and personalisation to higher levels and thousands of walkthrough videos that allow for inserting advertising that is not merely to the point, but also to the place and to the interest of the watcher will take the forefront and it will be sooner rather than later. Consider merely this video where GoPro and/or DJI could appal to the 61,000 subscribers. Or perhaps a London Walking tour video with 331,000 subscribers and most likely at least twice as much watchers. These number work and I am merely pointing at TWO video’s. So, yes there is a market no and there will be a much larger market soon enough. You only have to wait for the 2024 Paris Olympics when thousands more videos will hit YouTube, and I have no idea how much TikTok will get, but I feel certain that they are already on board. But perhaps just like the $6 billion I found players like Google, they will fret that it is not enough, too small a find. Of course when you see ‘Google Reports Slowest Revenue Growth In Nearly 10 Years’ where we see “$69.09 billion vs. $70.58 billion expected” my $6,000,000,000 which is merely the lower estimate going for a lot more was not that much, it was a mere 402% of the total annual margin of profit, so I think I have something and now we see the stage of additional advertisement revenue. OK, I am not stating that the second part is a given, I am merely stating that this is a path a place like Google could entertain. And with the walkthrough videos they can test and experiment, when Paris 2024 comes with their tens of thousands of videos it will become lost opportunity. But then perhaps like the Russian weapons side, the Google engineers have become a little too flaccid, they cannot entertain that race in innovation. I cannot tell, I was never that kind of engineer. I still feel strong about the solution that can put any Russian reactor in meltdown mode. But that is me, always skating the edge of innovation, even when I am not wanted there. But as I see it, I am sitting on IP that gives Google (or Amazon) $6 billion plus so there!

In the end this was about GoPro versus DJI and that is still the case, they have opened up markets and that will continue in other ways too. You see, I watched a dozen over the last week and NONE of those videos gave me a travel agency advertisement that traveled to THAT location, you still think my idea is in the air? If someone watches a travel video to a greek island, d you want to see an advertisement to a car, or to a travel agent? What would have the best impact? You tell me, it is not a race I am in, but I am seeing it happen like all the other watchers.

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November 10, 2022 · 22:40

The other white meat

Yes, you heard the phrase but do you know the origin? It comes from an advertising slogan developed by advertising agency Bozell, Jacobs, Kenyon & Eckhardt in 1987 for the National Pork Board. The campaign was paid for using a checkoff fee (tax) collected from the initial sale of all pigs and pork products, including imports. The slogan has stuck in a few ways, but the slogan was hammering me tonight and it took a while for me to figure out what the back of my head was mulling over. For this we need to take a sidestep. I have been considering the GoPro Hero 11 and as soon as the next pay-check comes in, I might get me one. The numbers that we are given are “The number of GoPro devices shipped worldwide has been decreasing since its peak of 6.58 million units in 2015, to around 3.15 million units in 2021”, some short sighted people will think that it is a declining population and you would be really wrong. You see at this point people are still using the GoPro Hero 4, they aren’t updating. It does everything they need it to do and these users are happy. But the short of it is that well over 10,000,000 filmers are making all kinds of movies, some action, some self centred and a lot of them are walk-around videos. There are thousands made and hundreds are addd on a daily basis. All uploaded to YouTube and TikTok. And there is the gem. Thousands of films filled with open source intelligence all out there and the one who can turn these films into facts is sitting on a treasure. You see we see how fictive people like Jason Bourne are avoiding CCTV and some people are actually doing this. But they cannot hide from the lonely walker with a camera, they often do not see this backpacker or tourist and there we end up with a load of information. Now 97% will be useless, but it is that 3% that gives value to the app that would be made. You might think that it is a waste of time, and for a lot of people it is. Yet the intelligence community see these solutions as diamonds in the rough. Both sides make a case and it is not about privacy, it is not about personal rights. It is about finding terrorists and it is already hard enough as it is, to leave a source unused is utter madness. Oh and do not think I have a great idea. I am 100% certain that others have had it to, it is merely the option for more people to create intelligence apps that is an essential need. It was the GoPro Hero 10 that inspired me to alter one of my IP to specifically help out real estate, yet for the most that is merely a hardware application. In the field Business Intelligence needs a boost and getting sliceable and dice-able data that they can work with will soon be the best next thing. Getting data from large cities is often hard enough and these films will not completely do it, but the idea that 12-30 movies in one week gives the data firm a top-line stage for a place like Manhattan or London is not out of the question. They are merely the most visible places but not the only ones and it is that drive that Business Intelligence needs. With too many fake accounts on social media, that source is becoming less and less stable, but a GoPro walk around video is a different matter. That is data that is easily verified as authentic and could give the researchers a top-line result that could be the starting point of a market research. 

So, I leave it to the programers to analyse a film and see what they can get from it. Good luck!

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October 9, 2022 · 23:51

Beyond the nightmare

Yes, there is always a beyond the nightmare side. I was watching two things. Earlier today I watched a dreadful video, the voices were out of synch and that was the best part of the video. Then later I rewatched the second Downton Abbey movie, yes the one with the France scenes and the camera crews. And it also took me back to the movie Singing in the rain. Then it occurred to me, there are so many silent movies, so many examples. As such I am a little surprised that Adobe and the other players do not have an assortment of training materials where any Vlogger could train precision in sound insertion. It is a simple exercise and the people would have some sound dialogue but after that it would become their own materials. It could open all kinds of new materials and with the millions of GoPro Hero 10 and now GoPro Hero 11 out there, there is a pressing need for them to up their materials, to differ from the average vlogger. And as I was seeking, I saw nothing out there, or at least way too little. So why aren’t some considering what is needed, what some need and why they aren’t covering it? I want to say ‘Do I have to do everything?’ But the reality is that I cannot be the only one thinking this. I do wonder when we will see the storm-flood of new, larger and higher quality vlogs. Now there are plenty of really good vlogs out there, but we can never have enough high quality vlogs, now can we? 

As such Sunday is drawing to a close (it’s 23:49), as such Monday morning is a mere 600 seconds away.

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September 6, 2022 · 04:54

Famous last words

The title is not a conundrum. I am listening to all the albums of Supertramp, Famous last words is one of their albums. I cannot say if the album pushed for the events coming, or the events that I am planning to take gave me the idea to listen to all the Supertramp albums. You tell me. But over the next month I will do something I never expected to do and as such I will not tell you this now. It would be like the butterfingered man telling the crowd ‘Watch this’ and there he drops the mine that he was going to use to give a presentation. The results were ugly to begin with and the man did not survive it. I have nothing this weird planned, but it could lead to social suicide. You see the actor John Barrowman (most likely) and his lack of understanding nuance (as well as basic knowledge of Game of Thrones)  gave me the idea, or at least the insight that at times being intelligent will not matter, people will think what they think no matter hoe the clear facts are pressed into their faces. We can argue that Jack Dorsey and his Twitter are the second part in this act. But about that more later (decently later). 

It all came to blows (within my mind) when I was contemplating ‘famous last words’, the album, not the act. One of their songs is C’est Le Bon, a song I loved for the longest times. In the song you get:

I’m watching the movie go down
Around, about me
I’m watching the merry-go-round
Go down about me. 

You see, when is enough enough? This is a question with a larger stage attached to it. This thought came to me as I was considering the sense of a GoPro Hero 11. Yes it will have some additions, new modes and new resolutions, but it is so stepwise. It matters even more as the GoPro Hero 10 is as close as perfect as anything any competitor could hope to offer. A merry-go-round of products to appease a consumer that does not know what it wants. To appease a consumer that uses 10% of what this product offers (at best) and whilst they all want to make the video’s like GoPro releases with themselves in the starring role. The truth of the matter is that these films are made and enhanced by people with close to a decade of film school experience. It feels like it is it own version of ‘Watch this’ without any dread, a presentation hammered and perfected over 4-7 years with all the previous models in the mind-cast of the consumers. Now, let be clear GoPro did nothing wrong, they are not deceiving you and they are not making you shell out your money, you are doing that yourself. Why go for the new model when the current one is so close to perfect? Why get another version of more modes and more resolutions? The current model gives you 5.3K at 60fps and 4K up to 120fps for slow-motion. A rumoured ‘improvement’ is 480fps 1080p slo-mo capture. And that is also the problem, we still see all these rumours of a camera that is released this month, it would be shipping at present, so the rumours are optionally correct, but why is the whole range of new stuff not out in the open at present? The edge of seat marketing is over, or so I believe it is and this implies that the Hero 11 has little new to offer, and that is OK. The Hero 10 is as close to perfect as a camera this size could ever hope to be. So, why not release the Hero 11 in 2023? It is a fair enough question. Only the Hero fetish people want something like this now. I would support it to some degree if the additions were released by GoPro ahead of schedule, is it? 

The consumer merry-go-round is a dangerous toy to rely on, consumers are fickle and the stronger anti Hero YouTubers could hammer down sales quickly enough and they reach hundreds of thousands close to free of charge. As such the ‘Watch this’ marketing approach should be dead, but it is not, and it is not for all the wrong reasons. 

As I personally see it there are two waves. The “Watch This” marketing and its anti group doing the opposite and the second team has a field day when the first team does not have enough innovations to show and at present GoPro has close to none. I do not mean this negatively, over the last few years GoPro showed so much more and such a large bundle of innovative action filming that it boggles the mind, it really does. And now? Now we see all these elements melt together and in the end the consumer loses, or it merely loses its mind. I am not sure which of the two is worse.

So whilst GoPro is about to release a new flavour of the same, I am about to launch a stage that has never been done before, a stage that hopefully changes everything, but to be honest I have no idea how it plays out, but I do know that plenty of wannabe’s and power-players will not like what I am about to do. But it has become essential to change the game-play so that some are flushed into the limelight. It to some degree reflects Know who you are another song from that very same album. There we hear:

Know who you are…
There’s a world deep inside you,
Trust if you can…
There’s a friend the to guide you.

I reckon I will learn who my friends are soon enough, I know the two I have, I have known that for decades, it is the wannabe’s who will make an interesting jump, they are about to put into the limelight and they will not be able to answer any critical questions. What a lovely day that day will be.

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March 12, 2022 · 04:46

Quick money?

Yup that is how it started. I was watching a ski movie that someone made with the GoPro, and the two I saw were actually really nice. It showed the action from the point of view of the skier (so it felt real), it was a really nice view of a downhill act from Blackcomb mountain (Canada) so you get to see what that is about, and it was an impressive ride. It was at this point that I thought a few things through. You see, at the end of every run you see the man fumble about to switch it off in the last second and that is fine. But then I thought, there is an app that connects it to the phone. So why not expand that by also connecting it to a smartwatch with the option to see settings and to stop recording (and start recording). 

Which would be a nice thing to have. So I did my homework and low and behold there are several models and the prices ranges from $90-$300, so what stops a clever programmer (who already has a GoPro) to make and app that does the same and offer it on the App Store (Android and iOS) for $10-$20? Now I get that plenty of people will not buy a remote for $300, but an app for $10? Makes you think does it not? 

It is not the only thing and there are plenty of options out there, yet it seems that people overlook the obvious (as people tend to do). I am no better. I have overlooked the obvious plenty of times. But I did check the store and I found two of them, but with ratings of 2.8 and 2.5 I would state that there should be more out there, and there is no indication that these apps would work on wearables. And in a case where seemingly 50% gives it a one star rating I would like to know why it was only one star. I did not test the app as I have no GoPro, but the foundation is there. Why is there (at present) no wearable app for GoPro. In this day and age where that thing is used on all kinds of sport events, a wearable app makes sense. It makes less sense when it is a person walking around with a gimbal, but on bikes, skies, snowboards, and several other settings it makes sense that you can apply a remote (which GoPro has), and plenty of people will more likely than not prefer a wearable solution. 

So is this quick money? For some it might be and there is a clear market. From 2015 onwards there seem to be 20-25 million people using a GoPro, so there is enough traction to warrant the investment of time. Now, not all will need some remote, but the amount of action camera uses implies that thousands might be game for such a solution. And so far no one has pushed that market, so why not? You see, I am not a programmer, I have no GoPro and I do not do these sports (at present), so three reasons to give it a miss (and my 5G keeps me busy). There are more settings that my mind sees now, but that is up to the makers and DJI might have an advantage here. And there is a second set of thoughts here. The interaction of devices are becoming more profound, there is every indication that those with cross device programming skills might have a much sweeter deal coming their way in the near future, so spending time on this endeavour should pay off and if you have the two elements you need to start programming! When the next set of needs come calling, you will be able to show that you have experience.

It’s just a thought, make of it what you will.

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March 10, 2022 · 03:48

Direction of my tech

Yup, that was what I was contemplating. But only for a little while. I reckon that my 5G IP is pretty complete for a first version. There are more sides to contemplate, but it becomes to much like speculating where others might want to go. Or as some would go with (Microsoft) Contemplating where we want consumers to go next. I do not think that is the best path to take. I have several roads mapped, yet I suddenly remembered Tim Minchin, he said something to the effects of (altered for my case here) “If you chase orgasms, you’ll never get one, if you aspire to give other people orgasms you might get a dose of pleasure in the process” It actually applies to tech too. If you hunt on the statements on what people are supposed to need, you will miss the mark too often. If you give the consumer what they will need you could benefit too. So my IP was set to the consumer, to the retailer and to increase their safety. Weirdly enough as I was doing that, I came up with a few ADDITIONAL sides that the IP could deliver giving the people what they might (and might is important) need. In that process I opened a larger revenue stream on a bigger foundation. Yes, it requires Google to add functionality, but there is every indication that they will go there. That indication is set to two foundations. The first is that they need to stay ahead of Apple and others, and giving that advantage allows for this. They also need to set a larger conditional stream, based on a new metric. You see, for now we see cpc (cost per click), cpm (cost per thousand impressions) and a few more. I believe that 2022/2023 will proved that they need to add cpl (cost per location) a niche and targeted view that more likely applies to real estate and local business, but it sets a targeted revenue stream for walk videos, location videos and there are thousands of videos. GoPro alone has 10 million followers, I have not seen clear metrics on walkabout videos, but they are there in the tens of thousands and when you link that to Google Maps that market starts getting interesting. One walk on 5th venue video has 487,957 views. Consider how many real estate people would be interested if they can grab that cpl? And it is global. New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Toronto, Montreal, Paris, London, Munich, Amsterdam, Stockholm. Villages in Switzerland, Bavaria, Austria that need is already visibly increasing. The moment we have a connected Hybrid view with Meta that need will pretty much explode and it works for Google to have this, there are thousands of walk video makers, allowing them to flourish will enable more revenue (and Google was never sad about more revenue). For this consider the realtor Sotheby’s International Realty (London), when that option arrives, do you think it walks away from 736,891 views in just a few days? And yes, there will be more views in larger cities with tourist appeal, but when you search for a house or apartment in any place, who does not check out what YouTube has to offer? When these parts became clear to me, I adjusted the 5G IP I had, I added for a Hybrid functionality because that is where we all want to go. Even now, even as too many have NO CLUE what Facebook (now Meta) is up to, I already see that coming. And those with a gaming PC (especially with a second graphics card) will be ready in 2023/2024 when that is offered. I foresaw the need, I considered that addition and as I saw that there were more options, more choices to allow for and basically adhering to the consumer needs got me there. I come from the IT services branch, not the sales branch, so I hear what people needed, I converted to fill that need, not tell them that there is an alternative with some lame ‘What if’ statement. I reckon that 2024 will be the year when salespeople will finally put that sales tactic to bed. They want what is at point A, so you get them there. I found a method to allow industry 7,8,11,17, and 21 to enjoy what point A offers as well. Yes, I did not offer this to industry 1 through to 23 because that was not the goal and all those sales people telling me to do that, I say ‘Why?’ There is a group of consumers that have a need, that need is satisfied and offering 5 other groups to offer what they might need is nice if they are there. But the rest? What rest? They are seemingly somewhere else. Stop catering to ‘wannabe’s’ and ‘what if’ people. 

Two distinct systems with the grasp of several and a third system is starting to take shape. The two systems will have access and enable all kinds of software solutions and there I found a few options, but some of the changes seem pointless until Meta truly launches, when it does I will see all the wannabe’s running scared and running in panic not to lose the revenue. Like a wall of water coming at them and they are holding a one litre beaker. Not to stop the wave, but to fill their beaker for themselves. Some will fill it, some will not and then they look at the second ave coming, all whilst funnel giving the consumers and retailers a long term revenue though the application of a mobile pipeline. Not a pipeline ON mobiles, but a pipeline that is mobile and Hybrid will stamp that need out pretty quickly. I was fortunate enough that my need can satisfy that side in addition of what it was already doing. So whilst I believe that 2024 will be ruled by Meta, Google and Amazon, they will not be alone. I believe in that new setting Adobe will be uniquely placed to set new standards and what was a $13,000,000,000 annual revenue company could double, optionally even triple. All options that Microsoft let fly by, they relied on hype and spin and in the new setting that will not fly. It is like watching IT in 1998, all trying to sell concepts. In a time when Google, Apple, Amazon, Meta and Adobe have proven themselves, we need not wait for some roadmap of a concept product. The people have had enough of that and they are looking for alternatives. That is why I believe that Adobe will make larger waves and as a graphics company they do have the Rolls Royce solutions out there, so they do have the edge. 

It does not matter whether I am right or wrong, do you (consumer/retailer) have what you need to get the job done? Are you ready for 2023? You need to start thinking there. Most people and businesses do not have the money to buy in January 2023 what is required. And you need to think longer term, you need to think that what you buy in 2023 needs to be good to last you to December 2025. I countered that in the past by not buying the latest, but by buying one model older. It was often 40% cheaper, merely 10% slower and would last me 2-3 years. That is the stage you need to think of now. Because when Meta is introduced it will impact people and businesses. It will not end for the ‘old’ Facebook, but the shift will start, so make sure you have what you need. This is not merely for high end places, for expensive stuff. Simple pharmacies, book shops, cafe’s. For them the market will alter as well, they need to see where they are and how far they can go at present. They could wait and lose the market of course, but that is up to them. As for the direction of my tech? It is out in the open, because I tried to adhere to what the people needed and what they are most likely to need. But in the end (Q4 2022) I might have to offer alterations and additions to more closely adhere to their needs and I can, because national 5G will not be ready in many places, which works in my favour as well (yay me). 

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March 9, 2022 · 17:08

Microsoft, for cold laundry

Yes, there is a need to go there. You see there is the setting that we kick Microsoft as a civic duty, but how long do you need to kick them for it to be regarded as for personal pleasure? Yes, that is the question and it is more to the point than you think it is. Two days ago I wrote ‘What we hope for’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2022/03/07/what-we-hope-for/) there I gave the setting that Microsoft is in more trouble than we think they are. They are losing the gaming niche, the ‘tablet’ niche, the cloud niche, the SaaS niche and optionally the office niche as well. That is a lot of terrain to lose. I also stated there ““Microsoft is in talks to acquire cybersecurity research and incident response company Mandiant, according to people familiar with the discussions, a deal that would bolster efforts to protect customers from hacks and breaches”, you see, it is not merely “bolster efforts to protect customers”, it is about preventing and protecting the customers you have and as we are seeing several Microsoft issues”, a few hours ago I learned that they do not even have that. ArabNews gives us ‘Google buys Mandiant for $5.4 billion’, the article (at https://www.arabnews.com/node/2038611/business-economy) “Google is fortifying its cloud services with a $5.4 billion acquisition of the cybersecurity firm Mandiant, the companies announced Tuesday”, as such the clouds around Microsoft seem increasingly less secure soon enough. Microsoft will find someone (I think) and they need to find someone and set the stage to a stronger Microsoft. Yet as I see it they lose gaming to Amazon (I was happy to help Amazon do that), their Surface thingamajig will lose to the Apple iPad more and more, and the Mac Air book takes what is left and the cloud is increasingly less and less secure, as such they are losing market share to all the other cloud providers. The SaaS niche is different, it relies on the cloud, lose one and you tend to lose the other as well to some degree. So now the last straw for Microsoft is their good old Office backbone. It is firm (for now) but the cyber issues will affect their mail system and it already has had a few issues. But the big push could come from a very different angle. Adobe will be the largest player in several ways. There is additional consideration that when business aligns for Meta, Adobe will get a fair share of that business and should they push for the an ‘office setting’ they could clearly clean house. The last setting is pure speculation. There is no educated guess in play. They need their version of Excel, Word, Powerpoint and Mail versions to impact Microsoft even larger, but that is not outside of their abilities to do so and moreover, as Meta will go in 2024 Adobe will feel forced to go there. If only to cater to the millions of GoPro users who will see new business ventures in a Hybrid setting of the Web, Web3.0 and Meta. I think that Google lacks more elements than Adobe does so Adobe is in a good place. No matter how we think it will go, I feel more and more certain that Microsoft is about to lose a hell of a lot more than they bargained for. I wonder if they ever saw that part coming as they increasingly believed the spin they put out there as well. Consider their 2018 setting: ‘The most powerful console in the world’, it was surpassed by the weakest (Nintendo Switch), it will optionally also be surpassed by the Amazon Luna (if I get it my way, ha ha ha). At that point, what did $68.7 billion get them (as well as the $7.5 billion for Bethesda)? Seventy five billion to end up in 4th position in gaming? Google buying what they need for Cyber security? One could argue that soon the buzzards will circle Microsoft, but that might be a little too negative. 

I saw Microsoft grow from nothing to the behemoth that decided what we wanted. Now it is turning out that too many are eager to find someone else, in too many IT fields. There will be Microsoft lovers out there, eager to state that I am wrong. I could be, I freely admit it, but when you put the facts together, when you collect the information out there and the weaknesses that they show gives a larger rise to my version (which has speculative sides) and the largest setting is the one we do not have. What will Adobe do in 2023/2024. It will impact several players a lot.

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March 8, 2022 · 12:29

Opensource GEOINT

Yes, it sounds weird, but it dawned on me that if we create a new search term GEOINT could benefit in all kinds of ways. Consider the following and also consider the following statement “I have never been to Toronto” Now consider the thoughts I had when I was watching a video (apparently I watched more than one on Toronto walks. “If she turns left into Cumberland now, I will see Tokyo Smoke on the right and across from there Sassafras. As she passed these places I thought fashion store Kiton should be on the left across the street on the corner” This is what the human brain takes up. Yet in digital settings, with added metatags we should see a lot more. More than location, date, time and weather conditions. Then I suddenly realised that my 5G could offer more to any recording digital recording device out there. It was already on station to deliver for the new wearables, but it could go further. More than mere digital marketing. It could offer a larger scene of watchdog, the digital digital video maker, could according to their personal settings auto reject that, consider it on the fly or auto include certain tag names and tag settings. The auto part is for those making live streams, the consideration is fr those editing and smoothing audio at the end and it becomes an experience that offers more. Consider a video walk in London, giving whilst walking some highlights of Christmas shops and their golden offer. On Regent Street, Fortnum and Mason, Harrods, and so on. The options are close to never-ending and it is the station I vied for in my designs to give the power BACK to the shopkeepers. I reckon that it is not something for the GoPro 1, but it is possible that the GoPro 12 could offer something like that. It is more than ‘plus’ vision. It is the starting stage of hybrid vision and with Meta completing its first version hybrid will go a long way in any place that offers it. And there is more at that point there is the setting that real estate could set a marker on any video that crosses their location, giving a much larger consumer market penetration. The hardware is already there, the options are already there. There is now the consideration to implement it. Google clearly has the advantage via YouTube, or would that become YouBeTube? We all see the real estate pictures, but it is too made, too artificial. Yet showing videos AROUND the place, showing some WHERE you end up could also become a sales-point that gets the consumer over the line and even as Real Estate is the most clear point, it is not the only one. As I see it it pulls GEOINT into the business intelligence field a lot deeper than the mere pie charts and thematic maps. Thinking of this, I am actually surprised that Google and Facebook were not all over this when the foundation options were there about 2-3 years ago when the possibilities opened up. And it hits nearly EVERY big city in the world. A setting where the amateur video makers see a larger stage of income earning and becoming part of the revenue streams. 

There are of course more options, but let’s not go into those streams just now. For now, let’s remain naive and enjoy what could be possible.

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February 13, 2022 · 01:21

Looky looky

It is always nice to go to bed, listen to music and dream away. That is until this flipping brain of mine gets a new idea. In this case it is not new IP, but a new setting for a group of people. You see, during lockdown I got hooked on walk video’s. It was a way to see places I had never visited before, it is one way to get around and weirdly enough, these walk videos are cool. You see more than you usually do (especially in London) most of them are actually quite good, a few need tinkering (like music not so loud) but for the most they are a decent experience. Then I thought what if GoPro makes a change, offering a new stage. That got me going, you see, most walks are on a stick, decent but intense for the filming party. So we can set the movie from a shoulder mount, a chest mount, or helmet mount. Yet what is filmed? So what happens if we have something like Google glasses and the left (or right) eye shows what we see in the film. We get all kind of degrees of filming. And if we want to ignore it, we merely close that eye for a moment. I am surprised that GoPro had not considered it, or perhaps they did. Consider that the filmer now has BOTH hands free and can hold something towards the camera, the filming agent can do more and move more freely. Consider that is works with a holder, but there is a need (in many cases) to have both hands available. And perhaps there is a need for both, the need to use one hand for precision and a gooseneck mount to keep both hands free. The interesting part is that there is no setting to get the image on something like Google Glasses and that is a shame, was I the first to think of it? It seems weird with all the city walks out there on YouTube, but there you have it and in that light, I was considering revisiting the IP I had for a next Watchdogs, one with a difference (every Ip creator will tell you that part), but I reckon that is a stage we will visit again soon enough, it involves Google Glasses and another setting that I will revisit. Just like the stage of combining deeper machine learning to a lens (or google glasses), a camera lens that offer direct translations, and the fun part is we can select if that is pushed through to film, or merely seen by us, now consider filming in Japan with machine learning and deeper machine learning auto translating ANY sign it sees. Languages that we do not know will no longer stop us, it will tell the filmmaker where they are and consider linking that to one lens in google glasses that overlays the map? It that out yet? I never saw it and there are all kinds of needs for that part. What you see is what you know, if you know the language. Just a thought at 01:17. I need a hobby, I really do!

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September 22, 2021 · 19:41

Consuming expectations

Yes, this happens, but it is not about food, it is not about what we expect, it is where our expectations lie and here I found myself in a weird stage. Due to lockdown events I have became an international man of mystery (sorry Austin Powers) by watching city walkthroughs. Places I had visited like Rotterdam, Stockholm, Munich Chicago, London, more London and places I had never seen before Monaco, Montreal, Toronto, and many more places. As such I became more and more interested in the Hero by GoPro. I wrote about this earlier, and over the week (yesterday and today) I saw a lot more on the Hero 10. Yet in all this, I also saw a few anti Hero 10 video’s. Most of them seemed to be people lacking expectations, some were people pushing a few weird limits two stood out, one was an Italian giving us why he did not recommended the Hero 10, but the reasoning was quite interesting. He gave us that the Hero 10 was an amazing great system, but compared to his Hero 8 overpriced and particularly as his Hero 8 was doing well above what he needed. I liked that. Yes, at times it is always about getting more whilst what we have is just fine. The other one is the one I want to focus on, it was all about the system being so expensive, He was a day 1 buyer of the Hero 7, Hero 8, and now the Hero 10. This is important because we need to consider what was and what we have now. 

I am a photographer. I was never much of a film geek. My first film camera came in 1998, it was the JVC GR-DV1, it had 100 times zoom (almost ridiculous much) and together with the docking station, it added up to $1049 dollars. I used it in my first long vacation that year after 10 years of not having a real vacation. And the camera was nearly always there. I never regretted buying it even if I barely used it. The film seed was planted. For the most I moved on with photography and filming was never forgotten, but it was in the back of my mind. It roared its head in 2010 when I was offered a really nice deal in 2010 with the Sony Handicam and I went for it, for two reasons, I was interested in filming, but I wanted digital video and the Sony offered it, it costed me $1100 with all the bells whistle’s and extra’s and I could afford it. There was also the added benefit that I could export to memory and edit it. I did not have the software, but overall the Sony was a leap forward, so now 12 years later there is the GoPro Hero, version 10. I missed the previous versions but there are a few parts that people seem to overlook.

The first camera only gave me 1080, it had sound but almost no smoothing, no colour settings and no frame rates. The Sony had a lot more and more importantly was able to export to USB. A few additional options, yet the larger stage was not there and we cannot blame Sony, they gave us a lot for less than the previous versions. Now we see the Hero 10 and people (quite a few) are complaining. Some places have it for a mere $499. The delivery is stated as 11 days but that is OK for plenty of people and for a system less than half the price that I paid for a system with less options, we are given 5.3K at 60 fps, 4K at 120 fps and 2.7K at 240 fps. The bundle includes a 32GB card. I looked and found a card with the same high speed and in 256GB for $40. A system that surpasses all others, has smoothing 4.0 which does things neither camera could ever do, have all kinds of colouring. And a load of extra’s that work on all Hero’s, batteries that are the same as the previous versions and we are told that upcoming software releases will give the consumer even more. And this camera is a mere 50% of my previous one. So what are people bitching about? 

We are so obsessed with getting things for free that we forget that compared over time a lot of electronics have become to that lowly priced. PC elements are pricing annual more and more, all whilst camera’s are in some cases the same, we seemingly get more and more for less. I am not digging into the wisdom of it, but consider that a GoPro cameraman can close to equal a TV News film crew and upload almost as quickly, so how long until someone sets that stage? As we see it in many places, the news is outdating itself more and more by going for the emotional story so that they do not need to report on things that matter. So when people figure out that one GoPro person can deliver equal to 5 news teams, how long will their future remains? 

This is not about the news, it is not about people and skills. It is about people and their expectations, or perhaps it is the expectations that are fed to them. I do not know, what I do know is that there are makers that drive creativity and that is always good. Where it ends we do not know and that is good too. Because as I personally see it, the creativity we never expected is the one that makes us smile and I do believe we need to find a reason to smile, even if it comes from a piece of hardware.

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