I know, I know, I know we can’t experience anything without obsessively sharing it with friends on Facebook and tweeting it to strangers on Twitter. We can’t possible see something amazing without Instagramming it. And we’re not really there there until we check in on Foursquare.
In some ways simple conversations have been the last refuge of our analog past.
No longer.
Kapture is a “sleek audio recording bracelet” that continuously records the last 60 seconds of your life, regardless of where you are, what you’re doing, or who you’re with. Simply tap it at any moment, and the previous minute is saved, stored, shipped over to your smartphone, and then it’s published to Kapture’s social smartphone app so you can share it with friends and acquaintances.
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I have a lot of wristbands — the beautiful Jawbone Up, a sexy FitBit Flex, even a somewhat boring FatigueScience Readiband that helpfully informs me when I’m tired. I’m not sure that Kapture is sleek or stylish. In fact, it looks a little clunky, large, and — dare I say it — ugly.
The company has just embarked on a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign to raise $150,000 to bring its saveable and shareable vision of reality to … reality.
There’s certainly something to be said for ambient awareness devices that can press rewind on reality. And not just because, as the saying goes, it can’t be printed.
“Today, there isn’t a good way to capture all of the quotable moments in life — as they happen and in context,” Kapture’s Kickstarter campaign reads. “Those amazing conversations with friends, epiphanies on a long drive, and all of the crazy things kids say.”
But there’s also something to be said about experiencing the present without waiting to pounce on every potentially quotable moment, shareable experience, or photographable landscape, capturing that experience, and then bottling it for the vicarious pleasure of others who weren’t there, can’t appreciate the context, and may not really care.
I suppose, however, it was bound to happen.
In fact, the founders argue, Kapture enables you to recapture (don’t blame them for that awful pun) your daily life, allowing you not to wait eagerly for shareable moments but just realize that they happened, and save them retroactively, so to speak.
“With our high-quality omni-directional microphone, and a product that is always on, and always prepared, you can live life like you always would, totally in the moment,” cofounder Mike Sarow says.
And really, with our smartphones, spy-store recording pens, Google Glass, and life-recording wearable cameras, privacy is an increasingly outmoded concept. Any one of those devices could be recording any one of us without our knowledge. But none of those devices is designed specifically to record conversations continuously — without any flashing light or indicator displaying what it’s actually doing.
I wouldn’t be surprised if this project is successful. Personally, however, I’ll stick to reality 1.0, thank you very much.
Wait, let me go tweet this.
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