Sergei Lupashin: A flying camera ... on a leash

112,978 views ・ 2014-10-28

TED


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00:12
I came here to show you
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the Fotokite.
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It's a tethered, flying camera.
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But before I do that, I want to tell you a bit about
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where it came from, what motivated it.
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So I was born in Russia,
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and three years ago, in 2011,
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there were the Russian federal elections.
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There were massive irregularities reported,
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and people came out to protest,
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which was very unlikely for Russia.
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And no one really knew
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how significant these protests were,
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because, for whatever reason,
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the world media largely ignored it.
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Now, there was a group of photographers
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who kind of flew flying cameras as a hobby —
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usually photographing things like the Sphinx,
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the Pyramids — who happened to be
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right around the corner, and they flew a camera
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and they took some snapshots,
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some panoramas of this demonstration.
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Just completely independent entity,
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completely random occurrence,
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and the image, when I saw it, it really struck me.
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Here's one of the panoramas.
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So in a single image,
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you can really see the scale of this event —
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just the number of people,
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the colors, the banners.
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You just can't consider this insignificant.
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All in a single image, which was really cool to me.
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And I think, in the future,
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journalism and many other professions,
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there are flying cameras already quite commonly out there,
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but I think, you wait a few months, a few years,
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and for many professions, it's really going to be
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a requirement.
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And it make sense. It's such a unique perspective.
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Nothing really communicates this scale, for example,
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in context, in a way that this does.
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But there are a few hurdles, and they are quite basic
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and quite fundamental.
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One is piloting.
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So for this image, they flew a camera,
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a five kilogram device with an SLR under it.
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It's quite heavy, lots of spinning, sharp things.
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It's a bit uncomfortable to fly,
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probably also for the operator.
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In fact, you can see that on the back of the pilot's shirt, it says,
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"No questions until landing"
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in Russian and in English,
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because people are curious, and they'll go tap you,
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and then you lose your focus and things happen.
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And these guys are great. They're professionals;
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they're really careful in what they do.
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So in the protests, maybe you noticed,
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they flew over the river so it was quite safe.
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But this doesn't necessarily apply to
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all people and all conditions,
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so we really have to make piloting easier.
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The other problem is regulations,
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or rather, the lack of good regulation.
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For many good reasons, it's just difficult
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to come up with common sense laws
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to regulate flying cameras.
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So we already have cameras.
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Everyone here, I'm sure, has a smartphone with a camera, right?
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There are more and more of them.
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You hear about people with Google Glass being attacked.
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You hear about, actually, a drone pilot,
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a hobbyist, was attacked two weeks ago
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because he was flying near a beach.
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Here's some personal input I didn't expect.
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Just yesterday, I was attacked by a guy
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who claimed that I was filming him.
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I was checking my email right here —
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easy way to get input for your talk.
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But I think there are better solutions.
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I think we have to defuse the situation.
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We have to come up with responsible solutions
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that address the privacy issues
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and the safety, accountability issues
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but still give us that perspective.
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And this is one potential solution.
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So this is the Fotokite.
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Well, let me see, it's a quadrocopter,
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but what's kind of special about it is there's a leash.
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It's literally a dog leash. It's very convenient.
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And the neat thing about it is,
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to fly it, there's no joysticks, nothing like this.
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You just turn it on
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and you point in the direction that you want to fly.
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You give it a little twist.
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That's kind of the way you communicate.
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And there it goes.
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(Applause)
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So the interaction is super simple.
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It's like a personal flying pet.
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It just always maintains a certain angle to you,
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and if I move around with it,
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it'll actually follow me naturally.
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And of course, we can build on top of this.
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So this leash has some additional electronics.
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You can turn it on.
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And now, it's like telling your dog to fly lower,
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if you have such a dog. So, I can press a button
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and manipulate it rather easily.
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So I just shifted its position.
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And it's really safe.
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I don't know about you guys in the front row —
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(Laughter) — but at least in principle,
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you have to agree that you feel safer
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because there is a physical connection.
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Live demos are hard, right?
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Things go wrong all the time.
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But no matter what,
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this thing will actually prevent this thing
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from going into you.
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What's more, it tells you immediately that
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I am the one responsible for this device.
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You don't have to look for someone controlling it.
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Now, I can tell you that it's easy a lot,
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but I think a really good way to prove that
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is to grab a second one
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and launch it.
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And if I can do this on stage live,
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then I can show each and every one of you
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in five minutes how to operate one of these devices.
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So now we have two eyes in the sky. (Applause)
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And now the trick is getting them back.
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(Laughter)
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So my question now to you is,
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well, it's a nice solution,
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it's very accessible, it's safe.
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What would you use it for?
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What would you use such a camera for in your life?
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Thank you.
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06:17
(Applause)
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