Tech In Far-Flung Settings
Technology is finding its way into formerly inaccessible places, often with amazing or beautiful results. But are you ready for drone selfies?
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Forget the selfie by the hotel pool. Here's a gorgeous collection of images featuring computers in exotic, hard-to-reach, or simply startling settings.
These pictures underscore an overlooked truth: Information technology permeates our world. Thanks largely to advances in mobile technology, people in remarkably remote places are carrying smartphones or other kinds of connected devices, allowing them to share pictures and videos with each other and the world. By one estimate, more than 758 million photographs are shared on social media every day.
Indeed, sales of smartphones, which overtook PC sales back in 2011, passed another milestone earlier this year. The worldwide smartphone market grew 25.3% year-over-year in the second quarter of 2014, marking the first time ever that quarterly smartphone shipments surpassed the 300 million unit mark, according to IDC's report.
And as some of the following pictures hint, embedded computers will only accelerate this trend. The Internet of Things (IoT) will far outpace that of existing connected devices. By 2020, while the number of smartphones, tablets, and PCs in use will be 7.3 billion, IoT will hit 26 billion units, according to Gartner.
Another enabling technology is free WiFi. The open WiFi hotspot has become a make-or-break service in untold millions of restaurants and cafes around the world, enabling millions of photos of entrees, desserts, and cocktails on social media.
Finally, an up-and-coming category for outdoor photography itself relies on new technology: drones. Increasingly affordable pilotless drones are letting people photograph formerly inaccessible places, sometimes with beautiful results.
The International Space Station switched its onboard computers to Linux last May. NASA said it wanted more a more configurable operating system, but security might have been another reason for the change. In 2008, a Russian cosmonaut brought a laptop aboard with the W32.Gammima.AG worm, which quickly spread to the other laptops on board. The astronauts and cosmonauts were trained to use the open-source OS by The Linux Foundation.
Ultra-Orthodox Jews in Israel can now use a "kosher" smartphone that filters access to secular Internet sites, but allows email, calendaring, messaging, and some rabbinically approved applications. The specially configured Nexus smartphone went on sale last October.
During their record-breaking 31 days underwater near a deep coral reef in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, the crew of Mission 31's Aquarius used a variety of computers and tablets, and even conducted Skype calls. Nokia created custom housings for the cameras used in and around the Aquarius, a habitat 63 feet underwater. Mission 31 was led by Fabien Cousteau, a French aquatic filmmaker and oceanographic explorer, the grandson of famed oceanographic explorer Jacques-Yves Cousteau.
In Ubud, a town in central Bali, population 30,000, you can use a laptop at Hubud (Hub-in-Ubud), a collaborative working space open 24 hours a day, while having tea overlooking a rice paddy.
In October 2012, Felix Baumgartner successfully completed a 120,000-foot free-fall jump above New Mexico, becoming the first human to break the sound barrier without an engine, and breaking a total of five world records. Cameras on board his Red Bull-sponsored gondola, carried aloft by a helium balloon in the skies above New Mexico, live-streamed his historic jump and parachute landing to an estimated 8 million people worldwide.
Among other applications, aerial drones can bring views of hard-to-reach places, such as this image of the aftermath of Typhoon Yolanda in Leyte, Philippines. Celina Agaton, the Google-USAID fellow for the International Conference on Crisis Mapping, earlier this year discussed ways drones can augment traditional geographic information systems.
Yes, "dronies" are a thing. With consumer drone prices hovering between $600 and $1,000 but likely to drop, expect to see more of these bird's-eye-view pictures. Because flying a drone and framing a nice picture of the ground takes some skill, examples of the form are still relatively rare. We hope that lasts and that dronies stay classy, avoiding the now pervasive "this is what I'm eating for lunch" smartphone posts cluttering up your social media stream.
Yes, "dronies" are a thing. With consumer drone prices hovering between $600 and $1,000 but likely to drop, expect to see more of these bird's-eye-view pictures. Because flying a drone and framing a nice picture of the ground takes some skill, examples of the form are still relatively rare. We hope that lasts and that dronies stay classy, avoiding the now pervasive "this is what I'm eating for lunch" smartphone posts cluttering up your social media stream.
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