In an age when sharing daily life is as natural as breathing, a new device could consolidate the best parts of current social media platforms.
Users of the Ekko digital time capsule will have the ability to share and organize their photos, videos and even their location in real time and keep them forever. Ekko’s motto is “Be Remembered.”
Ekko CEO Zavosh Zaboliyan said that the capsule is meant to help people experience life from multiple perspectives.
“We all have a need as human beings to share what we’re going through,” Zaboliyan said. “Those moments mean something to us.”
Users can pre-register to buy the five terabyte time capsule — a small wifi camera to capture HD video and LED-lighted shoes — which track GPS location.
Recordings are automatically uploaded as “moments” when a user logs on to their account, and can be categorized with captions. Zaboliyan said that his company is also looking into artificial intelligence to make organization more intuitive.
The capsule would allow for more long-term relevance than current applications, such as Twitter, according to Zaboliyan.
The Toronto-based company made a trip to Austin this weekend to attend Bodyhacking Con, a conference focusing on innovations in technology meant to improve the human body.
R.B. Brenner, the Director of the UT School of Journalism, is a leader in the school’s development and use of virtual reality. He said new technology, such as the Ekko time capsule, has the potential to help users if it can prove its usefulness in the market.
“Clearly, we’ve already moved into a younger generation that is capturing and sharing so much more than my generation did,” Brenner said. “I prefer to have preserved special memories — things that in context have meaning for me.”
Beta testing of Ekko is planned to start this April, and an official model will be available by the end of September, Zaboliyan said.
Gizelle Robinson, a graduate student at the Institute for Cellular and Molecular Biology, said she would be hesitant to use the platform.
“In this technology age, a lot of stuff is going to be remembered that people don’t necessarily want to remember,” Robinson said.
However, Robinson said she could see the applications of the platform for finding information that is buried in the past, such as childhood memories to recall for a speech at a friend’s wedding. Robinson said that although she might not want to remember some of her more cringe-worthy moments, ultimately it is the accumulation of memories that gives life meaning.
“I think people are terrified of death, and their lives revolve around their experiences,” Robinson said. “If you’re just forgotten, it makes it seem like ‘what was the point?’”
