9781422277355

Tech 2.0

World-Changing Entertainment Companies

GoPro ® ,

by Tim Newcomb Garmin ® , and Camera Drones

Tech 2.0 World-Changing Entertainment Companies

ESports: A Billion Eyeballs and Growing GoPro ® , Garmin ® , and Camera Drones Netflix ® , Amazon ® , Hulu ® , and Streaming Video Pixar ® , Disney ® , Dreamworks ® , and Digital Animation Spotify ® , Pandora ® , and Streaming Music YouTube ® and Videos of Everything!

Tech 2.0 World-Changing Entertainment Companies

GoPro ® , Garmin ® , and Camera Drones

by Tim Newcomb

Mason Crest

Mason Crest 450 Parkway Drive, Suite D Broomall, PA 19008 www.masoncrest.com © 2019 by Mason Crest, an imprint of National Highlights, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the publisher. Printed and bound in the United States of America. Series ISBN: 978-1-4222-4053-3 Hardback ISBN: 978-1-4222-4055-7 EBook ISBN: 978-1-4222-7735-5 First printing 1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2 Produced by Shoreline Publishing Group LLC Santa Barbara, California Editorial Director: James Buckley Jr. Designer: Patty Kelley www.shorelinepublishing.com Cover photographs by Agaliza/Dreamstime.com Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Newcomb, Tim, 1978- author. Title: GoPro, Garmin, and camera drones / by Tim Newcomb. Description: Broomall, PA : Mason Crest, [2018] | Series: Tech 2.0 : world changing-entertainment companies | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2017053412| ISBN 9781422240557 (hardback) | ISBN 9781422240533 (series) | ISBN 9781422277355 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Wearable video devices--Juvenile literature. | GPS receivers--Juvenile literature. | Micro air vehicles--Juvenile literature. | Aerial photography--Equipment and supplies--Juvenile literature. | GoPro (Firm)--Juvenile literature. | Garmin Corporation--Juvenile literature. Classification: LCC TR810 .N475 2018 | DDC 621.3841/91--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017053412 QR Codes disclaimer: You may gain access to certain third party content (“Third-Party Sites”) by scanning and using the QR Codes that appear in this publication (the “QR Codes”). We do not oper- ate or control in any respect any information, products, or services on such Third-Party Sites linked to by us via the QR Codes included in this publication, and we assume no responsibility for any materials you may access using the QR Codes. Your use of the QR Codes may be subject to terms, limitations, or restrictions set forth in the applicable terms of use or otherwise established by the owners of the Third-Party Sites. Our linking to such Third-Party Sites via the QR Codes does not imply an endorsement or sponsorship of such Third-Party Sites, or the information, products, or services offered on or through the Third-Party Sites, nor does it imply an endorsement or sponsorship of this publication by the owners of such Third-Party Sites.

CONTENTS

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Chapter 1: GoPro . 10 Chapter 2: Garmin . 28 Chapter 3: Camera Drones . 46 Find Out More. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62 Series Glossary of Key Terms. . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 Index. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64 Educational Videos: Readers can view videos by scanning our QR codes, providing them with additional educational content to supplement the text. Examples include news coverage, moments in history, speeches, iconic moments, and much more! Text-Dependent Questions: These questions send the reader back to the text for more careful attention to the evidence presented here. Sidebars: This boxed material within the main text allows readers to build knowledge, gain insights, explore possibilities, and broaden their perspectives by weaving together additional information to provide realistic and holistic perspectives. Words to Understand: These words with their easy-to-understand definitions will increase the reader’s understanding of the text, while building vocabulary skills. KEY ICONS TO LOOK FOR Research Projects: Readers are pointed toward areas of further inquiry connected to each chapter. Suggestions are provided for projects that encourage deeper research and analysis.

Series Glossary of Key Terms: This back-of-the-book glossary contains terminology used throughout this series. Words found here increase the reader’s ability to read and comprehend higher-level books and articles in this field.

Tech 2.0 Introduction

7 C ameras fly. Whether on the wings of eagles or strapped to drones, video captured from cameras has given new per- spective on our world from above. And it can all be done by you. Cameras dive. Whether on the fins of dolphins or in the hands of scuba divers, images captured by cameras have given new perspective on our world from beneath the sea. And it can all be done by you. Cameras find adventure. Whether rushing down a hill on your skis, flipping over a wave, or crashing through white water, cameras in hands across the globe have given you the chance to see the world dif- ferently, create fresh perspectives, and preserve moments in time that previously were not possible to be captured. As companies like GoPro, Garmin, and DJI continue to innovate personal- camera technology, the video and still images takenby the devices—whether strapped to a BMX bike helmet or attached to the front of a kayak—have given us the ability to relive our adventures all over again. The genius behind the fun doesn’t come in invent- ing a completely new device or even turning film into digital. After all, plate-technol- ogy cameras have been around since the early 1800s, followed by the “Kodak” cam- era created by George Eastman in the late 1800s, the first camera with film that the user could purchase. Rather, the innovation comes fromentrepreneurial minds taking technology and repurposing it for their interests. These minds have discovered new ways to explore the world through images and videos and have reworked technology to make those new ways into reality. Instead of simply a digital camera, how about a camera that can go underwater and give intensely high-quality images in the most extreme places? And it can fly, too!

Tech 2.0

That is what a fresh wave of world-changing entertainment companies did with the camera. They gave a familiar device a new design with a fresh purpose, all to provide a perspective that matched the experi- ences of the day. No longer are cameras resigned to a world of safety; instead, people can capture every aspect of their lives, especially the most intense . . . the most extreme. These entrepreneurs want to give people a new way to experience a moment and share it with others. This book will explore the stories of how companies are tak- ing technology and creating new ways to record our world. We’ll see how they took the typical and morphed it into the extreme. We’ll see

Camera drones put aerial photography into everyone’s hands.

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cameras that go underwater, strap to motorcycles with the highest res- olution, and fly over our world. We’ll see how these cameras changed industries and created entirely new ones. From GoPro and Garmin to the continually evolving world of drones, cameras for extreme use hold some allure for everyone. No longer does a professional with thou- sands of dollars of equipment need to capture the image. Now you can do it! And you can do it well.

Introduction

9

1 GoPro

S urfing the waves of Australia was a truly memorable experi- ence for NickWoodman. But other than the memories he could hold in his head, he didn’t have much to share with others from his life-changing trip. His photos from the beach just didn’t do the waves much justice. The pictures didn’t capture the action he experienced with friends, the exhilaration of it all. That 2002 trip, and Woodman’s desire to share it, really stirred up an idea that he had been pondering and pushed him to turn a con- cept into a product and the product into a new way of communicating experiences. Cue up GoPro, the world’s first personal action camera. De- vised first as simply a wrist strap to help existing cameras capture the energy of surfing, the GoPro camera became much more for WORDS TO UNDERSTAND bootstrap to grow a company by hard work and personal investment rather by getting outside help and money markup the portion of a product’s price above the cost of producing it protagonist the leading figure or hero of a story redlining making a car engine achieve high revolutions per minute (rpm), typically moving the gauge’s needle into an area colored red

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Tech 2.0

Woodman, turning into a completely reimagined camera for outdoor adventurers looking tomovememories from their heads and into shar- able venues. It also launched an entire industry of personal cameras. “GoPro helps people capture and share their lives’ most mean- ingful experiences with others—to celebrate them together,” Wood- man writes in an open letter. “Like how a day on the mountain with friends is more meaningful than one spent alone, the sharing of our collective experiences makes our lives more fun.”

Nick Woodman was a great promoter of his GoPro products.

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And that’s why Woodman still takes pride in making, what he calls, “the world’s most versatile cameras” that enable people to share life through photos and videos. “The vision now is to enable as many stoked consumers as pos- sible with GoPros so they can document their lives and share it on- line,” he says. “Seeing GoPro grow and become as successful as it is feels really good. The vision wasn’t to do this, but to keep resetting and to get there it just feels really good. The most personally satisfy- ing thing for me is when I go on Facebook and on the GoPro page and see how many people in the world are so stoked with their GoPro.” But it didn’t start like that. Getting GoPro Going T he idea, Woodman says, was bouncing around his head since the late 1990s, but it was that 2002 surf trip in Australia with friends, living out of a Toyota van, hitting the east, south, and west coasts of the island searching for the best waves, that pushed him. “I was spending most of my time in the water, sharing amazing moments and waves with my friends,” he said. “I was also shooting photos—this is pre-YouTube—from the beach, but from that distance my shots weren’t doing the surf or my friends justice. Some of the most intense and memorable moments in cranking surf were just that, memories.” At that time, only professional surfers with professional pho- tographers could capture any photo of quality in the water. The harsh environment of the water called for specialized gear. And floating in the water to capture the images meant a level of expertise that most people just didn’t have.

1: GoPro

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Tech 2.0

“That’s how I came up with the name GoPro,” he says. “Most surfers, at some point, wish they could go pro. My friends and I want- ed to go pro just so we could get some footage of us surfing . . . it was that difficult. So, I figured at least a few surfers would be down with the concept of a wearable camera.” With the concept firmly rooted, Woodman needed some startup cash. He credits his then-girlfriend and now wife, Jill, with helping to come up with that side of the business. While surfing in Bali, Jill found what Woodman calls an “insanely cool bead-and- shell belt.” He ordered 600 of the belts at a low price in Bali. Two months later the belts were done for less than $2 each and Woodman moved back to California, where he sold most of them out of the back of his 1974 VW Westfalia van at an astro- nomical markup while living with his parents. He made enough money selling belts to pair with a family loan that let him launch GoPro. It was while selling bead-and-shell belts out of his van that Woodman developed the idea of a better wrist strap for camer- as, as the common wrist straps on the market weren’t particularly

The GoPro camera came with a mount.

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