I have over 55,000 images in my Google Photos library. The only way to relive some of these photo memories is through the smart screens I have throughout the house: there’s one in the kitchen and one in the bedroom, and my wife and I point at the screens every time a funny photo appears. of our dog. Someday I’ll wade into this pile and batch delete the images I don’t care about, but that seems like a lot of work to me. Better yet, I could start using a device called Kyu to free myself from this digital chain to the cloud.
Break the digital chain
Kyu is a camera company from a small Japanese company whose members have worked at giants like Panasonic and Canon. At the center are Iori Ando and Yusuke Okawa, who co-founded the company at the university in 2021, although the initial goal of their collaboration was to develop an online class for creators. The duo pivoted towards Kyu, a compact, silvery, oval-shaped device reminiscent of a gadget born in the early 2000s.
“Memories are becoming something like fast fashion: they are captured and quickly forgotten,” Ando tells me over a video call. “We see two main problems in the way we visualize memories. It is very ineffective and lacks emotional consideration. So our mission is memory preservation: the emotional visualization of memories.”
On one side of the Kyu is a camera with which you can record 9-second clips (kyu means nine in Japanese), and on the other is a small round 1.6-inch OLED screen with a button underneath so you can see what you’re recording . Press the button to start recording – there’s enough space for 27 video clips. When the memory is full, remove the base and connect the USB-C connector to your smartphone. This will export all the video clips to the Kyu app and delete all content from the Kyu camera so you can start fresh.
one button
The Kyu camera has a rechargeable battery and a stereo microphone to capture audio. It is waterproof. Video quality is limited to 1,080 pixels resolution at 30 frames per second. An accessory called Kyu Touch allows you to transfer videos wirelessly, like AirDrop on an iPhone, but you have to purchase it separately.
The clips you capture are stitched together in the Kyu app (currently iOS only) using machine learning algorithms, trained to create a video of the best moments, with a Spotify integration that lets you easily add your favorite music to the highlights. recent of your life. You can then post the video online, though you’ll have to “invite” other Kyu app users to view the reel, almost exactly the same as calling someone over to the couch to flip through a physical photo album. You don’t need a Kyu camera to post to the Kyu app, so you can use your camera. smartphone to participate in the community if you want. Video clips live indefinitely in the app and are limited to 60 seconds each.
Today there are hundreds of ways to capture video, whether it’s with an action camera, a camera mirrorlessa smartphone or a drone. But while many of these devices have a learning curve (or in the case of a smartphonea way to distract you and get you out of a moment) the Kyu keeps things extra simple on purpose. The camera has only one button. Files are automatically deleted once you transfer them to your phone, so there’s no library to manage. You don’t even have to worry about editing, since the software it does it for you.
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