Coming soon – Selfies from Space
THE co-founder of technology firm Bird.i is aiming to bring satellite images to the mass market.
Chris Brunskill wants to give people the opportunity to take ‘selfies from space’, for instance showing themselves attending music festivals or sporting events.
Another application would be to allow customers to view more up-to-date aerial images of a property they are thinking of buying than they could get from Google.
Brunskill, based in London’s Docklands, said: ‘Everyone knows what a selfie is – it’s totally mainstream. The whole concept of what we’re trying to do is get access to these satellite images to the mainstream.
‘Ultimately what we need is access to data and if you have constellations of small satellites that can give you data that’s good enough and timely then that’s obviously very important to the service we want to deliver. And if you follow the trajectory of technology advancement, it’s only going to get better.’
He aims to use imagery from drones as well as satellites and believes the possible problems with regulation will soon be overcome. Brunskill, who is seeking finance, said other companies selling satellite images have focused on providing expensive images to small numbers of well-off customers. He is planning on serving a much wider cross-section of the population.
‘In the UK we’re looking at partnering with travel agents and estate agencies and we would also be targeting those sectors in the US,’ he said.
He was in the US last week seeking to raise funds from investors including O’Reilly Alpha Tech Ventures in San Francisco, which recently teamed up with Planet Labs, operator of the world’s largest constellation of Earth-monitoring satellites.