The Innovation Issue
Wish List: The Best Stuff
How to Meditate
Should You Buy a Tesla?
The Smart Home, the Smart Way
Accidental Innovations
The Future of Gear
The Review: Samsung Galaxy Fold
Tool Kit: Astronaut Drew Feustel
Contents The Guide
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24
36
Found: Casio AT-552 Janus
100 Years of the Bauhaus
When Do Innovations Cross the Line?
Wish List
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48
The world’s most desirable gear, right now
The State of Wearables
Born on the Battlefield
Rivian R1S Electric SUV
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Dyson V11 Torque Drive Vacuum
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Lotuff Raw “Rasa” Day Satchel
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Patek Philippe 5235/50R Regulator
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Steinway & Sons Spirio | r
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Nike Adapt BB
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66
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The Race to Save Coffee Before It’s Gone
Should You Buy a Tesla?
The Review: Samsung Galaxy Fold
Tested: Beer, Cycling Shoes, Earbuds + more
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Guide to Life: Build a Smart Home — the Smart Way
Bulk Buy: Carabiners
39° 35’ 0.478” S 71° 32’ 23.564” W
Reconnect.
Montblanc 1858 Geosphere montblanc.com
CONTENTS
Features
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118
The Future Perfect
The Future of Gear
The Car of Tomorrow promises a lot: scorching performance, clean power, the ability to drive on demand. But when connectivity enters, privacy leaves. Which begs the question: What will the car of the future cost?
Technology is transforming everything from the crampon to the cockpit. Here are the innovations shaping our future — indoors, outdoors, and everywhere in between.
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Q+A: Michael Muller’s Virtual Reality
Paul Dillinger Comes Clean
The man behind the Marvel movie posters — and decades of commercial and fashion photography — opens up about his love for the open ocean, the need to improvise, and the transformative power of storytelling.
Levi’s head of innovation knows the apparel industry has some cleaning up to do — but in the meantime he’d like to change the world, writes John Zientek.
156 To Know What’s Beyond
In the brutal, frenzied history of exploration, nothing equals mankind’s push beyond the boundaries of Earth. Fifty years on, the wild early history of the NASA space program still defines the bleeding edge of of human audacity.
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Never Sound the Same
MW65 ACTIVE NOISECANCELLING WIRELESS HEADPHONES
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Premium Design and Materials
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The ultimate companion for your daily listening or travels, featuring 24 hours of battery life
CONTENTS
Intel
172 Beach-Friendly Beach Gear
174
178
How to Get Better at Everything: Meditation
At Work With Nathan Myhrvold
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182
Death to the Instant Pot
Accidental Inventions
188 New Rules of Summer BBQ
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210
Sharp and Sculpted Summer Fashion
A NASA Spacewalker’s Everyday Carry
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The Conversation: Trainer + Retailer
Up, Up and Away
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
Eric Yang
I
FOUNDER, EDITOR IN CHIEF
@hashtagyang | eyang@gearpatrol.com
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nnovation can be tough to spot in real time. Contrary to popular belief, innovating is not a mythical act. The most reliable source for a lightbulb moment is far more prosaic: small, incremental improvements, and the mistakes unearthed along the way. Most of us only acknowledge innovation when it trickles into real things — things we can see, feel and experience in the context of our own lives, and whose practical merits we can vouch for through the power of our wallets. As Thomas Edison once quipped, “Anything that won’t sell, I don’t want to invent. Its sale is proof of utility, and utility is success.” In the same way, innovation can be a rather unglamorous process, so too is the affirmation of innovation through the act of buying a product and using it without irony or pretext. For Issue 10, we set out to celebrate innovation in all of its forms by looking at the products, flash points and people, both new and old, driving us toward an alternative, and hopefully better, future. Inside, you’ll find stories highlighting everything from a global design movement (the Bauhaus), to the current state of wearables. You’ll also discover stories showcasing the extraordinary impacts of unbridled ambition (NASA’s Gemini and Apollo missions), and lucky accidents (the Popsicle). Finally, there’s The Future of Gear, a grand assembly of summaries covering the trends and materials making the next generation
of products lighter, stronger, faster and smarter than ever. If you need a place to start, or end, I highly recommend it. While it’s easy to focus on the revelry of successes, I believe it’s equally to appreciate all the wonderful failures, accidents and reactive processes that, combined with perseverance and discipline, add up to what most of us also credit as innovation. Apple brought us the iPhone, but many of those early ideas were developed first in failed products like the Newton MessagePad. Pfizer set out to create a blood pressure medicine, and landed on Sildenafil — or, as you know it, Viagra — solving the affliction of sexual dysfunction for millions of men. Bausch and Lomb was commissioned by the Army to solve sun glare for pilots; their solution became one of fashion’s most enduring, stylish accessories. As for Edison? Turns out he didn’t invent the light bulb after all; what he created was the first commercially viable alternative to the gas lamp. The fact that popular culture credits him with one of the most important products in history — not to mention the sheer symbol of innovation — speaks directly to the power each of us as consumers wield in defining what is, and isn’t, innovative. The takeaway is this: whether or not the products highlighted in this issue eventually make it into the pantheon of greats is up to you.
MASTHEAD
founder , editor in chief
ERIC YANG @hashtagyang cofounder , coo
BEN BOWERS @benbowersgp
deputy editor
staff writers
issue ten contributors
head of commerce
JOSH CONDON @jpc_nyc_
TANNER BOWDEN @danger_bowden
ERIC ADAMS
BRIAN LOUIE
TUCKER BOWE @j_tb3
DW BURNETT
BRYAN CAMPBELL @businessbryan
STINSON CARTER
MEG LAPPE @meglappe
AJA MALIA COON
WILL PRICE
MARIA DEL RUSSO
store operations manager
JUSTIN FENNER
CHRIS HEALY @cl_healy
senior editor
+
editor , the guide
JACK SEEMER @jackseemer editors
WILL SABEL COURTNEY @willsabelcourtney STEVE MAZZUCCHI @motosandmore ERIC LIMER @ericlimer associate editor
JOHN ZIENTEK @sieben_tagen assistant editor
OREN HARTOV @ohartov
associate staff writer
content director , commerce
JACOB SOTAK @jacobsotak
TRAVIS HALLMARK
ZEN LOVE @zlo_watches
JOE MCKENDRY
managing editor , editorial operations
KAILAH OGAWA
head of marketing
ALI CARR @chasingalicarr
EMMANUEL POLANCO
KYLE SNARR @kyality
assistant editor , editorial operations
J.D. DIGIOVANNI @jdedig
LAUREN SEGAL CASSIE SHORTSLEEVE JAMES STOUT
consumer marketing manager
CAITLYN SHAW @heyitscgs
project coordinator , editorial operations
JULIUS TANAG
sales marketing coordinator
RYAN BROWER @owen_brow
CATHERINE YOO
AISHA LOPEZ @aishalyn
vice president , advertising and partnerships
cfo
ZACH MADER @z_mader
BRANDON FRANK
editorial assistant
ANDY FRAKES @andy.frakes
art director
deputy photo editor
sales director , east coast
JOE TORNATZKY @jtornatzky
HENRY PHILLIPS @henrysp
JASON DAKOTA DAVIS @KidDakota
senior designer
associate photo editor
senior account executives
SHERRY WANG @sxw
CHASE PELLERIN @chase_pellerin
MIKE BAILEY
associate designer
associate staff photographer
HUNTER D. KELLEY @type_hunter
CHANDLER BONDURANT @chandlerbondurant
ALYXANDER EFFRON @alyxeffron account executives
TIM MURRAY KEVIN O’BRIEN @_kevinobrien_
head of gear patrol studios
MONICA HARE deputy editor , gear patrol studios
MEGAN BILLINGS @meganblings project manager , gear patrol studios
client success manager
head of video and platforms
platform producer
LUKE WAHL @lukewahl
BRENDEN CLARKE @brenden.jpeg
coordinating producer
platform coordinator
NICK CARUSO @thenickcaruso
SAMANTHA KEPHART @sammiekephart
GENEVA AUDUONG @genevaa25
content producer , gear patrol studios sales planner
DOMINIQUE GAGEANT @dgag3ant campaign manager
senior multimedia producer
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ANDREW SICELOFF @andrewsice
AJ POWELL @allenjamespowell
pacific northwest advertising director
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CHARLES MCFARLANE @charles_mcfarlane Gear Patrol Studios is the creative partnership arm of Gear Patrol. Select advertising in this magazine has been crafted by Gear Patrol Studios on behalf of brands to help tailor their message specifically for Gear Patrol readers. These sections are demarcated with GEAR PATROL STUDIOS. To learn more visit, studios.gearpatrol.com or reach out to us: advertising@gearpatrol.com
ISSN 2381-4241 PUBLISHED QUARTERLY PRINTED in USA by AMPER LITHO on SUSTAINABLE PAPER INDEPENDENTLY PUBLISHED IN NEW YORK 236 5TH AVE, FLOOR 8 NEW YORK, NY 10001 © 2019 GEAR PATROL, LLC
T H E H E L L G A P O D G R E E N + S TA I N L E S S
THEJAMESBRAND.COM
ISSUE 10
Behind the Cover text by henry philips
The idea of innovation is too often conflated with the grand reveal. The auto show introduction. Countdown clocks. Steve Jobs pulling the curtain back on the Macintosh. But innovation’s true nature is typically less sexy and more iterative: prototypes; minimum viable products; “revised-finalfinal-final.jpeg” files. It’s that long road powered by little more than optimism and hard work that inspired our cover shoot. The Ava XC is an electric aircraft dreamed up by Beta Technologies, a small company whose creations are
stored in a mostly abandoned former Strategic Air Command base in Plattsburgh, New York. Beta has been relatively quiet about its product development; unlike competitors like Airbus and Bell, who have unveiled beautiful, curvy renderings of futuristic aircraft that don’t yet exist, Beta has spent its time racking up test flight hours in a craft that, technological wizardry aside, wasn’t designed to appear in the next Minority Report. Beta will debut its production aircraft in conjunction with a plan to fly the current
prototype across the country, favoring innovating over marketing and creating over concepting. That’s why we couldn’t think of a better example to live on the cover of Issue 10, our Innovation Issue. And that slightly lanky prototype looks pretty amazing under a barrage of lights, and through the lens of DW Burnett, a longtime cover contributor to all your favorite car magazines (not to mention Gear Patrol Issue Seven). We hope you enjoy. Here’s to making cool shit.
dw burnett, photographer
j o e t o r n at z k y , art director
brenden clarke, p l at f o r m p r o d u c e r
“As we started to descend, the plane began to tilt sideto-side. When red flashing lights and alarm noises accompanied the seemingly out-of-control plane, my heart rate had to have been at least 180. I looked back to see Joe quite white and Henry, our deputy photo editor, with a very nervous, very fake smile. I knew then we were in for a bumpy landing.”
special than k s
Kyle Clark Tom O’Leary Cameron Jonas Malcom Achilles Andrew Giroux
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“Any creative will tell you that having the whole set to yourself is great. But throw in an entire airport with acres of concrete, pre-war hangars, epic sunsets and access to a de-icing truck. You have yourself a recipe for a great cover shoot.”
SECURE ENOUGH FOR ZAK NOYLE
UAG // STRAPS : ACTIVE @ZAKNOYLE PIPELINE, HAWAII
BUILT TO GO FURTHER
The Race to Save Coffee
Demand is booming as suitable farmland disappears, leading to a terrifying question: Even if coffee is around in 20 years, will you be able to afford a cup? text by will price i l l u s t r at i o n s b y k a i l a h o g awa
Lucile Toniutti, a molecular coffee breeder with the nonprofit organization World Coffee Research (WCR), wants you to know the cup of single-origin you ordered this morning might not be on the menu tomorrow. “It’s difficult to talk about sometimes with coffee drinkers, you know,” Toniutti says. Last year, more coffee was harvested than ever before in history. Traditionally tea-drinking nations, like China and Japan, now also have booming coffee cultures. Some projections indicate global coffee demand could still double by 2050. But by the same year, thanks to rising global temperatures, roughly half of the Earth’s land suitable coffee-growing will no longer be viable for coffee farming. In other words, to keep pace with demand, producers will need to grow twice the coffee with half the space. “We’re going to have less coffee, higher prices and coffee that is ... lower on the quality scale,” said Dr. Tim Schilling, WCR’s founder, in an interview with a nonprofit called Crop Trust. “If everybody is okay with the fact that we are going to be paying $10 to $15 a cup for crappy coffee in thirty years, that’s fine.”
But there’s hope. It comes in the form of a lab-grown variety of coffee called the F1 hybrid. Unlike crop staples like rice, of which there are more than 500,000 known varieties, barely 125 different varieties of the coffee plant have been found. Of those, we only drink two. This has led to what can be described as a “genetic bottleneck,” in that the plant’s gene pool is too shallow to effectively adapt to the world changing around it. “Without a big gene pool, every change in an ecosystem has the chance to cripple the plant. Basically, it’s extremely fragile,” Toniutti says. F1 hybrids possess what she calls “hybrid vigor.” The concept of the F1 hybrid isn’t new. It was conceived in the late 1990s, and the first varieties were planted in the early 2000s, albeit with less-advanced methodologies and scientific instruments. Today, WCR is able to identify specific strings of genetic and molecular code that indicate disease resistance, crop yield, high cup quality and more, helping them to select the best two parents with the most biologically diverse DNA set. The result is the modern
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F1, which grows faster, bears fruit a year earlier and is less susceptible to disease. But hybrid breeding isn’t easy, or cheap. The coffeea plant is a self-pollenizer, meaning it has both male and female reproductive organs. Every seedling offspring is inbred, which precludes them from being true F1 hybrids. “They carry recessive and dominant traits from past generations,” Toniutti says, “this dulls the strengths of the F1.” For now, the only way to produce F1s is through cloning and in vitro fertilization. Both methods are expensive to perform, which means the plants command a high price. According to George Howell, a longtime flag bearer for small coffee farmers, the math doesn’t add up. “The cost is multiple times higher than just taking a usual seed to plant,” Howell says.
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“From a farmer’s perspective, that expense is too high to justify. The question becomes, can it be made affordable, and is it going to be one of those monopolistic things where we’re always paying a fortune for it?” So what happens if people like Toniutti can’t crack the code? Hannah Neuschwander, Toniutti’s colleague at the WCR, suggests looking to El Salvador, which as recently as 2012 was among the brightest and most well-supported coffee origins in the world. Then political turmoil, gang violence, drought and a rust leaf outbreak struck the country in quick succession. Today, El Salvador produces 70 percent less coffee. “That’s the risk if we can’t get these hybrids out,” Neuschwander says. “Origins will start dropping like flies, and the wealth of producing nations will vanish.”
There’s hope, and it comes in the form of a lab-grown variety of coffee called the F1 hybrid.
R
THE REVIEW
Samsung Galaxy Fold
Under rigorous real-world scrutiny, the ingeniousbut-flawed Galaxy Fold bends but does not break.
text by tucker bowe photos by chase pellerin
The Galaxy Fold made me nostalgic. Not because a folding phone is old-fashioned, but because it’s a novel design at a time when smartphones have become anything but, typically nothing more than the same functionalities ported to ever-thinner slabs of screen. But every time I pulled the Fold from my pocket on the subway and unfolded the already huge, bright screen to the size of a small tablet, I noticed more than a few double-takes. It’s been years since a new smartphone has been able to turn heads. But if the Fold’s defining feature is an eye-popper, it’s also been a mitigated disaster. You’ve likely read the story: As soon as the $1,980 smartphone made its way into the world, its signature 7.3-inch folding screen, well, broke — either from over-eager prodding, the stresses of daily use or both. Those problems, though, aren’t universal; my Fold showed no signs of coming undone during the week I lived, commuted
and worked with it. Nonetheless, Samsung recalled all review loaners early, pushed back the release date and offered refunds to pre-orderers. (Fortunately, it wasn’t literally dangerous, as with the company’s exploding Note 7, and Samsung claims it can fix the screen issues in time for summer release.) Screen snafu or no, the Fold was always going to be a niche product. A foldable smartphone isn’t something everyone needs, or can afford. But the form factor has its appeal among inveterate multitaskers salivating at that truckload of RAM — and the expansive screen that lets you run three apps at once — as well as early adopters who want a conversation piece in their pocket. The novelty is appealing. Yes, the Fold sports all the best features from Samsung’s flagship S10, but any amount of capability bows to the Fold’s originality. There’s never been a phone quite like this; my hands were drawn to playing with it, exploring the
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phone’s sheer usability, like being able to watch YouTube videos while perusing my Gmail inbox and Spotify playlist. But ultimate multitasking potential was limited by drawbacks, like only supporting one audio stream at a time. But that giant, beautiful OLED screen is meant for more than just multitasking. The Fold is essentially a tablet for your pocket: watching Game of Thrones was certainly an upgrade from viewing on an iPhone XS. And with over seven inches on which to play, the ever-more impressive roster of mobile games, especially battle royales like PUBG and Fortnite, have more room to unfold, with more space for on-screen controls that could give a (small) competitive advantage to players better than myself.
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Plus, the signature crease comes in handy when reading anything actually shaped like a book. The Fold’s front screen is a bit lackluster compared to the full article, its main purpose seemingly to goad you into opening the full screen. But common apps like Gmail and Google Maps seamlessly jump from the front to the main screen when you unfold — wandering my way through Manhattan I was able to keep tabs on my general location with a glance at the front, while unfolding when necessary for greater context. These features might seem like small change relative to the Fold’s exorbitant price, and for the most part that’s true — especially because the phone’s far from perfect.
Screen snafu or no, the Fold was always going to be a niche product.
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The crease down the center is still visible under some light, and it’s roughly twice the thickness of every other smartphone, which makes it a pain to slide into your pocket. Also, I was never really able to open the Fold one-handed; the magnets were too strong. Despite the kinks and the price, my time with the Fold convinced me that the premise of a folding phone remains sound. Shrinking a tablet-sized screen down to smartphone dimensions and allowing it to fit in your pocket is extremely cool. That’s why everyone is trying to get it right. Huawei’s Mate X, also scheduled for release this summer (trade wars notwithstanding), sports its main screen outside a clamshell fold, rather
than inside; it’s an interesting alternative, but given the fragility of Samsung’s folding screen you’d be right to be nervous about shelling out for one just yet. There’s still a lot of experimenting to be done. iPhone-level sales were never in the cards for the Galaxy Fold, even before the screen issues. It’s too expensive, and its flagship tricks aren’t quite life-changing enough to justify the price tag. But it looks and feels like a radical departure from the endless parade of identical smartphones. That’s key: the Fold itself might have stumbled, but the concept has promise. It’s just a question of who will execute it best.
Samsung Galaxy Fold Processor: Snapdragon 855 Rear Cameras: 12-megapixel wide-angle (f/1.5 to f/2.4); 12-MP telephoto (f/2.4); 16-MP ultra-wide (f/2.2) Front Camera: 10-megapixel selfie (f/2.2) Weight: 9.48 ounces Battery: 4,380 mAh Storage: 512GB $1,980
Samsung wants you to take advantage of the Fold’s 7.3inch display, which is primed for multitasking. It allows you to have not one, not two, but three apps open, all at once.
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Despite the kinks and price of the Fold, the premise of a folding phone remains sound.
MICHAEL MULLER 360 DEGREES UNDER THE SEA
The photographer-explorer on the challenges of taking the world deep-sea diving in virtual reality, for the good of the planet. interview by stinson carter i l l u s t r at i o n s b y j o e m c k e n d r y photos by michael muller
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Y
ou might not know Michael Muller by name, but you know his photographs. If you’ve seen any Marvel movie poster over the past half-dozen years, he shot it. As a Hollywood-based fashion and commercial photographer of 30 years, he’s shot portraits of the most iconic actors, musicians and athletes on the planet — Pitt, Pharrell, Kobe — plus countless editorial features and ad campaigns. But Muller’s true passion is found beneath the sea, at the juncture of his professional craft, his conservationist alter-ego and the birth of
the new medium of virtual reality filmmaking. An ex-snowboarding-photographer-turned-superhero-shooter may sound like an unlikely Cousteau. But Muller compensates for his lack of a scientific background with indomitable energy and a knack for leveraging his network to carve new paths. Between diving expeditions, Muller spends his days in an editing bay, on land, working on his upcoming 10-part underwater VR documentary series, tentatively titled Into The Now, coming late 2019.
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What is your backstory as a photographer?
How do you go about filming VR underwater?
What kinds of challenges do you have to overcome?
I started shooting when I was fifteen, with snowboarding, in the Eighties. I got published and was shooting big bands and famous snowboarders for brochures and ads. Moved to Colorado, did a full season there, and then I moved to LA when I was nineteen and started turning my lens towards models and actors, kept shooting musicians, rose through the ranks of professional photography, and started shooting for all the big magazines, commercial photography and advertising work. Which is what I’ve done pretty much my whole career.
VR is a medium in its infancy, so technology’s moving really quickly, and on several occasions I’ve had to create cameras for rigs that didn’t exist, because we’re going where no one’s gone before. So that requires recruiting lots of engineers to shoot VR. [Because of how close the lenses have to be to stitch the footage together], that adds a whole other dimension when you go underwater, because you’re dealing with ports, the bubbles around the lenses — so it’s required me to really go outside the box and find companies that are willing to manifest [the] dream. If you look at the trajectory of the equipment we’re using, it’s getting smaller and smaller, so you go from using a 120-pound camera to a ninety-pound camera to a seventy-pound camera; from three feet high to two feet high to one foot high. The technology’s getting better, the cameras are getting smaller, low-light capabilities are getting better. But for the most part, we’re dealing with very big, heavy housings. But they work, and that’s what matters.
From the moment the idea comes into your head, you’re faced with challenges. Because first it’s, Oh, that doesn’t exist, and then the challenge is to make it. And then you make it. Is it going to work? You’ve got an erector set of cables and cameras, you’ve got to figure out where the problem is, and you’re out on location and the sun is beating on you. Or you’re getting on an airplane with eighty cases. When we used to do still and motion shoots, we’d bring maybe thirty, forty cases — now we’re bringing sixty to eighty cases. And then there’s the problem of data. These VR cameras are just chewing through terabytes, so you have to get fifty-terabyte hard drives — and multiple ones, because you’ve got to do backups. Then you’re out in the field and you have problems with the camera. One camera down means the whole dive is over. You can’t use any of that, so you’ve gotta go down and re-do that dive. You just do the best you can to roll with it, like Shackleton did. Just like the explorers hundreds of years ago. You just adapt
How did that turn into underwater VR? I have always had personal projects, and fifteen years ago I had a huge fear of sharks, so I wanted to go photograph a great white. It changed my life and altered the course of my photography career. I started shooting a lot more ocean stuff and committed my free time to that. I was gonna wrap that up about three years ago; I felt like I’d done everything I could. And then VR came along, which puts me where I’m at now.
What’s the VR documentary series you’re currently working on? It’s a series shown in 360 VR, similar to a Blue Planet-type series, where we have crisscrossed the planet and documented holy grails of underwater activities — the must-sees of ocean life. All the cool ocean stuff, so that people can experience it almost in real time from their own three-dimensional POV.
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“BIG BRANDS ARE USUALLY A COUPLE YEARS BEHIND WHAT WE’RE DOING BECAUSE THEY HAVE TO MAKE THINGS ON A MASS SCALE.”
THE GEAR Mares Scuba Equipment
Patagonia Wetsuits
Aston Martin DB11
“I only dive with Mares, I think they’re the best. My whole kit is Mares.”
“When I was diving in the Arctic, shooting orca and humpback whales, everyone was in dry suits except for me and my cameraman, Morne Hardenberg. We were both in Patagonia wetsuits, because they’re that good.”
“It really is a piece of fine art on wheels. I’ve shot and owned a lot of cars, and I think it’s the most beautiful car created. It’s like a drug. I feel dopamine dropping every time I get behind the wheel.”
GoPro Fusion VR Camera “It’s a great camera to clamp onto the boat to get that topside footage. If you’re looking to get a camera to start testing the waters of VR, this is your camera.”
IWC 50th Anniversary Ceratanium Aquatimer
Phase One IQ4 150MP Camera “The camera I use for all of my superhero shoots. It makes the costumes look incredible because of all the detail it captures with 150 megapixels — and the detail within the detail.”
“I’ve been wearing IWC for twelve years, and of all the watches in the Aquatimer series, this is by far my favorite.”
DJI Drones
Leica SL
“Drones take out the $1,500-per-hour helicopter cost of doing aerials. They also allow us to fly places the helicopter can’t go, and to get closer to animals without scaring them. They’re a great tool.”
“I use the Phase One in the studio; the Leica I use when I’m on location and outside. It’s an incredible camera for the size and the weight, forty-seven megapixels, and it’s a Leica, so you’ve got amazing lenses to work with.”
Vrtul 1 Stereoscopic VR Camera “I partnered with Vrtul to make this first underwater stereoscopic VR camera. It had its challenges, but it got the job done, and what it created was a game-changer.”
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Oculus Go VR Headset “For two hundred bucks, it’s the best VR headset you can get, and the resolution is better than Rift.”
Master & Dynamics MH40 Headphones “Whenever I’m giving people my VR to watch, I always give them Master & Dynamics headphones.”
GEAR PATRO L TH E INNOVAT I O N I SSU E
Boxfish 360 VR Camera “The best monoscopic underwater VR camera available on the market.”
RED Hydrogen Phone “You can watch 3D on the screen without glasses. You can also film in 3D from your phone, and you can get a housing to film underwater 3D.”
RED Epic Dragon Camera “I shoot all my 2D motion on a RED — the living one-sheet movie posters, the Aston Martin commercials, as well as on my expeditions. It’s my workhorse for any type of 2D video.”
and say, All right, let’s land our ship here. It takes a team of people that have one single-minded purpose to get this mission accomplished, whatever it takes.
How do you find the equipment you use? What companies do you develop it with? Big brands are usually a couple years behind what we’re doing because they have to make things on a mass scale. They’re slow-moving glaciers. We need to be fluid and constantly evolving, so we’re the R&D grunts — the bigger companies see what we’re doing, see there’s a need, and
then jump in. You have to go to the one-guy shops, the small engineers. That said, I’ve worked with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, NASA engineers, so I’ve been lucky to work with some smart people to tackle how to get cameras or lights to work underwater, at depth. The underwater world of image-making is small, everyone knows each other. And then you go to the VR world, and it’s really small.
How has your technology changed since you started filming? Three years ago, the only way to shoot underwater was with a camera called a 360
Rise, which was a ball of six GoPros. That’s what I used to shoot my first proof of concept, and my takeaway from that expedition was, I need to make a new camera system, one that doesn’t exist, because I’m not making the Blue Planet of VR on GoPros. I mean, they’re great cameras, but I knew technology was going to evolve, so I knew I had to capture footage that would live four years from that point, that would live today or two years from today. So I set out to find people that could make stereoscopic, high-quality VR camera housing. They proceeded to make the Vrtul 1, the camera system we shot the primary footage for our series on. Nine months later, we came out with the V2, which was smaller, and [has] nine cameras instead
“I’M NOT A THRILL SEEKER, BUT THERE’S ALWAYS SOMETHING FUN TO GO OUT AND TRY.”
of thirteen. And it’s continuing to evolve. We’re now working on making a camera system that’s a fifth the size, a fifth the weight, with incredibly advanced cameras — the same cameras that go up on the space shuttle. They’re about sixty to seventy thousand dollars per camera, and we’re going to be using seven of them.
What is your vision for the future for VR filmmaking? It’s limitless. It has uses for medicine, for philanthropy, for empathy, especially whether it’s dealing with refugee work or lack of food, drinking water, any issue that our planet faces. It’s a great way to shift people’s perceptions because it hacks your
brain. People really feel they’re underwater with a whale in front of them, to the point where they continually reach out and try to touch the animals that they’re watching. You don’t see people in a movie theater trying to reach out towards the screen — but put a headset on, and that happens all the time. So it has a powerful way of implementing change or shifts of perception. Which has been my goal for fifteen years, for sharks — trying to change people’s perceptions of that particular animal, undo what Jaws did.
How can VR help with conservation? I screened Into The Now for a group of sixth graders a few days ago, and every single one of them was just blown away and excited and smiling. That’s more rewarding than anything. That’s why I do it. This new generation is very tech savvy. Ask any parent, their kid knows how to operate their phone better than they do. Which is cool, but on the flipside this generation is not going out into nature like we did. They’re plugged into a T1 line, so they’re not plugged into the river running outside in their backyard. And that’s true for adults, too. We’re becoming more urbanized, everywhere you go around the world. Nature keeps us in balance. It keeps us in check. If we’re not seeing what’s going on in nature, we turn a blind eye. A lot of people won’t go swimming with great white sharks or go on sardine runs, so if I can bring it to them and let them experience it, it’s a powerful way of introducing nature to them, and hopefully planting a seed that gets them off the couch, going on an adventure, experiencing it for themselves. There’s no substitute for the real thing. As cool as VR is, there’s still a drastic change from seeing a whale shark in a headset to swimming up next to a real, seventy-foot
whale shark. Engage in the planet. Life is short, we live on the one planet we know of that has an ocean, and we know more about space than we do about our own ocean.
What excites you, after all you’ve done? It’s a huge planet, and as much as I’ve done there’s still so much left to do. I dove Cuba for the first time. Cuba’s been off limits to us. Russia, for the most part, has been off limits to us. We know little about it. I was just telling my dive team, There’s gotta be great whites off Russia, right? How cool would it be to go to Russia? Because that hasn’t been documented, at least not that we’ve seen. Tens of thousands of miles of coastline off Africa that’s very remote. I’m not a thrill seeker, but there’s always something fun to go out and try. I don’t necessarily know what that is yet, but I’m about to turn fifty years old, which means I’ve got another decade or two left of health, and there’s way more to do than the time I’ve got left to do it.
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HOW TO GET BETTER AT EVERYTHING: MEDITATION text by cassie shortsleeve i l l u s t r at i o n s b y e m m a n u e l p o l a n c o
It’s not just yogis and gurus who benefit from quiet time dedicated to focusing on the present moment: elite athletes and corporate strivers alike practice meditation for its performance benefits. The mind-body discipline has long been known to boost concentration, reduce stress and help with a good night’s sleep. But dedicated training can also produce faster, better decision-making thanks to increased adaptability and insight. It’s a simple, effective way to step up your game, no matter what that game is. Pause, take a breath, and read on to learn your TMs from your FAMs from your oooooommmms.
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Go Deeper The Book Buddha’s Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom, from Rick Hanson, Ph.D, a neuropsychologist and meditation instructor, offers research-backed tools to help you strengthen your brain. The Technique Observe clouds floating through the sky; when thoughts, worries or distractions pop into your head, attach them to the clouds and watch them drift away.
OPEN MONITORING MEDITATION (OMM)
The App Insight Timer offers OMM meditations to practice absorbing a situation without overthinking or distraction.
Best for: CEOs Open monitoring meditation involves “watching” your thoughts and feelings without becoming attached to them, maintaining a non-reactive and non-judgmental awareness of the present moment. It’s been a favored technique of CEOs like Arianna Huffington and the late Steve Jobs. Recent research suggests OMM practitioners can control their states of consciousness and attention, and according to Michael Gervais, a high-performance psychologist who works with the NFL’s Seattle Seahawks, long-term repetition can help identify which thought patterns are beneficial to performance — and which ones are worth discarding. Plus, OMM can promote divergent thinking, which is conducive to creativity.
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FOCUSED ATTENTION MEDITATION (FAM) Best for: Athletes
Go Deeper
Focused attention meditation increases mindfulness by turning your concentration to your breath. By focusing on a simple target, like the in and out of your lungs, it’s easier to notice when your mind wanders says Christina Heilman, Ph.D, C.S.C.S., and author of Elevate Your Excellence: The Mindset and Methods That Make Champions. “Focus is a huge part of athletic performance,” Heilman says. “Wherever your focus goes, everything follows.” Learning to ignore irrelevant cues allows insight as to what’s important in the moment, whether that’s hydration or a subtle shift in the opposing team’s defense. Elite performers such as Olympian Kerri Walsh Jennings and pro golfer Rory McIlroy practice FAM.
The Book The Mindful Athlete: Secrets to Pure Performance provides insight from George Mumford, coach to NBA championship teams and legends like Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant. The Class The UC San Diego Center for Mindfulness offers mPEAK, a performance-driven mindfulness session for high-level athletes. The Device Neurofeedback headsets like Versus and Muse measure brain activity and display your current focus levels on a corresponding app. The goal: learn to harness your attention at its peak, and refocus in times of distraction.
“Focus is a huge part of athletic performance. Wherever your focus goes, everything follows.”
TRANSCENDENTAL MEDITATION (TM) Best for: Moguls
Go Deeper
Transcendental meditation improves mood, attention, focus and emotional intelligence, and can promote a state of inner peace. “A lot of us are stuck because we don’t take time to reflect,” Heilman says. A TM session allows time to process experiences and learn from them. Long-term transcendental meditators show significantly higher blood flow to the brain regions used for adjusting behavior and focusing attention. One study showed school staff in San Francisco who practiced TM enjoyed better moods, higher emotional intelligence, and increased adaptability and stress management skills.
The Book Super Mind: How to Boost Performance and Live a Richer and Happier Life Through Transcendental Meditation tells readers how to get more done and achieve peak performance. The Technique While only certified TM instructors can provide approved transcendental meditation training — with a price tag of $800 or more — anyone can benefit from 20 minutes spent sitting quietly, eyes closed, relaxing the mind. The App Use Oak to time your TM sessions, and watch your tree avatar grow the more you meditate.
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TOOLKIT
DREW FEUSTEL text by will sabel courtney p h o t o s b y t r av i s h a l l m a r k
It’s safe to say no one on Earth has quite the everyday carry of astronaut Dr. Drew Feustel. With 61 hours and 48 minutes of EVA — that’s “extravehicular activity,” NASA’s shorthand for spacewalks — under his belt, the 53-year-old seismologist has spent more time in space outside of a spacecraft than all but two people in human history. His first outing came 10 years ago, on the final mission to repair the aging Hubble telescope, where he wrestled with stripped screws and frozen bolts in the cold expanse. Feustel has since returned to orbit twice more, logging a total of 226 days spent outside Earth’s grasp. “We take time pretty regularly to look out at the Earth,” Feustal says of his spacewalks, which are nonetheless filled to the minute with tasks. “It’s pretty magical.” Despite the utter silence and zero gravity, spacewalks aren’t cakewalks. They can stretch for up to eight hours without breaks, and astronauts have to stay sharp the whole time; any mistake can be catastrophic. To reduce the chance of mishaps, tools are modified for use with astronauts’ bulky suits — enlarged, reformatted and usually fitted with various straps and connectors to keep them from floating off into the void. When he’s not zipping around the planet at north of 17,000 mph, Feustal, a die-hard car guy who’s snapped shots of F1, IndyCar and MotoGP race tracks from space, spends his time working on more earth-bound go-fast machines like his classic 1973 BMW 3.0 CS and a Euro-spec ‘85 BMW 535i. You can see shots of his cars — and his trips to the International Space Station — on his Instagram account, @astro_feustel.
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“I ALWAYS HAD THE THOUGHT IN MY MIND: THIS IS NORMAL. THIS IS WHAT HUMANS DO.”
PI STO L G R I P TO O L ( P GT) – USE D TO DR I V E BO LTS TO S P ECIF IE D TO RQUES DUR I N G SPAC E WA L KS
BO DY R EST RAI N T T ET H ER ( B RT) – AST RON AUTS USE T H I S TO O L TO H O L D T H E I R SUIT IN PL ACE AT A WO R KSI T E DUR I N G A SPAC E WA LK
M U LTI M E TE R – FO R M EASU RIN G VO LTAG E , CUR R E N T, RES ISTA NCE, TEM P ERATU RE, A N D P R ESSUR E
SA FE TY T E THER – TETH ERS ASTRO NAU TS TO THE S PACE STAT I ON DU R I NG SPAC E WA LKS ; H AS 85 FT O F CA BLE T H E IN N OVAT IO N ISSU E G E A R PATROL
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