Every time a new iOS device gets a camera, it seems like there’s some first with it: the first movie or music video or television show or bang bus episode. Here’s a new first: a Minneapolis man is the first to use his iPad 2 to report breaking news. Even more interesting is the man in question is Robert Stephens, who co-founded the Geek Squad, which is now owned by Best Buy.
Here’s what happened. Driving to work one day, Stephens saw a fireball erupt in the distance. He quickly whipped out his iPhone, and started recording the explosion while driving “to see if anyone had dialed 911 yet.”
Once Stephens got to the scene, he pulled into a nearby parking lot, transferred the footage from his iPhone 4 to his iPad 2 using Apple’s USB Camera Connection Kit, edited the footage with iMovie, added a map, subtitled it and added a voice over and uploaded the film to YouTube. Before long, his coverage was being used by CNN and MSNBC.
Pretty impressive. Just think of how quickly a seasoned journalist could have turned a report around with the iPad 2. Thanks to companies like Apple, we’re not living in an era of citizen journalism where a good story breaks in just minutes, not hours or days.
[via TUAW]
John Brownlee is a writer for Fast Company, and a contributing writer here at CoM. He has also written for Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, VentureBeat, and Gizmodo. He lives in Boston with his wife and two parakeets. You can follow him here on Twitter.
24 responses to “Geek Squad Co-Founder Covers Major Explosion With His iPad 2”
Suspect the headline should read “Geek Squad Co-FOUNDER…”
Surely it shouldn’t include a “not” in the last paragraph? Unless I have wrong idea? Perhaps having this article written in minutes instead of hours lead to this typo ;)
“Thanks to companies like Apple, we’re not living in an era of citizen journalism where a good story breaks in just minutes, not hours or days.”
i think you me were “Now” living or we “are”
also the title should prob be “co-founder” no “co-founded”
Nice editing job with that article.
Easily done in Maya’s fluid FX and a bit of After Effects… ;)
Wow! I’m glad I don’t fight fire for a living, or else I’d have to drive towards that instead of away from it!
>> and started recording the explosion while driving “to see if anyone had dialed 911 yet.”
What a pile of spin! Rather than calling 911, Stephens chose to use his phone to record the tragedy, and then tried to spin it that he DROVE to see if anyone had dialed 911. How insulting is that, that he feels comfortable in dishing that spin to us, and that we will not question it.
Why did he not call 911 on his iPhone? His iPad 2 has a camera that he could record with.
Every sentence in this article breaks down when logic is applied.
This article stinks of payola. At the very least, Brownlee wants to be on Apple’s “favoured list” and is writing this article to garner favour.
There sure are a lot of pissy people on here so concerned about grammar. Honestly, we all know what the writer of this article means. Typos happen. The grammar police need to give it a rest. If the grammar bothers you that bad, go read somewhere else. CoM is a place for happy people.
It used to be that CNN, CBS, NBC, etc. would pay hundreds to thousands of dollars for news footage like this. Now through things like YouTube and iReport they get it all for free.
Wow … you are so smart. There’s no fooling you.
Alas he’s right. The internet and blog world has ushered in lazy would-be “journalists” who couldn’t care less about proper writing and taking the time and care to produce a quality article. Actually I think this speaks volumes about our modern culture.
I’m not surprised that a co-founder of the Geek Squad wouldn’t know enough about tech to hold his iPad sideways.