The Insta360 Camera and the Future of Thought Capture

A Killer Product of Today Gives a Glimpse at the Future of Memory

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been using an Insta360 camera while snowboarding, and it’s completely changed how I think about capturing moments. If you’re not familiar, the Insta360 is a compact, 360-degree action camera that captures everything around you. What makes it so unique is that you don’t have to point it—it records everything, and you can edit the shot you want later. Whether it’s the sharp turns on a powder run or the quiet moments inside the gondola, the camera doesn’t miss a thing.

What I’ve noticed is that people love it. When I’ve lent the camera to friends, they often keep it running even during seemingly mundane moments, like the ride up the mountain or a quick stop for lunch. Why? Because with the Insta360, nothing is truly mundane. The ability to go back and reframe any angle transforms every recorded moment into potential gold.

This got me thinking about a short story by Ted Chiang, “The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling.” It explores how relationships change as technology advances, focusing on how a father and daughter adapt to brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) that allow for perfect recall of their experiences. It’s a powerful meditation on memory and perspective, and it struck me as deeply relevant to the idea of capturing everything.

I suspect that a killer use case for BCIs in the future will be something like an Insta360 camera for the mind. Imagine being able to record not just your actions but also your thoughts, emotions, and fleeting ideas. With the right tools for post-processing, you could revisit moments that seemed insignificant at the time and uncover new meaning. That random insight you had while brushing your teeth? Archived and ready to refine. The emotional tone of a conversation you barely remember? Clear as day.

For me, this kind of tool would be invaluable. It would make it easier to be consistent with projects like this blog, where so many ideas are fleeting and easily lost. The ability to review and polish those raw mental recordings could transform not just creativity but how we understand our own minds.

The Insta360 camera already gives us a taste of what this future might look like—a way to record life without having to anticipate its most meaningful moments. I can’t wait to see what happens when we can do the same for the mind.