This product is new - so new that it sort of breaks some of the barriers on the normal camera shop - this is a camera that lets you enter "virtual reality"
I've always been at odds with that term - it seems that it can be open to interpretation and fiddiddling. Like the use of the word "deeming" when the tax department wants to exercise their imagination rather than yours. And every time they exercise it you pay them for the workout...
Well, semantics aside, this camera fits into the normal spectrum of recording devices somewhere between an action camera and an electronic stool pigeon. The capability it has of looking in a 360º arc and recording stereo sound is what does it. It can record what it has seen an heard on a micro SD card like any other action camera and then fire it off with WiFi. You can command it to do all these things with a mobile smart phone or tablet.
The startling part of this is the provision it has through various programs to record a 360º view of a space and then replay that information through your smart mobile phone - and the makers have produced a headset that clamps around you and that phone and presents you with an entire world in front of your eye - the virtual reality tour we wrote about before. That's the headset that Legless Lou is wearing in the studio shot - the mobile phone claps onto the end there and you focus the eyepiece lenses down onto it. The headset is not wide enough to admit eyeglasses, but you might be able to adjust the diopter focusing of the lenses down to the screen surface and do without spectacles.
The stylish little volcano is a desk mount for the round part of the camera - I envisage conference recording with people set around a table all being seen in the recording. Note that the product box also contains a basic mount that allows the camera to match up to he standard GoPro mount.
The basic structure is sort of a trick - the camera looks up into a polished convex hemisphere and this in turn looks down into an equally polished surcace. The camera gets all this and sorts it out for replay by magic.
To keep the horizon level and stop the oceans running off out of screen, there is a bubble level built into the top of the housing. Underside is the battery mount, card slot, and computer connection. All very well built.
Your cup of tea? Or cup of salt water? Well go to the website of the manufacturers and see what they have to say about it. Remember they are trying to sell it to you - and so are we...
www.vsnmobil.com/products/v360
