LG announced the 360 CAM at Mobile World Congress last week and is hoping their users start filling the internet with 360-degree visuals. Their approach is to offer an affordable, consumer-friendly device making creating and sharing 360-degree content as easy as pressing a button.
Right now most people’s experience with 360-degree video is through their Facebook feed, but most still haven’t touched a device cable of creating this content. It’s an interesting trajectory that 360 video is on, with the latest devices not leading the top of the price tables, instead, racing to the bottom.
While many phones and point-and-shoot cameras have a panorama mode, 360-degree spherical images and videos take people inside an environment, a location, a moment. By including everything in the scene, not just the 1 direction the creator chose, viewers can look around at what they choose, including the ground and the sky. This means we have to rethink the way we create content when its in 360 degrees and new norms are about to emerge. One such example is to guide the viewer’s direction with voice prompts. If this content is augmented with virtual reality overlays, things get a little easier to direct user attention where and when its needed.
This is the first camera from a smartphone manufacturer to be optimized for Google Street View with its support for the Google-backed Open Spherical Camera (OSC) API.
With the free Google Street View app installed on their iOS or Android smartphones, LG 360 CAM owners will be able to easily capture, upload and share their 360-degree content directly from their phones without having to convert or process their files into the appropriate format, a time-consuming process. LG 360 CAM features three embedded microphones and supports 5.1 channel surround sound recording. It is equipped with an internal battery with a capacity of 1,200mAh allowing for up to 70 minutes of video recording. With its microSD card slot, the camera can be extended to a maximum of 2TB.
Product Manager of Google Street View, Charles Armstrong says,
“This announcement of the LG 360 CAM means a lot to over 500 million Street View users and all who loves to create and share 360-degree contents,”. “With its capability to create 16MP images, the LG 360 CAM will be the most preferable choice for anyone to join in the fun of 360-degree content.”
Key Specifications:
-
Camera: 13MP Sensor x 2 (output pixel count 16MP)
-
Capture Modes: 360-degree Spherical / 180-degree Hemispherical
-
Size: 40 x 97 x 25mm (without cap)
-
Weight: 76.7g (without cap)
-
Sound: Microphone x 3 / 5.1 Channel Sound Recording
-
Battery: 1,200mAh
-
Memory: microSD (up to 2TB)
-
Connectivity: Wi-Fi / Bluetooth
-
Color: Silver
