Japanese company Suekage Sangyo introduced Soios 55-Cam 360, a webcam that shoots 360-degree video and connects to a PC via FireWire. It gives you a choice of outputting full 360-degree surround video, 270 degrees or a single 4x3 frame. Since the lens is in the base of the camera pointing up at a 55mm hyperbolic mirror, it's possible to pan the shot across all 360 degrees, picking which direction that 4x3 video frame will be shot without having to physically move the lens.

The company previously introduced a camera like this for surveillance purposes, but this one has a puny 0.35-megapixel sensor, making us think that its video would be hardly usable for anything beyond webcam applications. But imagine the interesting possibilities if this thing had a high-definition sensor inside instead. No pricing or availability was announced. – Charlie White

SOIOS 360, the 360 degrees WebCam [Akihabara News]

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