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 4×3 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 4×3 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.
SOIOS 360, the 360 degrees WebCam [Akihabara News]
