GoPro Unveils Smaller Hero Camera, Plans for VR and Drone
On July 12, GoPro will debut Hero4 Session, its latest action-video camera, priced at $399 and featuring a dramatically different form factor: a 1.5-inch cube that weighs only 2.6 ounces, with one button for on and off. In addition, GoPro founder Nick Woodman has announced the company’s expansion into virtual reality with a 16-camera array for an as-of-yet undisclosed price, to debut in August. Scheduled for next year, GoPro also plans to launch a quadcopter drone with built-in GoPro camera.
See the full story here: http://www.etcentric.org/gopro-unveils-smaller-hero-camera-plans-for-vr-and-drone/
OnlyInVR Sells Immersive Videos to Tourism, Travel Clients
Virtual reality and marketing is a match made in heaven, say many VR experts, but so far very few examples of that pairing have come to pass. OnlyInVR CEO Michael Hodson hopes to change that with videos for the tourism and travel industry. His company’s videos have already been big hits at trade shows, he claims, and he lists STA Travel and the Aspen Chamber of Commerce among his clients. He also shows off VR tours of New York, Las Vegas and Venice, Italy optimized for Samsung’s Gear VR.
Although the potential of VR for corporate and industrial uses seems limitless, implementation is stymied by the fact that so few consumers actually possess VR headsets.
But Hodson doesn’t want to wait for the consumer market to gain momentum. “That consumer market that everybody’s waiting for — it’s a huge bonus, but it doesn’t mean we can’t do business now,” he said in the Re/code interview.
Instead, Hodson lets the VR speak for itself. “We just strap goggles on their heads and say, ‘Here’s what we’ve done. Here’s what we plan to do.’ Everybody right now is just wowed with VR in general.”
Enthused about the potential of VR for marketing and tourism, Hodson is eager to add more creative tools to VR filmmaking, including drones and underwater shots. He also notes the potential of digitally-inserted product placement, such as placing Coca-Cola ads along the Venice canals.
See the full story here: http://www.etcentric.org/onlyinvr-sells-immersive-videos-to-tourism-travel-clients/
Qantas Introduces Virtual Reality Tour of Hamilton Island
An app is set to be released shortly, but the full immersive experience requires a special VR headset that is available on Qantas first class flights and at certain travel agencies. We’ve got to say, this is certainly one way to market Hamilton Island as a destination.
See the full story here: http://www.jaunted.com/story/2015/7/6/81841/34133/travel/Qantas+Introduces+Virtual+Reality+Tour+of+Hamilton+Island
New 4K 360-Degree Camera is Designed for Virtual Reality
Sphericam 2 is a 4K spherical camera launched recently as a Kickstarter project with the intent of providing photographers, cinematographers and consumers with a means of easily capturing high-quality 360-degree video. The developers behind Sphericam see the camera is an ideal solution for producing content for VR hardware including Oculus Rift, Samsung Gear VR and Google Cardboard. The camera features six built-in 4K lenses and records 360-degree video at 60fps. With 23 days to go in the campaign, the project has already exceeded its $150,000 goal.
Sphericam 2 will retail for $1,499 but can be preordered now for a $200 discount via Kickstarter.
The first iteration of Sphericam shipped in 2013, following a successful Kickstarter campaign. The camera’s inventor, Jeffrey Martin, created a 320-gigapixel photo of London that holds the current world record for Largest Panorama Photo.
“VR has been steadily gaining popularity, especially with YouTube recently adding support for 360-degree video,” notes TechCrunch. “The music industry specifically seems to be quickly embracing the medium, with musicians ranging from Paul McCartney to Hardwell… releasing video of concerts shot in 360 degrees.”
See the full story here: http://techcrunch.com/2015/07/03/sphericam-2-is-a-4k-360-degree-camera-built-for-the-vr-era/
Tiny Camera Turns Your iPhone Into a Lens-Style Shooter
DxO One, and it’s built around the same 1-inch-type sensor Sony uses in the RX100 Mark III. (That alone is a great start.) It also has an F1.8 lens, manual exposure controls, a top shutter speed of 1/8000 of a second, and a few RAW-shooting modes.
But this is not your average premium point-and-shoot camera: It’s meant to be used while attached to your phone. It’s less than three inches tall, weighs about four ounces, and slips into a breast pocket with ease.
Like the Sony QX and Olympus Air lens cameras, the DxO One is meant to capture much better photos than your phone, then put those photos on your device for easy sharing and archiving.
There’s no optical zoom—the lens has a fixed focal length of 32mm—but the 20-megapixel sensor should allow plenty of room to crop and enlarge.
It’ll cost $600 with all that desktop software thrown in when it ships in September; you can preorder it on the DxO website now.
See the full story here: http://www.wired.com/2015/06/tiny-camera-turns-iphone-lens-style-shooter/
GoPro Shrinks the Camera Again: Hero4 Session Review
The new GoPro Hero4 Session is the size of an ice cube, about half that of previous GoPros. It can fit into the spokes of a bike, hang onto the end of a fishing pole or turn a toddler into a documentary filmmaker.
The Session goes on sale July 12.
$400.
The Session is the first new design in nearly a decade for GoPro, which has an astounding 70% of the U.S. video-camera market, according to NPD. Like the Shuffle, the Session sheds features to slim down and broaden its appeal. It has no screen to view pictures, no extra buttons to change modes, no way to swap its two-hour battery.
But the refinements in the new design are, for the most part, worth the sacrifices. They go a ways toward addressing my longstanding complaint that GoPros require too much futzing.
The Session still takes full-HD video, but is pool-party ready without the waterproof housing its predecessors required. The Session’s lens is covered by a clear shield, and the USB ports for charging and swapping out memory cards are pressure sealed (safe to an undersea depth of 10 meters). The microphone drains like a human ear when you take it out of the water, so you can go from the pool to the picnic table in seconds.
The Session also cuts GoPro’s number of buttons from three to two—really just one big one you use regularly. Tap the shutter button once to power it up and start recording video, or hold it down for still shots. (A tiny digital readout next to the button gives you confirmation that it’s working.) Press the shutter again to stop recording and turn it off. This is a significant speed improvement over older GoPros and competing action cams from companies like Sony.
A few aspects of the new design did aggravate me. The 1.5-inch, 2.6-ounce cube is cute, but when all sides are equal, how can you tell which way is up? The Session can sense its orientation, and will flip its video in 180-degree increments. But it can’t rotate 90 degrees. I held it wrong initially, and took video you have to watch with your head tilted like a confused puppy.
The session holds enough power to shoot about two hours of HD video, and doesn’t waste any juice when it isn’t shooting.
The big question, of course, is why you’d need a GoPro at all when you already have a smartphone. The answer is that you’re willing to stick them in places you’d never put your phone or regular camera.
See the full story here: http://www.wsj.com/articles/gopro-shrinks-the-camera-again-hero4-session-review-1436187558
Children’s books come to life through augmented reality
At first glance, the children's book shows a one-dimensional picture of a lion. But hover a smartphone over the page, and the lion springs up in front of you.
Company founder Chris White released the first of its book series, Animal Kingdom, last fall. Since then, he's sold more than 15,000 copies at $29.95 each.
He expects to push out four more Animal Kingdom books this year, with $650,000 in funding from private investors. The new books will feature marine animals, insects, dinosaurs and household pets.
A tech consultant with friends at Pixar animation studios, Chris came up with the idea of using augmented reality to offer what he calls "tomorrow's learning."
White's first book does more then have pink flamingo rising from the page near a pond. It lets readers feed and pet the animals.
Readers also can see facts about each featured animal like their class, habitat, size, diet and population size.
The digital images she sees are generated using a software called Unity, the same one used to custom build video games for PCs, consoles, websites and mobile devices, White said.
See the full story here: http://www.sun-sentinel.com/business/consumer/fl-augmented-reality-book-20150701-story.html