Ultimate Gift For A Snap-Happy Geek
In the search for ground breaking, if expensive, gift for the gadget geek who has everything, there is just time to get an order in to Panomo for delivery before Christmas, although the four-week turnaround estimate does make it tight.
The German company is making noise on the net with its new camera designed to take high-definition panoramic pictures that give a 360 degree picture in every dimension.
The adventurous photographer can throw the ball shaped Panomo, 11 centimetres in diameter into the air to capture the view not only all around, but also underneath and overhead.
When thrown upwards, an accelerometer inside the Panamo detects when it comes to a momentary standstill at the highest point of its trajectory.
At that point, the 36 built-in cameras are all fired to grab an image simultaneously.
When uploaded to a cloud-based stitching service, these three dozen images are combined into a 108 megapixel spherical panoramic to be viewed on tablet or phone based Apps.
The whole point is that this provides a radical improvement, in speed, results and coverage, over the current approach to taking panoramic pictures, which requires the photographer to spin around on the spot, even holding the camera aloft where there are surrounding crowds.
Not only that, imagine throwing the Panomo up from a position on the rim of the Grand Canyon and being included in the resulting panoramic, could that be the ultimate selfie?
What’s not to like? Well, the price. Until it starts to shift in volume, or competition enters the market, it costs a cool 1,500 euros.
But maybe your geek is worth it?
