Giroptic
Once a trend, devices that have come to life through crowdsourcing services like Kickstarter are now mainstream at CES, and Giroptic is yet another success story. The French start-up pulled in more than a million bucks for the go ahead to produce its mini 360-degree-view camera, and the result is astonishingly great. Unlike insanely pricey rigs that employ a half dozen up to several dozen cameras, Giroptic is a single, palm-sized, ruggedized unit with three built-in lenses for capturing 1080p HD video or stills in 360 degrees. You can hold it in your hand, screw on standard photo accessories like mono and tripods, or even take it underwater with its included lens housing (there’s even an ingenious lightbulb-socket adapter). On one side is a subsurface LED display for keeping track of recording time and battery life (up to one hour per charge), and the bottom unscrews to hold a memory card and the rechargeable battery. The resulting footage can be uploaded to common sharing sites that support 360 degree or virtual reality video, like YouTube and now even Facebook, among others, for easy viewing with or without VR glasses. [$500; girocam.com]
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