Monday, September 26, 2016

360 Videos - 8 Hosting Site Reviews

360 Videos are the new way of media content to attract eyeballs, after you successfully creating one, you might wonder where to upload and how? We have prepared the 360 video 8 hosting site reviews for your reference below.


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5 Better Ways To Use 360 Videos

360 Videos are the new way of media content to attract eyeballs. Businesses are already using it to promote their message and brand awareness. Let"s find out what are the better ways to uses of 360 videos?


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The Evolution Of Robot Technology

The Robot Technology has made enormous progress, we have seen jobs in some industries being taken over for the automation of Robots, which has sparked a debate on whether robots might eventually replace human?


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Holographic History Timeline

Holograms are 3D images used on credit cards, DVD to prevent counterfeiting. It is also been used in the entertainment industry. Let"s find out the Holographic Technology History Timeline.


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360 Video - 7 Must Learn Tips

360 videos are a hot topic with potential business opportunities, people think about creating it? But before you want to get your hand around it and shooting a quality 360 video, you should avoid some of the mistakes as we advice below.


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Is 360 video a true Virtual Reality?

People think 360 videos as a true Virtual Reality experience, but in reality, it is kind of off the topic. Let"s find out why 360 video is not quite match to the true VR experience.


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7 innovative uses of Virtual Reality

Virtual Reality idea is booming, it is adopted in many business uses, people consider it as the next big thing. Let"s find out what are the innovative uses of Virtual Reality.


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Saturday, September 24, 2016

360 Virtual Tour – A New Opportunity for Freelance Photographers?

Out with the old and in with the new. Photos are yesterday’s talk. 360 Virtual Tour is the new now, and they are an opportunity for freelance photographers to make a new thrive in their careers.

DSLRs aren’t the only piece of expensive equipment a good photographer now needs to carry. Out with the Tripod and in with 360 degree cameras. Photographers get paid real money to give people the experience of actually being in someone else’s shoes. Rather than just seeing a still or a video, or getting only around 120 to 150 degrees of the surroundings at the time of taking the photo, you now get to see the beauty of the soil you are standing on, the beauty of the sky above you, the hand on your shoulder behind you along with the beauty of the sight beholding you.

We’re in the 21st century. The world where everyone is getting used to change. Nothing is constant anymore, and people expect new technology to be used. Convenience is a priority, and adapting and updating is of utmost significance.

So what is 360 Virtual Tour really?


The 360 virtual tour is a bundle of large panorama images seamlessly stitching together that has a user interface on top it for the user to navigate back and forth of the interior building.

The virtual tour images are rendering in 3D content which would bring you the pretty cool immersive experience, you will really feel in there even you are not personally inside the building. You can even wear the Google Cardboard to upgrade your visual experience to next level – people now call it type of Virtual Reality.

Check some of the 360 Virtual Tour examples:




 


A gift for photographers


360 virtual tour is technology’s gift to photographers. With the skills that photographers possess of capturing details and convincing the audience about the beauty of their art, 360 virtual tour would add a certain flair to their work. It makes them easily hirable by local businesses and companies, and it gives a 360 degree turnaround to their career.

Investing in 360 virtual tour


Being the next technology, companies have started investing in virtual reality and 360 virtual tour. Statistics say that 360 virtual tour help to double the interest in business listings. It contributes to market your business to a greater population of people and it can create a buzz on social media. That buzz is just what helps your business to expand and grow. Everyone likes to expand their business using modern technology to their benefit. Freelance photographers can make use of this opportunity to make some real money. People who own a business are already interested in 360 virtual tour and if they are not interested in it as of now, they will be in near future. At that time, photographers having expertise in 360 virtual tour creation will be making good money for sure.

Google Street Maps


Google maps is literally the most used APP and the most helpful tool if you’re a college student or if you’re traveling or basically if you’re just new to a place. It would be in your ‘frequently used’ list on your phone. Let’s say you heard about a good restaurant in the city. You look up the location on the APP, and you’re all set to go there. The whole navigation system just makes it easier. But what if you go there and it seems a little shady? Wouldn’t it be better if you could’ve had a 360 virtual tour of the place and its surroundings before you made the trip? It would increase viewers and the audience base as a whole.

Photographers to the rescue


Nowadays, everyone with a DSLR and an Instagram account feels like they are a photographer. Take a photo, edit it with some filters. Black and white maybe, because that gives it a professional look. And the voila! You have your own photography page! So what separates the real professional ones from the daily DSLR owners? 360 virtual tour come to the rescue here.

Companies are hiring photographers not for photos with pretty filters but for how they design 360 virtual tour and how they make it appear substantial and sophisticated. The 360 tour is not just clicking a button. It takes more than normal photography skills to execute these images right. So these virtual tours are a rescue. It draws a fine line between a professional photographer and the big crowd of DSLR owners.

It takes a lot of skill to operate a 360 degree piece of equipment. Unlike an amateur photographer with a DSLR, installing Retrica APP on their phones. 360 images and 360 virtual tours take so much more skill, focus, special stitching software and care to handle and produce.

360 virtual tour image requirements


Like stated earlier, getting perfect 360 image isn’t easy. It takes a lot of work. There are in fact, requirements for 360 images to be approved by Google. The images must have sufficient details, good lighting, a 2:1 image aspect ratio, no distracting filters, they must be shot at 1m spacing indoors and 3m spacing outdoors, there mustn’t be any gaps in the picture around the horizon and much more. Here"s a more detailed insight into Google"s acceptance policies. This again helps to distinguish pro freelance photographers from the rest and gives the good business opportunities.

Interactive


360 Virtual Tour is interactive. It seems more real than regular images that are aimed at just putting forth the main message. 360 virtual tour can have viewers go inside a room and enjoy the full view of the room in every direction and angle. The viewer can just scroll and pan around inside the image and look at wherever they want. The beauty of this technology is, you can view it for as long as you want, by just sitting in front of your computer of mobile phone. The viewer gets a complete control here.

It is all shown in the viewer, which as a whole attracts people towards it, encourages them to come and look around, enjoy and buy. It helps to expand the audience base and the company, in turn, can get good ROIs. All this is possible only if the 360 virtual tour is perfect and detailed and done right. This again is possible only if the company makes good ties with professional freelance photographers and invest a good amount of money into this photographic technology. This increases opportunities for photographers, and everybody is happy in the end. It’s a perfect win-win situation.

360 virtual tours are a boon. They’re a boon to businesses, audience, photographers and possibly everyone in between. And it is a definite win if people invested in them more. The 360 virtual tour is the in thing. Adapt, and give your business a 360 turn.


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Why most Freelance photographers don’t succeed in business?

The mindset between freelance photographers vs. business photographers


freelance

Ever wondered why it is that freelance photographers don’t normally have a good success rate in business? And what it is that makes business photographers fairly better when compared to them?

We all love the term ‘Freelancing’. Being your own boss, flexible working hours, informal dress code, sometimes the pleasure of staying at home. All sounds so fancy and convenient. But this shouldn’t take a toll on the success of your career. One should be able to balance the freedom of freelancing with the responsibility that comes along with it.


Here are some of the reasons why freelance photographers aren’t as successful as business photographers?


Professionalism


professional

As soon as you turn to freelancing, you start enjoying the freedom. You work at your own leisure and your own time. Which is okay because that is usually the reason why people want to freelance but then you start to lose touch with professionalism. This is a dangerous phase because when you turn freelance, friends and loved ones start to ask for favors.

Maybe a relative of yours would want you to be her wedding photographer, or a friend would want you to take photographs of her Jewish cousin’s Bar Mitzvah. And then you feel like you must oblige because they’re like family. It’s a morally right thing to do, but you might lose out on a better opportunity with real pay. It"s hard to ask your close ones to pay for your work, but when it comes to your job and career, you have to deal with things on a professional level. Remember, you’re freelance. Not free.

Lack Of Focus


focus

While freelancing there are high chances you will spend half your time at home. This leads to a lot of distractions like paying bills, mortgage issues and repairing the sink. Although these are necessary distractions, there are also the insignificant ones. Like maybe going to a neighbor’s party and you don’t have an excuse since you’re working from home anyway, or maybe there’s a really good movie playing on the television, or maybe you’re in the mood to redecorate your house. There’s a good chance that all this will make you lose focus on your job. It will make you postpone your work to tomorrow. And honestly, tomorrow never comes.

Looking for projects


One part of being a freelance photographer is that you have to look for your own projects. You have to market your resume and you have to find a job for yourself. This is usually tough since you have to do everything from the scratch. Right from your publicity to the final printing of your photos. Being able to get a hand on a project is not easy because if you want people to hire you, you need to earn the trust which means you need to create a brand in your name and publicize it well and even then, you may not be their first option as a photographer.

For business photographers, it is easier since a company employs them. Probably a reputed one so they don’t have to worry about sending out a brand message or marketing themselves. They are handed projects one after the other and they don’t have to stress about running after clients and attracting more customers.

 

Lack Of Business Skills


business

Being a freelance photographer you are more likely to concentrate on your technical skills than on your business skills. Lacking business skills like financing your projects, negotiating with clients and correct pricing is one of the main reasons why you could fail as a freelance photographer. You must charge your customers based on the projects they hand you.

You should charge clients that come from big brands higher than the ones that come from smaller non-profit organizations, you should know how much to invest in each project based on its genre, you should be aware how to reap profits, negotiate for a win-win situation with the client. Negotiating is usually where it goes wrong.
You must demand a pay high enough to value your work but not high enough to make your clients think you’re looting them.

You must ensure that the negotiation doesn’t turn into an argument because then not only would you lose that client but it will also spoil your reputation as a professional. For business photographers, this is easy because the employers do all the financing and negotiating with clients and all they have to do is their job.If they need a raise or a hike, all they have to do is negotiate with the employer. They don’t have to deal with the complications of a good business negotiation with customers and clients.

 

Organization and prioritization


Your work schedule tends to become disorganized and scattered as a freelance photographer. It gets postponed sometimes and disrupted other times. It is necessary for you as a freelance photographer to be able to organize your work with efficiency. Use calendars and sticky notes or anything that helps to prioritize your projects, set proper dates, make day to day schedules and execute them well.

Business photographers are given timelines and deadlines for every project they are handed. This puts pressure on them but at least they know that if they do their job within the given timeline, they wouldn’t have to worry about anything else. For a freelance photographer, however, since there is no one to boss around them, they have to be strict with themselves and ensure that they work on their projects with diligence and finish them in time so as to keep their clients coming back to them for more projects and better pay.

Being a freelance photographer, you can have the time of your life. You can reap all the benefits of being freelance provided you are professional enough with yourself.

Final Words To Freelance Photographers


When it comes to every technology related work, it is important to keep updated yourself with the latest technology. If you are outdated, then you are practically out of business too. The modern trend in photography and image creation is 360 degree pictures and videos. If you want to succeed in this business, you have to know about 360 virtual tours. It enables you to capture the entire surroundings in every angle and then view it in a suitable player later.

Local businesses are hiring people to create a full 360 virtual tour of their shop. If you are a freelance photographer, you can create some of these virtual tours and host them online on platforms like VisualPathy. You can get the embed code and post them on your own site too. Showing your clients about your previous work will be good for your business.


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Five Innovative Uses Of Virtual Reality Applications

Gone are the days when virtual reality was just used for Gaming. People are fast, technology is faster. Virtual reality applications are now booming and too many to number.

When we start talking about Virtual Reality applications, our minds usually tend to turn towards gaming and Play Stations and Nintendos. But it’s not so anymore. Virtual reality is being adopted everywhere. Here are some of the many uses of virtual reality.

Virtual Reality Application On Education:


Education On Kids


One generation after the other, the kids keep getting tech savvy. Two-year-old today also know how to use a phone or a tablet and how to make calls and play games and use certain apps. It’s safe to say that these kids need more than a chalk and slate for their education. The world better adapts to their learning techniques or they could lag behind. How much more a child could develop his or her imagination if he was made to step into the virtual reality of astronomy! If he could be near the stars and the revolving planets and the falling asteroids instead of seeing two-dimensional pictures of them in a textbook, how much more could they learn. Clearly, use of Virtual Reality will help children learn better.

Education On Adults


Now whether the older ones are tech savvy or not, we can’t argue that they’d rather experience something close to realism than read fat books. For instance, medical students pursuing their post graduate studies in surgery. While preparing for tests or practicals wouldn’t they rather practice on virtual patients before operating on real ones? Use of Virtual Reality will apparently reduce the risk factor here. It would not only build confidence but also give them a clear visual perspective to their theory.

Virtual Reality Application On Sports


Here’s another use of virtual reality. Virtual reality and the technology it brings along with it would thrive in the sports industry. It would let fans enjoy a high definition 3D view of the game. It would let athletes get a closer, right look of their games or games of their opponents so that they can improve upon their training, set their game plan accordingly and find weaknesses of the rival team.

It can also help the industries push and see where they can improve sports equipment and clothing in terms of material, durability, design etc. A golfer can improve his swing, a jumper can improve his stride, viewers can be transported closer to the stadium, industries can come up with stronger and better golf clubs, swim suits, badminton rackets etc. All with the help of virtual reality.

VR On Fashion


Fashion would be another one of the virtual reality applications. Now, we see the number of red carpet failures every time there’s an award show. People are judged by what they wear and how they carry off their look. Even celebrities. Media will Leave No Stone unturned when it comes to criticizing their outfit, make-up and hair. How about 3D virtual humans to help with this? The designers or the persons themselves can see what they would look like in that particular outfit before they actually wear it on the red carpet.

Virtual reality applications can also bring fashion enthusiasts, bloggers and magazine writers closer to the fashion shows so they can see with more detail. Another use of VR in the fashion industry would be 3D fashion portfolios. This is a step ahead into the future. Models showing a 3D image of them in a photo shoot or a ramp walk. It is easier for the agency to spot a talent and hire good models. This would definitely blur the line between fashion and technology for the better.

 

VR On Entertainment


Imagine zoos where you can go closer to the animals that permitted, museums and galleries in which you can see the sculptures or paintings in detail, virtual theme parks and more. VR helps people to view exhibits in a way that isn’t allowed in museums. In some cases, they can also interact with the exhibits using tracking gloves. Imagination has no limits.

Virtual reality can take you to new places, new dimensions that you didn’t know existed. You can be in Hogwarts with the rest of the wizards or you could run with the maze runners and find your way out of the maze, you can go kill some aliens with the MIB or you can see details of cooking shows like for example, how they’re using the induction stove or how much pepper they’re using for seasoning and what settings they use for the oven.

Scientists have also been working on 3D painting which takes digital art to a whole other level. How much more fun it would be if Haunted houses, laser tag and paintball etc. if they were more realistic and 3D! What if you’re on a roller coaster but you put on some VR headgear and you’re somewhere near an erupting volcano? A lot more fun, isn’t it? Virtual Reality applications in the field of entertainment are unlimited.

VR On Business


The Mariott Hotel took its customers on a trip to Hawaii. The VR headgear had heaters and wind jets which took their customers on a trip to London first and then Hawaii. It not only gave them the experience of being there but also helped them pick their holiday destinations and simultaneously in the background, promoted the Hotel which tried to make sure that these customers would book a room or a suite in their hotel when they visit these places.

Coca-Cola also used virtual reality. Using Oculus Rift headgear, thousands of Polish people were immersed in the virtual reality of a sleigh ride. The company is always experimenting with fresh ideas of marketing their brand. They took a good step ahead with the virtual sleigh ride.

VR can not only help promote brands but also help customers view products in 3D, giving them a 360 view and also enabling interaction by using tracking gloves. VR can also help with product testing when it comes to slightly dangerous or harmful products for which direct contact is not encouraged.

VR also helps to view data analysis and forecasting trends which are essential for the growth of a business , and it also helps to conduct meetings with people based at several distant locations.


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Better ways to use of 360 degree videos

They"re immersive, and they"re effective. 360 degree videos are just what you need nowadays to add value to your brand and promote your brand message.


In today"s world everybody wants more. And somehow the more they want, the harder they are to convince. Hoardings, newspaper ads, and TV commercials just won"t cut it. Those are things of yesterday. And this is how 360 degree videos come into the picture.

360 Video For Travel



If you"re in the travel industry, you have every excuse to exploit 360 videos. Travel content definitely needs multimedia. Pictures are great and easily editable and everything but if you want your content to sell, 360 videos are what you need. You need to show them a glimpse of everything. Right from the soft earth beneath your feet to the bright sky and everything in between. If your audience wants to see how tall the trees get, from a lower view, they should be able to. If they want to see the canopies from the top view, they should be able to. They should have the freedom of movement, and you must let them have it. Make them feel like they"re part of something so beautiful.


360 Video For Cars


What"s the best thing about cars? Driving them. Of course. There"s something about sitting in the driver"s seat that you just can"t feel when you"re in the back seat. And when you ‘re trying to sell your car, you want to show your customers the thrill of being in the driver’s seat. 360 degree videos will help you do just that. You will be able to show them the very texture of the road and the excitement you get from making wide turns and maybe a little drifting here and there. You would want to show them the smooth brakes and how easily the steering wheel turns. They did exactly that with the Faraday Friday and to be honest, everything about the ad is appealing and brilliant.


360 Video For Sports


The best place to watch a game is at the stadium. But if you’re a sports fan you know you"ll re-watch a game dozens of times just for one particular goal or one particular highlight. Now, if you"re a sports channel, and you gave your customers the option of a 360 degree video, they will keep visiting your channel. Guaranteed. The last FIFA goal by Mario Gotze: the best moment for the Germans.

Sports fans are a whole other category of people. They like to notice every detail. The ball spinning, the angle, the aim, everything. If you give them a 360 video of that goal, right from the moment he kicked it, until the ball went it to the net, they will be ever grateful to you.

Surfing is another sport in which the use of 360 videos is encouraged. Imagine getting an all-round view of what it is like being inside a water tunnel. One that moves. Sounds brilliant, doesn"t it? Seeing the water move with that much force and see droplets of the water splash onto the camera and experience how it is like to surf out of that beautiful wave . It all seems unreal!

360 Video For Real estate



Now this is one business in which your customers want to see everything. Most real estate developers, when they work on a new project, build a sample flat where prospective viewers can come and experience how it feels to live in one of those homes. Now imagine if rather than just giving the experience to a few 100 who come to visit the actual property, you can now reach out to potentially thousands of customers through a 360 degree Video you publish on Facebook.

Home is where a family is built. It"s where a family is raised. Houses are a significant investment, and people want to be extremely careful and picky when it comes to buying a home. If you want them to buy your house, you must be able to make them imagine their lives in your home. You must be completely transparent with them. 360 degree videos will come in handy here.


You must be able to let your customers view the top floor from down the stairs if they want to, you must let them have a glimpse of the very corner of the basement if they want to, you must let them look at the lawn from the tree house in the backyard if they want to. If they want to look at the bulbs that light the chandelier and if they want to look inside the kitchen cupboards, they should be able to. They must be allowed to look at the house from any angle they want to. You must provide them a glass door and 360 degree videos are one of the best ways to do that.

360 Video For Animal planet



Yes, we all love watching how animals hunt, eat, sleep, escape and survive in those huge jungles. We’re all so curious about how lions prey and how giraffes kick. But wouldn’t we love “see yourselves in the eyes of another” to be applied when it comes to animals? This may seem a little less significant as compared to the ways as mentioned above of using 360 videos but it could take this particular industry to a new era. Imagine you can see how everything looks in the eyes of a cheetah when it is running after a deer. Fast? Precise? This might come off as a little sadistic and violent but what if you saw from the eyes of a predator when it catches its prey? This could be very educational and scientific for animal enthusiasts and for people who study animals.


The 360 degree video is one of the technology"s many successes. Getting an all-round view of a scene is what everybody wants when they watch something. If done right, it can really help your brand and make your customers feel like they"re part of something amazing.



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Friday, September 23, 2016

Virtual Reality Marketing Hype, The Pros, The Cons and The Promise

Virtual Reality Marketing is starting to be promoted by all businesses today. It is such a hype and offers so much for the future that everybody’s already immersed in it.

The Virtual Reality Marketing Hype




You’re in a "basement" inside a VR Game. Clothes hung around here and there, and there’s a lot of unnecessary equipment by the side, a creaky wooden floor, and you can hear a dog barking and a girl screaming. You go further ahead, and there’s a huge, dark pit in the basement and a young girl probably in her teens trapped inside it. You see her but she doesn’t see you. You get all these scary, frightening vibes. All of sudden you hear your mom shouting “Dinner’s ready!”And then you take off your VR headsets and realize you’re still in reality. You were just watching Silence of the Lambs on your VR headset.

You and your business partner are discussing some important issues concerning the marketing of your product while playing golf. You swing your club, and it’s a miss. Your business partner laughs about your swing and it"s now his turn. He swings and the club hits the ball, and the ball flies through the air in a perfect projectile and falls a few inches near the hole. You’re amazed by your business partner’s golfing and it all creates a good atmosphere to continue talking about your business.

After you’re done talking you take off your headsets and you are all of a sudden at home in the most congested part of the city and your wife brings you both a hot cup of coffee after you have had a good VR golf game and after all your topics have been pleasantly discussed in the golf arena.

Being in the same place yet being in another place is such a mind blowing phase of technology that virtual reality marketing had to become a hype.Several companies are starting to invest in virtual reality, one among them being Facebook. Facebook spent nearly $2 million and bought Oculus to explore the world of social VR.


VR Pros




The pros are the reason why virtual reality marketing is a hype. The pros are that you are taken to another world without moving from your house. You are teleported to wherever you wish. Outer space, Super Mario land, Narnia, wherever. Virtual reality is being used everywhere. The applications of VR are numerous. In the field of education, in the fashion industries, in the entertainment industries, in the field of sports, medicine, engineering, astronomy, everywhere. People are starting to see the importance and hence, are starting to invest in this business.

They’re all hoping for virtual reality marketing to become a big thing so that demand increases and it gives the manufacture and production companies a stimulus to make more of these virtual reality headgears and other equipment. The virtual reality industry has so much to offer, and it is still only in its development stage. The future has a lot more in store. For those who are invested in this piece of technology, you will not be let down. You will get a good ROI. Investing in virtual reality is a good decision, the business will only go forward.


VR Cons


Virtual reality is obviously making socializing harder. It is brilliant for social media and social networking but once again, it doesn’t encourage face-to-face talking and mingling. People are already too dependent on social networking sites. Virtual reality just makes it more convenient for them to stay home and talk over another one of technology’s doings. Cyber security crimes and identity fraud can be committed once social networking VR projects are put into action. Cyber crime creativity can be amplified to the next level using virtual reality. The gear is expensive and it cannot be afforded by everyone. It is also heavy and has sometimes caused motion sickness and disorientation.

The Promise




Like mentioned earlier, virtual reality is still in its development phase and has a lot more to offer in the future. A lot of effort, time and energy is being put to make virtual reality sophisticated and convenient. There are hopes of exploring the world of nanotechnology for VR, to upload your brain onto a computer network system and become part of the virtual environment. The VR industry also promises for it to become more physical. It is not only going to be your mind that’s in the virtual environment. It is going to be the full human body. With data gloves and sensors and controllers, they are going to make it more physical and scary in the future.

Facebook is trying to map the full human body, it’s movements and actions so that interacting with other people over social networking can come closer to realism. It’s a goodbye to video conferencing and skyping because why would you want to just look at each other’s faces on a laptop screen when you can feel like you’re sitting right next to the person that’s thousands of miles away? Conferences and meetings would become so much easier and powerful.

Imagine seeing a realistic 3D image of a file instead of displaying it on the TV screen. This would change so many things especially in the departments of civil engineering and architecture. Viewing the scaled model of a building or a park would make it so convenient and realistic. Virtual reality is going to give us another world in a world that we are already living in. It is going to give a new dimension to life and everything in it. Virtual reality marketing is going to be huge.

Everyone rallied around the PC gaming industry and now we have what we have today,” said Frank Azor, general manager of Dell’s Alienware. Virtual reality and virtual reality marketing is an industry-wide effort. It is not just one company, but all the companies together are trying to make it a success and are using it to shape the future.



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Saturday, September 17, 2016

Technology Innovation Trends 2016

Mobile payment, Virtual Reality, AI robots and the Internet of Things aspire become this year"s rising stars.


2016 technology innovation trend


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Friday, September 16, 2016

Is 360 Degree Video True Virtual Reality?

 

So I was looking at one of Gordon Ramsay’s 360 Degree Videos on Facebook; something about a Christmas Dinner special with one of his daughters. I actually had a hard time figuring out where exactly Gordon was or what he was cooking. I finally did manage to locate him and his daughter, but that’s not what you would expect from a 360 video, right?



When Google Cardboard came out, there were a lot of events where people gave out Google Cardboards, in an attempt to push the Google Cardboards into the main frame of the VR world. People were instantly hooked; a simple headset that could instantly convert your ordinary smartphone experience into a comprehensive Virtual experience where the world interacted according to the way you behaved. Maybe it’s bad SEO or hasty assumptions but everything you see using the Google cardboard is not virtual reality, trust me on that one.



Virtual reality is a computer-generated simulation of the environment that makes you feel like you’ve teleported to that environment through your headsets or gear. A true VR experience would include having 3D life-sized images (from the user’s perspective) and the ability to track the user’s motions so as to adjust the display as the user keeps moving. This is typical true VR immersive simulated experience criteria. This does not happen with 360 videos.



What is a 360 Degree Video?


360 videos or the 360 degree videos are just videos that capture a particular environment in a whole 360 degree environment. So it can seem immersive, but they’re really not. All they do is give you a panoramic view of whatever is captured in the video. You cannot travel with it and are restricted to what is captured in the video. Imagine you’re watching a 360 video of the Avatar world. What you’re viewing from somewhere near the sacred tree, you can also view from the hills because there’s only so much a 360 video can capture. So you can experience the same scenery from two places which don’t really virtualize your reality. It’s like watching the same movie at two places except you’re getting a full 360 degree view of it which just makes you feel like you’re immersed in it. But then again, one can even be immersed while reading a good book. We don’t call that virtual reality now, do we?



Understand The basic VR rules


The fundamental rule that virtual reality is based on is that you never take control of the camera away from the user. Your environment must change only while considering the orientation and position of your head. If you’re looking in one direction constantly but your frame keeps changing, the basic rule of VR is broken. This also causes motion sickness and other ill-effects. 360 videos do not meet the accurate an acceptable frame, latency or field of view which is what causes these ill-effects, also called as cybersickness.



How true VR headsets work?


What these headsets like Oculus rift and HTC Vive do are they track the movements of your head with a number of sensors and then they map the actual real-world movement of your head to the virtual word. So if you change the orientation of your head, say you tilt it slightly towards the left, the embedded computer system in your headsets will map the same tilt in the virtual world which ultimately makes you feel like you’re transported into the virtual world. As simple as it sounds in theory, the execution and implementation isn’t. Here comes the problem with 360 videos. They cannot show you more than one perspective at a time. You can get up and walk around and jump about but you will be watching the same frames. The hardware doesn’t detect your movements. Also, the high frame rates and faulty display timings tend to give you a nauseating feeling or a headache which doesn’t stop as soon as you take off the gear.



What is Augmented reality?


Here’s where virtual reality and 360 videos meet. It’s a little opposite of the way VR works. It makes computer generated objects pop into your real world. You would probably see characters from video games popping up from behind your office desk with guns and ammo or real life 3d information. This is the common ground for virtual reality and 360 videos. Otherwise, calling 360 videos as VR is only a setback for VR.



Why are 360 Degree Video a setback for VR?


Virtual reality is a fast growing industry. It is not only being implemented in gaming but also in social networking. The Facebook virtual reality is the next big thing in the field of VR. It gives people an escape into a stress-free virtual world, it gives you the chance to be at two places at the same time, it provides you with a creative control and helps you define objects that don’t really exist. VR is a combination of various technologies. It has a lot of potentials to shape up the future.


With huge companies investing large sums of money into the virtual reality industry and with all the research put in for the betterment and improvement of VR gear, calling a 360 degree video which can probably be shot using the bare minimum technology (as compared to VR technology) would only be a setback for the marketing of VR as rising business. The business is trying to show the people that VR is what the world is heading to, that it is the future. Virtual reality is paving the way to a space-age world and hence, categorizing 360 videos under virtual reality would defeat the point of good marketing. Technology is moving at a fast pace and is slowly blurring the line between reality and virtual reality. However, Virtual Reality is still far from perfected, the scope is immense and there is a reason the big players are investing so much into it.



“Virtual reality was once a dream of science but the internet was also once a dream and so were smartphones and computers.” - Mark Zuckerberg


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Thursday, September 15, 2016

VR Video: 8 Hosting Sites Review

Planning and recording a 360 degree video is the fun part. Bringing it in front of the world is where things get a bit confusing. Why? Because there are numerous 360 VR Video hosting platforms which you can use to upload your video.

But truth to be told, VR Video is slowly taking over the teenage population by storm. It"s more about the feel of experience you desire your viewers to have rather than the video itself.

Let me dive into a few theories - Do you know why 3D functionality on smartphones was drowning so quickly? It"s because there was no way out to share your recordings and experiences with anyone at one time.

Situations would be like, Yay! I have recorded a 360 degree video. Now, what? Where to upload it? That"s a solid rock question which is hard to answer.

However, things have changed pretty much in 2016. As the new technologies came rolling in, the decision-making also becomes a little bit easier.

I walk you through 8 sites that let you host your 360 videos. I"ll make sure it"ll be easy for you to decide on ONE.


1. GoPro VR Video Hosting


GoPro is a fantastic tool for sharing and watching 360 videos from the mobile app and even from the website itself.

It was formerly known as Kolor, which was similar but had lower specifications than the upgraded GoPro.

On the homepage, you will see three words - CAPTURE, SWITCH, and SHARE

What do they mean by these three words? Let me elaborate it for you.

VR Video CAPTURE:


They are offering an excellent video recorder called GoPro Omni.

But, what does GoPro Omni do? You may ask.

Well, let me answer this in the simplest manner: GoPro Omni is an advanced yet elegant 360 video recorder. It lets you capture the whole wide screen and construct absolute professional quality videos.

VR Video SWITCH:


There comes an Autopano Video software which is really simple, but very powerful. It lets you combine numerous VR Videos into ONE single video.

VR Video SHARE:


Your video deserves to be seen by the world. Why to go anywhere else when you can instantly share them from GoPro VR. It"s easy, It"s fast, and it"s fun.


2. Beamify.TV VR Video Hosting


Beamify is a beautiful solution for you to create and share 360 videos. The user-interface seems to be very clean and easy to understand, which is a plus point for anyone.

It"s a simple platform to upload, share and be dissolved in the liquid-clear 360 degree video experience.

In their "About" page, they seem to deliver a good customer support. Though, not much about their features have been disclosed.

If I were at your place now, I would roam around these sites and look at their features carefully. This is to confirm you pick one wisely.


3. Vrideo.com VR Video Hosting


One thing I must admit about Vrideo is that their user-interface is SUPER-FRIENDLY. If you look at their tabs, navigation buttons and stuff like that, you will notice that it"s fast and easy to use their site. Well, I am utterly impressed by that.

You can browse through "WOW-FACTOR" videos and channels, and you can host your videos and share them. It has got some decent features one would need necessarily.

Vrideo was founded in 2014, which tells us they"re new to this game of VR Video hosting and sharing.

However, the age doesn"t matter. What matters is their quality of service, right?


4. YouTube VR Video Hosting


YouTube is the second most visited website in the world, then how could this list be complete without YouTube?

YouTube released its VR Video compatibility in 2015. Despite sitting there for a long time now, it doesn"t have those "ADVANCED" features that one would require.

Truth to be told, it is pretty basic. There are only a few features such as, playing the video in 360-degree spherical and stuff like zooming in and out. Dragging the screen from here and there is another basic feature.


5. Littlstar.com VR Video Hosting


Another addition to the VR video hosting sites is Littlstar. They offer features pretty much same as the above sites, but their support team is FABULOUS. I would say, they are very prompt and friendly.

When you upload your video to this site, there are really HIGH chances your video will get viewed by plenty of people. Isn"t this a superb thing?

Their video player looks basic and acts basic too. Unfortunately, there is one downfall.

That is, You cannot set your own chosen thumbnails to your video.

However, apart from all these, they also have a BETA app from which you can surf through various channels and videos.


6. 360 Heros VR Video Hosting


360 Heros is a one-stop shop for 360 Video services. It has got pretty much everything you need to use, whether you want to film a 360 video or take panoramic photos or even creating VR videos. 360 Heros covers it all.

Well, how about sharing the video content with the whole world? The 360Heros hosting center allows you to do just that easily.

With the mobile app support feature, you can showcase your videos on the go. Kind of cool, eh?

Plus, the flexible solution for video production. Umm! 360Heros is an ideal choice. They even take care of your after-production technical services.


7. Facebook VR Video Hosting


Ever heard of Facebook? Yes. It"s a social network.

But, did you know that you can upload and host your 360 videos on Facebook?

With Facebook"s recently unveiled feature, you can upload your 360 videos to your Facebook timeline the same way you would upload just any other video.

However, if your video was recorded with a recorder that doesn"t support the feature of adding the 360 metadata AUTOMATICALLY, then you have to add the metadata to the video file separately.

Otherwise, you are just fine and can upload the video anyway.

One thing to keep in mind is, you can"t upload a video which exceeds the limit of 10 minutes and size of 1.75 Gigabytes.


8. Wistia.com VR Video Hosting


Wistia recently announced their all new 360 Video Player and 360 heatmaps. They have been a reputed video service brand for a very long time and knowing they support 360 videos is the cherry on top.

As we all know, a video has the power to accelerate ANY business that uses it. With 360 Video"s existence, things have come to a whole new level.

If you use the full potential of 360 videos, you can not only let viewers experience the motion fun, but also you can bring them inside just like they are living the moment themselves at the venue.

With Wistia"s new unveiling, you can share engaging and exciting 360 degree experiences with anyone.

It is also a very reliable hosting solution. Within a very short period, you can start uploading and share your video content with everyone attracting huge eyeballs.

There are some very exciting features, such as –

- Custom Thumbnails
- Video Player Color Picker
- Email Capturer
- CTA Buttons
- Mobile Friendly

Did I tell you that you can track every aspect of your viewer"s stats? Yes, you can with Wistia.com Heatmaps.

This allows you to identify what is going right and what is going wrong.

Conclusion


So that was it - The review of 8 VR video hosting sites. I hope you enjoyed it and gained the kind of knowledge and information you was looking for.

Let me know in the comments section if there is any other site that you recommend.
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Facebook Virtual Reality Ambitions

What differentiates Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook from other relatively young enterprises are the fact that they have retained that entrepreneurial streak as their products has matured. Mark definitely hit a gold mine when he came up with Facebook, which has since taken the world by storm. Adding new features every month, including Facebook Messenger and instant articles, to name a few, he has ensured Facebook keeps coming up with new features to maintain their users engaged and wanting more.

However, what truly makes Mark Zuckerberg a genius, a quality that Yahoo lacked, is that he knows that the Facebook’s business model is going down. He has noticed a gaping hole and a possible future threat that could derail Facebook – Virtual Reality. Rather than being intimidated, however, he wants virtual reality to be the future of Facebook.

Facebook Virtual Reality is a bold step into the future. It takes a significant leap from a thousand lines of code to a sophisticated hardware that everyone would want to possess!

Why Facebook chase after virtual reality?


One of the Facebook developer Yaser Sheikh said that social VR would add a whole new dimension to social networking. Job interviews, poker games, and the likes would become a lot easier and helpful. It would help people connect (which is Facebook’s basic idea) on a different level. It would almost feel like you’re there with your American cousin, chatting and having ice cream while you’re actually on your couch in Qatar. It would eliminate distance from the equation which is what the world is desperately waiting for. Some sort of teleportation. Virtual reality is a multi-billion dollar business, and Facebook is taking a brave step expanding its limited realm of gaming experience and using it to explore the world of social networking.



Investing in Oculus virtual reality 


Zuckerberg then bought Oculus, a major VR technology company for 2 billion dollars to start exploring the world of social VR. Oculus is a leading company. Having launched about 30 games and starting nearly 70 more by the end of the year, it took a lead when it sold Rift, a VR technology that made gaming an anywhere-anything experience and changed the course of gaming. It helped people to escape reality and travel another world. Imagine escaping your exams and assignments and entering into the world of Star Wars. I think we can all agree that sounds absolutely spectacular.

To be honest, Facebook is pushing this VR technology project faster than expected. Facebook wouldn’t have a loss investing in Oculus. In fact, it would also give incentive to other companies to make their products Facebook compatible soon. If the VR industry grew, (which it will consider how people prefer the virtual world over reality any day), Facebook along with Oculus would become the hot topic for discussion.



Facebook Virtual Reality Ambitions


The aim of this project is to expand Virtual Reality to making movies and watching sports and making conversations and connecting with people. Imagine this: Yankees game in 360 degrees as if you’re in the stadium, except in HD; scrolling through your friend’s graduation photos in 3D as if you were part of the ceremony; having a Facebook video conference with your grandma, taking a good look at the various features of her wheelchair and explaining it to her.

Zuckerberg said that he wanted Facebook to have a hardware. Something that people would hold on to, and not just lines and lines of code. Even though the code was a key achievement, he wanted Facebook to own VR like how Apple and Google own phones. It is “the golden age of videos,” he said.



How far from the goal are they?


Zuckerberg made it clear that VR still as a long way to go. Lots of problems, questions and variables to consider in the equation. He said that it is not hard to predict how the world is going to be, it is only hard figuring out how to get there. He thinks this project is worthy of substantial investment and hence, is ready to invest even a NASA-like research park to study human reactions and mechanisms and full-body motions to get ahead in the development of the product.

The undertaking of this project would be immensely brutal since they would have to turn it into a mass-scale production of Oculus goggles and put it into the hands of people. Very different from just coding (which is how Facebook started off). He said that some of the problems that they’re facing in the making of Facebook virtual reality don’t even have names. They are having to get a real understanding of the question to start answering it. They’re also having to conduct more studies and dig deeper into researching the brain and its mechanisms. There are just way too many x’s in the equation at the moment. But Zuckerberg is not flinching to put in as much as it takes to answer these questions, whether its mind or money.



What do we think about Facebook Virtual Reality goals?


People have been waiting for something like this for a while now. “If only I could watch this game in 3D and take a proper look at Pepe’s foul”, “Sorry, I couldn’t attend your house warming. If only I could take a tour of your house from all the way here”, “If only I could get a panoramic view of your room I could help you look for your papers too”, “I can help you fix your car but I need to get a better view of the engine parts”. Honestly, there are too many situations that made us wish for something like this either consciously or subconsciously. And that “this” is now. Facebook is making it possible. It will take a long time for sure, but at least the initiation has started. And you know what they say about the step one. Take the first step, and you’re halfway there.
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Cloud Computing Chronology

By the end of the 60s, there was already a lot of buzz about the potential of computing. But we had to wait for the 90s to see the term Cloud Computing emerging.



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The Future Of Drones

Drones initially are conceived for military use, these Unmanned Aerial Vehicles have gained prominence for their commercial uses, from mapping, video, and photography, to crop monitoring and protection.


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Friday, September 9, 2016

360 Degree Video - 7 tips you should know before shooting?

You can see many 360 degree videos in social media like Facebook, in which you can pan around and view everything in the surrounding of the camera, as the video plays. These are full 360 degree videos captured using special equipment.

By special equipment, I mean specialized cameras which have multiple lenses to capture different angles at the same time. The thing about 360 video is, it is not as easy to capture it as it is to view it. There are things you should know before going on an adventure to capture 360 degree videos. Remember these points when you are out there to purchase 360 degree video rig because you will have to regret later if you don’t.

The hardware required for 360 degree video capturing


360 degree video camera

This is not something you can do with your smartphone. Don’t get the 360 video confused with 360 degree panorama still images. Multiple cameras are definitely required for video capturing unlike still image capturing. You can create 360 still images on any smartphone. One might argue that a number of lenses in the camera means better 360 videos. The fact is, it’s not that simple to define it like that. A large number of things are at play here.

Choosing the right hardware based on your requirement is important. There are 360 degree cameras available in a wide range of price. Choose from them based on your requirement. Not every camera covers the whole surroundings. Though they might be able to cover the whole horizontal plane, some vertical parts may be left off of the video due to the limitations of the camera you are using. Go through the specs in detail and choose what you want.

There are two ways to make a 360 degree video


There are different ways to make a 360 degree video. You can use cameras which were made for this purpose only so that all the processes like capturing, stitching etc. will be done by the camera itself internally. This is the easiest method, as all you have to do is point the camera and click the button to capture. No need to worry about post processing and all.

Or you can go with the painful method of capturing the surroundings with the individual camera pointed at a different direction. In the end, you will have to stitch them together with your own hands, using software available to sew 360 degree video together. How the final output looks like will entirely depend on your stitching skills.

Depending on the method you choose, there are many cameras available. There is even these third party hardware available, in which you can attach many Go Pro cameras and capture. This gadget requires you to press the capture button on all the cameras simultaneously.

Size of the camera rig matters


360 degree video rig

You’re probably going to create 360 videos when going on an adventure or outdoor trip. I mean, what’s the point of having 360 degree video graphic hardware if you are just using it to make videos of your backyard and home interior.

Portability is a big factor here. You can’t transport if the equipment is too heavy. Gladly, there is much small and portable hardware available. Ricoh Theta S is one of the portable gadgets. There is a chance that you won’t get superior quality out of these gadgets, but something is better than nothing right.

How do you stitch it together?


If you are going with the painful manual method of 360 degree video capturing, in the end, you have to stitch it. There are many tools available to do this. Kodak offers a tool for Mac systems. The working is pretty simple actually. The software recognizes audio in every individual video clip to synchronize them. After getting the playback time synchronized in all the videos, the stitching process takes place.

Users have observed that when combining the videos, objects, and people that come from the edge portion of each video seems to be disappearing. The tool offers manual editing options by which you can correct these small errors.

Resolution might go down post processing


Most of the cameras out there advertise they record in HD or full HD resolution. It is a fact up to an extent. They record in the resolution in which they said they would. But after the stitching is complete and the video is rendered in 360 degree, you might see a degradation in quality and resolution. This might be due to the post processing done after recording. The combining process may be the reason for degradation. People have been complaining that the 1080p video they captured looks like 360p when viewed. This is something you might want to keep in mind.

One tip we have to offer is, to capture in maximum possible resolution. Many people just don’t look at the camera settings. Most of the time, it will be set to record in medium quality. Just change it and record in the highest resolution the camera offers.

GoPro cameras have been said to be the most consistent ones in terms of resolution.

Uploading it onto the web


You can upload these videos to Facebook and YouTube. Just like they do with any other ordinary video, the quality will be slightly lost during their compression. You won’t be able to view it in as good as you saw it on your desktop or handheld the device. There will be definitely a difference in quality after uploading. The only way to counteract this is to upload videos in as higher resolution as you can.

The final words


After going through everything we have described above, you must have understood by now that a large number of things are there to consider when making a 360 degree video. Everything from hardware selection to uploading it onto the web needs to be done carefully in order to obtain the best results possible. Happy 360 video recording.

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Thursday, September 8, 2016

What is 360 Photography?

The tech world is coming up with attractive gadgets and technologies every day. The term we have heard for quite some time; 360 photography! If you spend a lot of time on social media like Facebook, then you probably have already seen a 360-degree photo or a video.

Though there are numerous types of the same technique, you should understand at least the basic idea behind the same.

That is exactly why I crafted this article. Here, you are going to read the idea of 360 photography, and how to make one and the uses.

 

What is 360 Photography?


Many a time, you were in a position not being able to capture the beauty of a single scene in one photo, right?

What do you do in such a situation? Most probably, you will end up taking multiple pictures. Or, you switch the camera to panorama mode.

But now, you don’t have to do both the things as 360 photography has everything you need.

In a typical panoramic photo, what the mechanism does is depicting everything in one photo. But in 360 panoramic photography or simply 360 photography, you will be able to see the entire surroundings like you stand at the center. It’s as the landscape is recreated virtually.

The advantage of such a method is that beautiful places can be stored in memory and later viewed so that whoever is viewing such imagery can experience a virtual tour of the area. The user will be able to scroll in every direction to get a look of the surrounding.

 

What’s more impressive than a 360 photograph is a 360-degree video. These videos are captured using specialized equipment, as standard smartphone cameras or point and shoot cameras cannot record images in every direction. The 360 video is an excellent experience I must say because not only you can rotate and pan the picture in all direction, but it is also moving. These are recorded using cameras which use multiple lenses attached in every direction so that everything surrounded the camera is captured and recorded.

 

The technique has got different names such as 360 panoramic photography, VR Photography, 360 spherical photography, 360 virtual tours (which I will talk about later).

 

When it comes to 360 photography, maybe we can divide it into two different types. There are those spherical type 360 images, which you can pan around in every direction and see everything. It’s like rotating a globe or a sphere from inside. Then there are these flat 360 images, in which you will only be able to pan the picture left or right. It is limited because the image is captured by moving the camera in the horizontal direction. You can do this easily with your smartphone. It’s exactly like taking an 180-degree panorama, except in here you will be panning the camera a whole 360 degrees.

 

How to Take a 360 Panoramic Photo?


The easiest way to 360 photography is to get a 360 camera. If you ask me for a suggestion, I can"t help saying the name Ricoh Theta S (Google itself recommended the same). The camera has two fisheye lenses on either side. It is a camera made for the sole purpose of 360 photography. You can either capture a 360 still image or you can capture an entire 360 video. The device is simple to use and it is easy to switch between video and still image modes. It can also connect to your tablet device to access it from there. This is an entirely spherical 360 photography device so that you will be able to scroll around the image in every direction.

 

There are many 360 cameras available in the market, though.

 

If you don"t want to invest in dedicated hardware, no worries. There are many applications available for both iOS and Android to capture 360 photos and videos.

 

Google Street View is one of those applications which will let you capture your surroundings in complete 360. Even though your smartphone has two cameras, the app will only use your rear camera.
What happens is, the app will capture many small images in every direction and finally stitch them together to form one single image. You will have to move your smartphone precisely to capture these individual images.
The app itself performs all the stitching action. One drawback here is that using a technique like this, you won’t be able to capture 360 videos. This is simply because of the reason that the image is rendered using multiple individual images. For a 360 degree immersive video capturing, you need multiple lenses in a single device.

 

There are some other apps too, which can take 360 panorama shots. These images won’t be spherical, so you cannot view the entire surroundings in these. But you will be able to capture in a horizontal plane. It is advised to use some holding devices like tripods or monopods when 360 panoramas are being captured, as it will help to stabilize the image.

 

If you are a passionate photographer who doesn"t want to use dedicated hardware or some applications available in the app market, you can always go with the conventional method too. That is capturing individual images using your DSLR camera and then manually stitching them together using software. This process won’t be pretty. You will have to carefully set the camera in proper settings when you capture every single image. They should blend in the end, so it is important to match the lighting, exposure and other metrics in every individual image.
Finally you will have to select the best of these images and stitch them together with your hands.

Only expert photographers will try to capture this way.

 

What’s the Mechanism behind 360 Photography?


The principle behind 360 photography isn"t hard. The equipment you use for shooting captures a series of images and it (or a dedicated tool) stitches all of them together to get us a 360 photo. Dedicated 360 photography hardware will do all the stitching and other tweaks automatically when we capture the photo or video. Most of the times, the software adds metadata to the image for smooth functioning.

 

I have mentioned above that certain Android and iOS apps can be used for 360 photography. These apps are capturing individual images and stitching them together in the final step. Basically, this is what going on inside a dedicated 360 photography hardware too. Except we do not see any of it.

Let’s take Ricoh Theta S as an example. It has two lenses on both sides of the gadget and it will capture simultaneously. The image obtained from these two lenses are stitched together using specialized software loaded onto the camera itself. What we can see on our smartphone or tablet once the processing is complete, is the stitched together imagery.

You can use PTgui, Fisheye Shots, or Hugin for stitching.

 

The possibility of 360 Photography?


The potential of 360 photography is endless, which is the main reason why tech and gadget giants are getting into the business. We can see many devices for virtual reality and 360 photography being manufactured and introduced into the consumer market in these recent years.

 

In my opinion, the tourism industry and travel businesses are going to benefit from this hugely. They can capture a fully immersive picture of the beautiful places and upload them online and use them for marketing purposes. In this digital age, people search on the internet for even deciding in which hotel they should eat.

 

So it is evident that if 360-degree photography is used for such purposes, the business owners can benefit from this. Embedding a 360 panoramic photo provides invaluable information than seeing a set of still images.

So, tourism and real estate business websites can insert 360 photos to give their potential clients an idea of how the place looks.

 

Wrapping Up


With all the dedicated hardware being available for 360 photography, I think there is a pretty good chance that a lot of 360-degree content will be created in the future. People are already uploading different 360 photographic content to social media. I have even seen users uploading their home, their street, and surroundings, etc. just for the kicks of it.
Also, I was able to see many sceneries which I have never observed in reality, simply because I can’t reach those locations. So yeah, there is real good scope for this trending new photographic method. Then again, we can’t predict what comes and stay in the tech world, can we?


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