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$30k is way too much for what it is, considering how much competition there is in this area. There are solutions coming to market soon (or already available) for far less. First google result: panono for 1500Euros, which uses 36 cameras. There are many others.

But they also do far less. Right there you're comparing a still camera to a video camera. If you compare apples to oranges then sure you can make anything look like poor value but where are you getting a VR camera that can do 60fps and 8k resolution per eye for significantly less?

$30k is way too much for what it is, considering how much competition there is in this area. There are solutions coming to market soon (or already available) for far less. First google result: panono for 1500Euros, which uses 36 cameras. There are many others.

Sounds like they teamed up with this guy: http://www.panono.com/ballcame...

Uh... Facebook, Instagram, Picasa, Tumblr, Twitter, E-mail or other photo albums/publishing service can actually already be used. The ball simply connects wirelessly to the users' smartphone (like for example the Go Pro cameras do already), the user then forwards the picture to the destination of choosing. That's the standard workflow of several other current cameras (Go Pro, as mentionned)

And wait for further product iteration to happen and the price will lower as production scale increases.

I can already see several fun possible uses.
Like taking picture of huge crowded outdoor events: you can snap instantly a picture of a music festival to capture the whole crowd ant the ambiance. The alternative would be using a quad-copter-mounted camera and flying it around to capture the whole experience (don't laugh, I've actually seen this exactly done this summer).
And if you want a big still image, the ball is still better than the quad-copter: it has a lot of cameras subdividing the space (36) all fired up at the same instant, meaning that the whole crowd will be seamlessly merged in to a huge panorama, without visible stichtes (whereas, with the drone, you either have a video, or a blurry/stiched panorama).
A phone would be completely useless (you need a high point of view) and again suffers from non-seamless panorama.

Another possible use: quickly taking clean panoramic picture of huge indoors.
Say you want a completely 360+ view of the inside of a cathedral.
You either quickly toss the ball (insta 360 view) or you need a complex setup with a fish-eye len and a pole-mount. (again, the POV needing to be in the middle of the architectural structure, phone aren't that much practical).

Or simply ease of use for taking conventional panoramas.
The ball can be simply handheld and takes an instant panorama,
whereas with a smart-phone you need to slowly take several shot (and thus risk of more aparent seams, due to motion of people/objects between shots.

Na, you could just practice tossing it up without looking.

Yep, that works. See here :) http://www.panono.com/v/1156/ It is built to withstand many drops (it's a throwable camera after all). Not waterproof for the moment but should withstand a few drops of rain. Being able to go diving with it is on our wish list! Kind regards, Jonas