Slashdot Mirror
New 360-Degree Video Capture Method Unveiled
cartechboy writes "Mercedes-Benz has devised a crazy new 360-degree video capture method that allows you to follow live-action video from just about any angle you choose. This new piece of tech will launch with the Mercedes AMG F1 team this year, and gives you the ability to swivel and tilt the camera angle in pretty much any direction as the car speeds around the track. The device uses wide-angle cameras arranged in a ball and then stitched together into a panoramic view. Of course there's an iOS app that lets you watch all this."
A new 360 degree video capture method? Or the same old method, done again? I read the article and I can't think of what's new about this method. Now a spherical CCD would be new and interesting. It's a nice system, but new method?
CBC used to do this for hockey games. You could go to the website and choose your angle of view. Formula One would probably be a better use for it though.
This.
Really? As a confirmed Apple hater I would love to believe this but... to develop for Apple I would have to buy a Mac. Then I would have to pay what is it... $100/year the last I checked to get the development environment. (chump change I guess after buying a Mac) Then.. the only way the app could ever get on to more than a fraction of a percent of people's devices is to get it approved by the Apple store which everyone I have talked to claims is a real pain in the ass.
To develop for Android just download the development environment for your favorite of Linux/Windows/Mac OS for free and start coding. It seems to me that Google is trying a lot harder to get developers than Apple is.
What I think is the real issue is that a lot of developers don't want to deal with the variety of screen sizes one finds on Android. They like Apple's closed little world. HTML was supposed to free us of this issue. With sizes being defined in percents, data inside of elements that describe what the data is, not how to display it, etc... devices were supposed to determine how to display things best based on their own unique hardware profiles. That was html documents but by now applications should work that way too.
But... thest f@!#ng graphics designers and marketers had to mess that all up. Instead everything is defined down to how it will look pixel per pixel. So of course... supporting many different sizes and shapes of devices means making sure your pixel by pixel design looks good on them all. So.. the lazy fckrs only want to support iOS because it is easier to design that way in a limited environment.
Mercedes-Benz has devised a crazy new 360-degree video capture method
What is this crazy new system you ask? The exact same system that 360 degree video has always been captured!
to develop for Apple I would have to buy a Mac. Then I would have to pay what is it... $100/year the last I checked to get the development environment. (chump change I guess after buying a Mac) Then.. the only way the app could ever get on to more than a fraction of a percent of people's devices is to get it approved by the Apple store which everyone I have talked to claims is a real pain in the ass.
You're looking at it from the point of view of a dabbler; a hobbyist. If you're developing professionally the hardware and developer subscription cost is negligible compared to paying for the actual design, development and coding. Approval for the App Store is not difficult if you conform to the rules, which are there mostly to raise quality and security - as a professional developer you will want that.
The environment is more controlled (yes, that's a good thing), though screen sizes vary quite a bit too. Apple have layout technologies that help you with that and yes, they are somewhat like HTML in intention, where you specify constraints rather than pixel sizes.
But the biggest boon to professional developers is that the platform is really well-designed, has relatively few bugs and annoyances, is fairly secure, gives you an awful lot of good stuff for free, and supports a nice easy-to-use language as well. Obviously non of that matters to you because you're prejudiced - your first statement states that clearly. You're also not a professional developer, because your argument is irrelevant.
Really? As a confirmed Apple hater I would love to believe this but... to develop for Apple I would have to buy a Mac. Then I would have to pay what is it... $100/year the last I checked to get the development environment. (chump change I guess after buying a Mac) Then.. the only way the app could ever get on to more than a fraction of a percent of people's devices is to get it approved by the Apple store which everyone I have talked to claims is a real pain in the ass.
To develop for Android just download the development environment for your favorite of Linux/Windows/Mac OS for free and start coding. It seems to me that Google is trying a lot harder to get developers than Apple is.
What I think is the real issue is that a lot of developers don't want to deal with the variety of screen sizes one finds on Android. They like Apple's closed little world. HTML was supposed to free us of this issue. With sizes being defined in percents, data inside of elements that describe what the data is, not how to display it, etc... devices were supposed to determine how to display things best based on their own unique hardware profiles. That was html documents but by now applications should work that way too.
But... thest f@!#ng graphics designers and marketers had to mess that all up. Instead everything is defined down to how it will look pixel per pixel. So of course... supporting many different sizes and shapes of devices means making sure your pixel by pixel design looks good on them all. So.. the lazy fckrs only want to support iOS because it is easier to design that way in a limited environment.
The real issue is not the number of screen sizes combined with a marketing mandate. It's the sheer number of versions that you have to support. With Android, there are still devices being sold today with version 2.1 all the way to the latest release. Contrast that to Apple where pretty much the entire ecosystem adopts to the latest release very quickly, and if you want to worry about 3-year old phones you're still only one iOS revision back. The issues with handling that wide a range of operating system versions require a significant investment in both planning and support after the app goes live. Smaller companies or even company divisions that have a small team are going to go for the simpler solution every time. Better to ship on one platform than to try to support everything and never ship.
You can get panoramic mirrors for your iphone and many other applications now. No BeOS required.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
You can also get a superior optic that lets you actually see the display while you're shooting the video.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."