Kogeto Dot, A Snap-On iPhone Lens That Shoots 360° Video
Here’s an iPhone accessory Steve Jobs won’t be making redundant anytime soon.
It broke my heart: Mere days after I waxed ecstatic about a Kickstarter-funded iPhone camera accessory, Steve Jobs announced an update to iOS that will make that product redundant. But Apple still can't do everything. A company called Kogeto has developed an iPhone accessory called Dot that will surely one-up anything that El Jobso has in the works: 360-degree, interactive panoramic video, courtesy of an easy snap-on lens and $90,000 in Kickstarter pledges.
The app will de-fisheye the footage so you can pan around the scene.
Kogeto also makes panoramic cameras for industrial and surveillance applications, so the Dot is their idea of a party favor. Literally: on their Kickstarter page, they describe an ideal use case as laying the Dot-equipped iPhone down on a coffee table at your next rager, setting it, and forgetting it. (The Dot's design requires that the iPhone lay flat on its face in order for the lens to capture the 360-degree view. Call it a bonus: no Glif necessary!) Then the next morning, when you want to know what crazy crap went down Hangover-style, the Dot's companion app will automatigically de-fisheye the footage and let you pan around the scene at will.
If you're a more exhibitionistic type, the Dot can even livestream the pano-feed too. Near-magical functionality in a pocketable package that doesn't require Hollywood grips and a PhD to set up? No wonder Kogeto blew past its original $20,000 ask four times over.
