Nokia OZO: A $60,000 VR camera aimed at professionals
- Joshua Swingle
- Mar 19, 2016
- 2 min read
Nokia, best known for its affordable phones and, in most recent years, its line of Windows Phone devices until it sold the mobile unit to Microsoft, has once again re-entered the hardware market – this time with a $60,000 virtual-reality camera that shoots video aimed at professional use.
The VR camera is the brainchild of Ramzi Haidamus and came to life after he took a tour of the company’s research labs back in the summer of 2014. Initially, the camera was simply a “very ugly” prototype and all you could see was “eight lenses in the air and a bunch of wires. It looked like a spider with eight eyes.”
A year and a half later though, the device is now known as the Nokia OZO and features a sophisticated, grey, spherical design with eight lenses built into it. The main idea behind the device is to make the process of filmmaking easier – Nowadays, most filmmakers have to put together a number of GoPro cameras and point them in different directions, but with the OZO, all the cameras and microphones are built into one device, thus making the process much simpler. – Currently though, it appears the company is still working on the software side of things, specifically when it comes to stitching each video together seamlessly when live broadcasting.
Nokia is planning to either sell or rent the OZO to professional filmmakers, though the company does have plans to introduce a cheaper version, aimed at amateurs or hobbyists. Considering the device shoots 360 degrees virtual-reality video, the market for this device is perhaps quite small at the moment though, due to the fact that most people do not own virtual-reality headsets.
There is some benefit to entering such a small market so early. Nokia could perhaps build up a good reputation in the market and one day even recreate the success it had in the mobile phone market years ago. Either way, the launch of the OZO is a major bet for Nokia, which hopes its hardware division will complement its main business of selling telecommunications equipment.
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Source: | Nokia |
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Via: | PhoneArena |
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Photo Credits: | The Verge |
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