Ricoh 360° camera

So they have been busy. I assumed it was some sort of security camera when they showed it at Photokina, but apparently it's a full-on consumer camera to view the image son your phone/tablet.

DPR ricoh 360 concept

This camera might actually catch on, like the GoPro. No need to have everyone at the party line up in front of the camera any more for group shots, just capture everyone in the entire room where they are..

I'm guessing the handle is to hold it above you (crouch down) so you don't get your own face blocking half of the image. Or the standabilty is to be able to just set it on a table and step back to include yourself in the scene.

But anyway.... they're showing a camera that's still in development. Good to see them working on trying to change photography itself instead of just more of the same, but if anything is going to be copied by ruthless competitors it would be ground-breaking iideas like this.

Which begs the question why then they would keep something like an updated GXR camera body or new unit so secret... so that's obviously not the reason then. It must simply be they don't want to affect sales of their existing models by pre-announcing new ones, ie this 360 camera has no such existing sales that can be adversely affected ergo announce and display away!