Spinnable, Ricoh Team Up On 360-Degree Immersive Content Sharing
Spinnable, the company behind a new social platform that lets you consume and share 360-degree content, announced a partnership with Ricoh Imaging Americas Corporation to bring Spinnable integration into Ricoh’s Theta S spherical camera.
The Theta S is one of the more portable and affordable 360-degree video and still photo cameras available, which are some of the reasons that Spinnable said it chose to partner with Ricoh. The collaborative effort will integrate Spinnable into Richo’s Theta S camera, and Spinnable users will be able to purchase a Theta S camera directly through the Spinnable application.
“Although Spinnable is hardware agnostic, we’ve chosen the Ricoh Theta S as the first camera to directly integrate with Spinnable because of its compact form factor, image quality and price point,” said Mark Demarest, CEO and Co-Founder, Spinnable.
Ricoh’s Theta S spherical camera can capture up to 25 minutes of 360-degree HD video at 30 fps, and it captures still images at 14MP. The camera has a wide-angle lens on both sides of the device that feature Ricoh’s “proprietary ultra-small twin-lens folded-optical system.” The integration of Spinnable will allow users to share that content directly from the camera.
“Spinnable is creating a new, highly engaging way for consumers, companies and artists alike to share life’s experiences with one another, and our Ricoh Theta S is the ideal camera to capture this content,” said Jim Malcolm, president, Ricoh Imaging Americas.
According to Spinnable, all of the content shared within the Spinnable social network will be immersive 360-degree video and images. The company said you can experience the content by scrolling the image around with the touch screen; moving your phone around to be tracked with the gyro; or use a VR HMD, such as a Google Cardboard device, to experience what Spinnable has to offer.
The Spinnable app is currently only available for iOS devices, but the company said an Android version will launch soon and that there are plans for both desktop and Gear VR clients in the future, as well. Spinnable said the platform is device agnostic, so it will work with any 360-degree camera, but Ricoh’s Theta S will offer direct integration into Spinnable.
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Kevin Carbotte is a contributing writer for Tom's Hardware who primarily covers VR and AR hardware. He has been writing for us for more than four years.