Web control for Major Tom: BowieNet to demo Lucent 360(degree) camera

Customers of the start-up Internet service provider run under rock star David Bowie's name will get to see the star from a whole new angle-in fact, pretty much any angle they choose. The fan site on the network, which began operating Sept. 3, will film several Bowie events including a live chat session this fall with Lucent Technologies' FullView, a new panoramic camera that can produce a seamless 360(degree) video stream through which Web users can navigate with a cursor.

The device's inventor, Vic Nalwa, who began working on omnidirectional cameras in 1995, said it was not as easy as packing several cameras together and pointing them in different directions. "You get stereo disparities much as we get when seeing the world with our two eyes, even if the cameras are only a half inch apart," he said.

Instead, Nalwa's system points four cameras at a four-sided inverted pyramid of mirrors, digitizes the images-Nalwa is working with analog cameras "until the digital market matures"-then stitches the images together on a PC with proprietary software. The result is 480 x 3200 pixel color resolution at 15 to 20 frames per second. Software downloaded at sign-up for the Web site allows viewers to steer around the room and zoom in for a 60(degree) closeup.

The system will improve with bandwidth increases, Nalwa said. For example, he soon will be able to process pictures of a live event at 30 frames per second and hopes to increase the camera's resolution and zoom capacity.

The whole apparatus is small enough to be unobtrusive-"about as big as your fist", Nalwa said. A 180(degree) version broadcast live tennis matches during the U.S. Open this year over IBM's Web site. The camera was located on a pole courtside and the players barely noticed it.

Robert Goodale, co-founder of UltraStar, which runs the BowieNet ISP, said FullView will provide subscribers the closest access possible to the man and his music. "Coming from the entertainment realm, we're excited about giving people a point of view that would be otherwise impossible to get," he said.

Goodale said an acquaintance who worked for AT&T, former parent of Lucent, mentioned Nalwa's research efforts to him, and he immediately became interested in the technology's Web applications.

"BowieNet is the first network for us, but we're hoping to do a lot more of them," said Goodale, who has also worked with The Cure and the Rolling Stones. "This technology will appeal to a lot of entertainers, and I bet they will come up with uses for it that we haven't even foreseen."

Bowie fans who want the Thin White Duke as their ISP will pay $19.95 a month, which will give them access to a "members only" portion of Bowie's Web site. This is where the chat session will be broadcast via FullView camera some time in October, then archived. Other FullView events may include a rehearsal session with Bowie and his band.

For his part, Nalwa said FullView will have applications in both security and videoconferencing. Eventually, the standard videoconference formation of a group seated around a monitor in a U shape will be replaced by something more like a natural meeting, with a FullView camera on a small stand in the middle of the table.

"Traditional videoconferencing is like a narrow portal into a room" he said. "This camera will give the group a greater sense of being present. You will be able to talk more naturally with the people on the other end of the call."