BeHere Takes a 360-Degree Turn in Imaging
GENERATIONS OF VISITORS to Disneyland have been thrilled by Circle-Vision, an immense circular theater with a 360-degree screen that surrounds the audience with you-are-there movies. Those who can't make the trip to the theme park might want to check out BeHere Inc., a Silicon Valley startup that has what might be the next-best thing.</br></br>BeHere sells a camera lens and software system that allows most sorts of cameras to take live 360-degree pictures. The company says these images can be put to any number of uses: on the Web, in building security systems, and in a new generation of interactive television to allow viewers to be immersed, for example, in a sporting event.</br></br>The five-year-old company was founded in Cupertino, Calif., by Ted Driscoll, 48 years old, a Stanford University computer science Ph.D., entrepreneur and inveterate tinkerer who developed its core technology. Last year, Andrew L. Thau, 35, a former senior vice president at Fox Sports International, came on board as chief executive. Mr. Thau set about boosting the company's ties to the broadcasting industry; he opened an office in Los Angeles, though the company will keep its research-and-development operation in Silicon Valley.</br></br>The idea of giving Web surfers and others a 360-degree view of something isn't new. Numerous sites afford a circle-style view of, say, the inside of a house that is for sale. A number of companies, such as Internet Pictures Corp. and RemoteReality Corp., are supplying the necessary technology to make that happen, though some of the companies currently sell only still cameras.</br></br>Mr. Thau says BeHere's system allows a camera to take a moving, rather than still, 360-degree picture that has a seamless image. There are no fissure marks where separate pieces of the circular scene are pieced together to form a whole. "What excited me about the company was that the technology was unique," Mr. Thau said. "I spent seven years at Fox Sports, and if I was still there, this is something I would be willing to use and pay money for."