A vision begins to come to life with this new development for Michael Kanna. ”Sometime in the future, we will wear virtual eyeglasses and experience the world from a 360-degree perspective,” the Managing Director of Videostream 360 is convinced. The young team of the German company based in Leipzig has written a success story on the way to achieving this. It all began at the Leipzig College of Technology, Business and Culture (HTWK). In 2009, as part of his Master’s thesis in Media Information Technology, one of the company’s founders developed the principles for a method of equalizing the circular 360-degree moving pictures that were obtained using specially shaped panorama mirrors. In the years that followed, this finally became Videostream 360 – a company and a patented technology on real-time transmission of 360-degree ­video streams. This technology had previously not been possible because it required costly multi-lens cameras, whose images then needed to be tediously converted into rectangular pictures. ”The Patent Information Center in Leipzig informed us that a system like ours did not yet exist anywhere in the world,” Michael Kanna notes.

Nevertheless, there were still obstacles to be overcome. The goblet-shaped concave mirror attachment together with an HD TV camera, for example, initially resulted in a very large, unattractive and rather error-prone construction. However, the presentation of this bulky innovation at the Hanover Fair met with completely unexpected success. An excited trade fair visitor and former trainee at SCHOTT suggested miniaturizing the structure and protecting it in a special anti-reflective glass tube. ”That was one of the keys to commercializing the product,” Michael Kanna emphasizes.