Enabling 360° visual communications: Next-level applications and connections

In the late 1990s, the first mobile phones with embedded cameras became widely available, heralding the birth of instant mobile visual communication. Capturing and sharing images using one device became a reality. The first "selfie" was captured by a J-Phone (now SoftBank Mobile) in Japan. In November 2000, the J-SH04 took photos, like the one in Figure 1, at 0.11 MP. At the same time, the Samsung SCH-V2000 also featured a camera, but the J-SH04 enabled users to send photos electronically. The combination of a back-camera phone and the ability to send photos electronically ushered in the era of mobile visual communications.Since 2000, a variety of electronic products with miniaturized camera modules have appeared in the consumer market, such as wearables, mobile phones, web cameras, home cameras, tablets, sports cameras, drones, and many others. Availability has driven the growth of video communications and the demand for optical lens technology. Today, most mobile devices still offer a narrow field-of-view (FoV) experience for both the back- and front-facing camera, yet most designs are an incremental improvement to the original, late-1990s design. Higher resolution and better image quality are no longer the only differentiating factors for mobile visual communications; rather, because of the emergence of social media and multiple sharing platforms, the ability to create, share, and experience has become key for consumers. This article examines the future interconnectivity of user experiences through the use of camera phones, wearables, tablets, drones, and virtual reality (VR) head-mounted displays -all items that are increasingly common and used to create, share, and experience life moments. In addition, we examine the possibilities this interconnectivity offers to vendors and service providers and how they can enable the growth of a fully interconnected visual communications era.