I have created spherical 360° immersive images for years. Many of them are a load of rubbish; some of them are more acceptable. I’ve even begun sharing the ones I’ve created most recently via the Google Photo Sphere app, which get a fair amount of views via Google Maps.
One area of online immersion takes a bit more equipment, though: 360° immersive video. Where you can click and drag inside a Photo Sphere to see a static view, the technology which YouTube introduced last year allows you to click, drag and change your point of view inside a video: watching the action and looking around the camera in any direction, whilst the video is playing.
This is a step on the road to virtual reality, where the viewer can don goggles to completely immerse him- or herself and use movement sensors on the goggles to move around inside the video.
The linked video above is a great example from Gelmerbahn: the steepest funicular in the world, here in the Swiss Bernese Oberland.
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