In the November edition of Sony's CX-News Semiconductor and LCD Newsletter a new 360° Full-Circle Lens is featured.

Until now, taking a 360° panorama with a normal lens has required taking multiple shots while rotating the camera slowly and then combining (“stitching”) those shots together to form the panorama.

In contrast, the 360° full-circle lens allows the full 360° surroundings of the camera to be imaged at the same time with a single lens.
Sony has now developed a camera module that uses this 360° full-circle lens, and is releasing as commercial products both a camera module that uses a 380K-pixel, 30 fps CCD that outputs a ring-shaped image as a composite video signal as well as a high-resolution camera module that uses a 1.28 MP, 7.5 fps CCD with a built-in panorama expansion processing function.
The new lens has applications in Communication, Image storage, Home monitoring and other Sensor applications.
More Details in Sony CX-News Vol.34.

No dates available on when the Sony 360° Full-Circle Lens will be in a Sony Camera.

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