Meet Ozo, Nokia's new camera for virtual reality content creators

**Reports last week** pointed at the comeback of Nokia with a virtual reality product and here it is! The company has announced Ozo, its new camera for filming virtual reality at an event in Los Angeles. Nokia is yet to conduct final testing and add refinements to it. The final pricing and full technical specifications will be announced when it starts shipping in Q4 2015. The Ozo is capable of capturing audio and video in 360 degrees. It is set to become the first commercially available VR camera for professional content creators, says the company. Nokia says content filmed using Ozo can be published for commercially available VR viewing hardware such as head mounted displays (HMDs). It will also work with third-party tools. “We’re thrilled to introduce Ozo to the content creation world, and to define a completely new category of virtual reality capture and playback solutions,” said Ramzi Haidamus, president of Nokia Technologies. “Ozo aims to advance the next wave of innovation in VR by putting powerful tools in the hands of professionals who will create amazing experiences for people around the world. We expect that virtual reality experiences will soon radically enhance the way people communicate and connect to stories, entertainment, world events and each other. With ozo, we plan to be at the heart of this new world.” It is the most significant consumer hardware launch from Nokia ever since it sold the devices and services businesses to Microsoft in 2013. Nokia is also rumoured to make a **comeback** in the phone market, but this has been a no-show so far. This new announcement will also put Nokia in the increasing number of tech firms jumping onto the VR bandwagon. The list already includes **Samsung, Microsoft, Facebook** , among others. After years of ground work, it seems the **battlefield for virtual reality** is finally gearing up. While Google, Samsung and Facebook are racing to be the first to launch their respective products, others like Microsoft have already managed to impress many with the HoloLens. Recently, OnePlus launched its next flagship, the **OnePlus 2** , at a VR launch event, which turned out to be unique and something never seen during smartphone launch before. The company had also put Cardboard VR headset for sale at Rs 99  ahead of the launch event.