GoPro’s first major acquisition in years is a virtual reality company

GoPro hasn’t made any major acquisitions for quite some time, but yesterday the company made what is quite possibly its biggest acquisition to date. The acquisition was of Kolor, a French virtual reality company that specializes in capturing and sharing “spherical media.” This means that we can expect GoPro to bring us 360-degree motion capture experience in the near future. 

The world’s leading action camera company just took its first major step into the growing virtual reality market. GoPro just announced that it has purchased Kolor, a French company that specializes in virtual reality software. Kolor’s employees will join the GoPro staff, with operations remaining in Savoie, France. Kolor’s software lets users to combine multiple photographs or videos to make 360-degree panoramas and videos, or “spherical content” as the companies call it. The ability to create interactive content is something that GoPro hasn’t been able to directly offer its customers until now, even though many virtual reality content creators are using the company’s cameras. Along with the news, GoPro has released a 4K, 360-degree video (shot with its own cameras, of course) to showcase what Kolor’s software can do. It can be viewed on YouTube (above) if you’re using Chrome, or on GoPro’s website. It’s also available on Kolor’s mobile app, Kolor Eyes (iOS and Android), and can be viewed with Google Cardboard as well. GoPro says that more spherical videos will be available soon on other platforms like Oculus VR and the Samsung Gear VR, too.