I had a book of chindogu from at least 10 years ago. They had an invention that looked shockingly like the jump camera. Here is an image which shows a scan of a few of the images including the relivent one: http://www.tofugu.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/chindogu-un...

I find it kind of funny that Google is now using a system that was invented so long ago as a joke. Why not use any of the other system to capture 360 3d images? Why did Google decide 16 cameras was the right way to go?

The only reason I can think is you might get higher res images out of 16 cameras than with only a few and a hemispherical reflector or a motor, but is it really worth the extra cost and points of failure?