Before I give away my billion dollar idea, there are a couple of things I’d like to make clear, just in case they are not obvious for some. This is just one idea I had, don’t take it too seriously. Feel free to try to undermine my arguments. I risk sounding like a presumptuous a-hole here, but I am doing this because some of the uses for technology I predicted in the past have since become true, so instead of just talking about these things with friends, I have decided to write them down. Here’s the first one I take my time to document, I present to you: The Time-Machine!

It all started several years ago, I was browsing the web when a link led me to a page with an interactive 360 video (if you don’t know what I am talking about please visit this page). It was from a camera attached to the bottom of a helicopter. If i’m not mistaken, it was a video of Sidney, Australia. Being able to move the camera around and point it at any direction, as if I was controlling it live, seemed unreal. At the time I started thinking about the consumer uses for such technology, and to be honest, I could’ve written this post back then. Why did I think about this several years ago and only decided to write it down now? Well, recently my brother downloaded an iPhone app called 360 panorama, it is an amazing piece of software that allows you to take 360 pictures with your smartphone. You can then see the picture on your screen and move around as if you were at the place the panorama picture was taken. This brought me back to the time I saw that first 360 video so I decided to document this before what I envisioned back then becomes a reality and I kick myself for not writing about it on time. Better late than never.

First of all, a few technical aspects of how panoramic video works. A special camera, or more precisely a set of cameras that use fish-eye type of lenses, is used to record 360 video. It then uses software to render these videos together and create one single video. So, how could this be improved? My idea is to double the number of cameras in a way that one more camera is added parallel to each of the cameras that are already in the current existing panoramic cameras. In this way, two separated videos would be rendered. These two videos would be, if you haven’t already guesses, one for the left eye and other for the right eye. To view the videos the user would have to wear virtual reality glasses and a pair of head-phones, or as I like to call it, the Time Machine Helmet™. This would allow the user to hear and see the video as if he/she was there, immersed in the place and time the video was recorded. It would allow users to move their heads around and see what happened with real perspective and together with the surrond sound it would feel as if the person is transported to wherever the video was recorded.

The difference here is that instead of looking at a 2D picture in your monitor, you would be placed inside a 3D recording of a previous time in your life. And I say placed because it gives you the ability to look around, hear what’s around as if you were there. I hope one day we can use a device like this to look back into our vacations, birthday parties, moments with loved ones, in other words, any moment worth keeping.

So many things have happened that I don’t even know where to re-start. I moved to another country (Norway), started my Master’s course, got a new job and right now I’m developing a few online projects. There’s not much time left for other things but I still manage to do some sports and have fun with my friends. Amazing huh?

Regarding my new projects, one of them involves Twitter and is based on an idea from a friend of mine (one of the smartest guys I know), the second is a Social Bookmark website and the third one will target the Mobile community. I’m lucky to work with good old friends in the development of each one of them. Hopefully we’ll be launching a Beta version of these projects soon, while I study, work and still post updates here in the meantime.

Life’s good, I can’t complain.