The Live Album

We always love going through our childhood photographs. But, imagine how would it feel if you could go back to the time when you played with your childhood friends, tried secret experiments in your backyard, got pampered by your relatives, and enjoyed playing with your favorite toys? Feels great, doesn't it? It is this great feeling which makes me dream of this idea "The Live Album".

The Live Album is an idea of creating a life-like environment using virtual reality and cutting edge graphics which would make the user feel as if he has gone back in time, and as if his childhood world has come back to life. It's a means of revisiting those good times, but, in a slightly different style. Think of it like this: If you are walking along a straight path wearing all the necessary VR equipment; and the virtual reality environment is programmed to display the corridor of your childhood residence; it might feel as if you are actually walking through the corridor leading to the play-area in your premises. Or, even better, the VR environment could be programmed to display the pathway leading to your kindergarten school. Wouldn't it be great to "Re-live the moment"?

Now, talking about developing such life-like environments; I feel it's possible to build a virtual world with the help of the person's childhood footages or homemade videos. With advanced computer graphics it is now possible to create realistic objects and human faces, so much so that it would be almost impossible to distinguish a 3D simulation from its real counterpart. Also, latest advancements in interactive technology offer an extremely real experience while interacting with the objects of the virtual world. In fact, such developments make the idea of "Live Album" seem more tangible. So, wouldn't it be nice to see yourself play hide-n-seek with your mommy again? Or perhaps you would still like to flip over those bulky photo albums.

Further, the concept of the Live Album can be extended to recreate a personality of the past, or portray a vision of the future. For example, we could bring Michael Jackson back to life and watch him perform live on stage. With waving hands, roaring crowd and MJ's jazzy moves, this performance would be no less than a live in concert. On similar lines, we could also enjoy a space mission to mars or experience travelling at the speed of light. Thanks to virtual reality. The concept of the Live Album can be applied to a number of other areas like bringing the characters in a museum back to life, online teaching in a virtual classroom, etc.

Thus, the Live Album isn't just an idea confined to a limited domain. It is a potential technology which could be developed to have myriad applications in education, entertainment and what not. Who says time travel isn't possible?

- A concept by Adarshkumar Pavani