TimeWalk, an emerging American tech startup, is about to take over the social media and business world. The company is now developing the first version of a platform that will eventually contain interactive 3D realistic replicas of major cities, neighborhoods, museums, malls, shops, dealerships, historical monuments, private properties and many other buildings. And once they will be online you will be able to log into your own TimeWalk account and explore them freely, alone or with friends.
Imagine that a friend that lives on a different continent calls you up and wants to chat. He wants to show you his new apartment, one that he just uploaded into TimeWalk with the help of a developer. You agree and log into your TimeWalk account. You can use your smartphone, laptop, tablet or a VR headset like the Oculus Rift to do this and once you are logged in you can instantly teleport to your friend’s 3D virtual apartment. You are represented by a look-alike 3D humanoid, a sort of avatar that looks exactly like you and that mimics your facial movements in real time. You meet your friend who’s already there. He’s also represented by a virtual 3D humanoid and he starts showing you around. You walk around the apartment, sit on the sofa and chat with you friend naturally, like you were face to face.
Seems hard to imagine, but this is exactly what TimeWalk wants to achieve in the next few years with the help of its own team and independent licensed developers. The company focuses on achieving and extremely high quality of the 3D models and of the 3D humanoids, so much so that the boundary between the real building or object and its virtual counterpart will become very small in the future.
A virtual carbon-copy of your city will have several applications in business, education, healthcare, training and many other domains. It is most likely to influence the way you work, travel, shop and even learn in ways that only time will reveal.
A first raw version of TimeWalk, the platform that will make it all possible, is expected to be available at the end of this year and a first DEMO will be launched this August. Early access as well as developer licenses and 3D humanoids can be pre-ordered on the TimeWalk Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign.