Gadget Blog

MICROSOFT’S KINECT MAY ALLOW you to interact physically with games, but the  big M’s latest concept, IllumiRoom, will take  it one step further: making the game interact  with not just you but your walls, coffee table,  furniture, sofa and beyond.

Currently in the early stages of  development, IllumiRoom extends the  game world beyond the confines of your TV  screen, bleeding it into your living space.

First, Kinect’s camera is used to map the dimensions of your lounge, noting the position of furniture and knick knacks. Once it’s cased  and calibrated your gaff, a wide-field projector  goes to work, extending the action around the  room. It’s a little like Philips’ Ambilight tech,  but with some very significant bells on.

Not only does the widened viewing area allow you to spot things creeping up in your  peripheral vision, if you’re walking down the  dank corridors of a tense, first-person shooter,  say, your room will become the corridor,  adding to the feeling of claustrophobia.

You can tinker with what’s projected  too, so rather than extending the action, the  room can be transformed into a grid layout  that moves as you do, or give the impression  of explosions literally sending shock waves  up your walls using lighting effects – what

Microsoft charmingly calls a “radial wobble”.

Selective elements of the game can also  be thrown out into the real world, breaking  the fourth wall. So tracer fire streaks across  the room straight at you as enemies attack, or  radar indicators bleep in the corner of the wall  giving you directional info and turning your lounge into mission control.

It’s even possible for objects to “leave”  the screen and interact with your soft  furnishings. Grenades will bounce out of the  telly, roll across your Ikea rug and come to rest menacingly against your sofa – resisting
the urge to duck and cover may be tough.  

Clearly, this could have applications for  more than gaming; TV and film hope to get in  on the act, with the BBC’s R&D department  already working on its own ‘surround video’  tech. Imagine that lank-haired goth woman  from The Ring actually crawling out of your  tellybox and across your lounge floor towards  you, or David Cronenberg’s surreal perv-o-rama Videodrome spewing its choice brand of  weird all over your living space. Or, you know,  something for the kiddies.

All you need to bring to the party are  reasonably light-coloured walls for effective  image projection, but don’t move your  furniture around without recalibrating.