It looks like tomorrow will mark the big coming out party for Microsoft’s new toy, the IllumiRoom, a projector system that could one day turn your whole living room into a television screen. That day is not today, as the immersive gaming gear is still in its prototype stage. Microsoft has released an updated video detailing the IllumiRoom’s potential, though, and it’s got our attention.
IllumiRoom is, at its heart, a projector that is in constant conversation with your Xbox. Using the Kinect, the IllumiRoom’s projector can get an accurate scan of the room around your television screen. Once it has that, it can project the information that doesn’t fit in your field of view on the screen to the area around it, transforming bookcases into exploding buildings and speakers into machine gun wielding robots — or zombies intent on destroying your garden, it that’s more your thing.
Alternately, the IllumiRoom can go a more abstract route, turning the room round the game into a snowstorm or a blue light grid that looks like how androids must see the world. While I don’t know if android vision will make anyone better at playing games, I certainly don’t see how it could hurt.
Chances are, we’ll have more details on the new tech tomorrow after it makes its official debut in Paris at this year’s Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. This doesn’t feel like a game-changer for the industry yet, but if it’s something Microsoft can bring to market alongside its coming next-gen offering…well, I’d be lying if I said it didn’t sweeten the pot a bit.
(via VG24/7)
- We’ll get an official announcement on the new Xbox in May
- It’s never too early to start being upset about it, though
- Windows 8 just got a lot less Windows 8-ish
