by: Joesabitino
Html View | Print View
Total views: 0
Word Count: 672
Date: Thu, 4 Feb 2010 Time: 6:39 AM -
0 comments
We've seen interactive 3D game consoles explode in popularity over the last few years. Like never before, we are pushing the boundaries of our home theater expectations. Instead of passively viewing television from the comfort of your favorite sofa, allowing the media to wash over you in waves or provide you with satisfying background noise, home entertainment today expects you to unglue yourself from the sofa and leap about the living room in competition with other players, be they real or virtual. You can explore new worlds, get fit, increase your knowledge of trivia or challenge your foes to a sensational fight to the death on the top of a towering sheer cliff… all from the relative safety of your living room.
Article Source: DirectoryArticles.com
But what comes next? Imagine a time when interactive gaming consoles, television channels and CD/DVD players stop pretending to be interactive and really become interaction themselves - converging together to form a single all-encompassing home theater experience unlike anything we have seen or imagined before.
Recent developments have seen the design of immersive cocoons or virtual interactive spaces that incorporate 360 degree display screens and motion-sensing platforms. Instead of living rooms, we'd step into our large indoor entertainment pods!
Holographic technology also has been making great advances since the early 1990s and we have begun to see it used in interactive computer screen tabletops. However, none of these concepts take into account the full scope of multi-sensory interactions. Instead of relying on the visual and tactile elements of home entertainment, technology companies need to explore other senses that can provide the user with a greater, more realistic experience. They're called proxemics and they have a surprisingly large impact on how we perceive the world around us.
Proxemic behaviors include spatial awareness (intimate, personal and public spaces around one's body), postures and stances that encourage or discourage communication, touching and visual factors, as well as the perception of body heat, volume and smell. While the visual, spatial, volume and touch factors are being steadily progressed, we are yet to see the senses of feeling and smell incorporated into interactive spaces.
Should we feel the cold wind whistling around our bodies as we ski down alpine slopes? What benefit would the ability to perceive the body warmth and heartbeat of another person have on the development of virtual and augmented realities and the people who use these technologies? The sense of smell could also enhance games, websites and television programs. Parents and busy professionals could take short relaxing beach breaks in their living room and enjoy the sea breezes and the smell of the ocean.
Gamers could immerse themselves more fully into the environment of their game and use their sense of smell as an additional means of beating their opponents. Apartment-bound kids could play basketball indoors without suffering the wrath of their parents by accidentally smashing their Dad's case of signed New Jersey Nets memorabilia. All sorts of possibilities open themselves up when we start looking at what kinds of sense could be incorporated into the home entertainment system of the future.
But what can you do today? We may not be able to reach into our television screens and pick up a book or grab the keys to a bright red sports car, but there are some things you can do to modernize the way you entertain yourself and your family at home.
Firstly, and most importantly, it starts with the selection of good home theater installers. They can design your entire home theater installation from the selection of the electronic hardware (tv, speakers, etc), wiring and cabling and sound setup to the design of seating and customised entertainment units. Optimal acoustics and lighting will go a long way to increasing the level of enjoyment you get out of your home theater. Plus, your home theater installers are certain to be there for you when you need to upgrade your installation to the 3D sensory indoor entertainment pod of the future
Joe Sabitino
Founder of SecureZone
securezone1@yahoo.com
SecureZone's Theater Installations Website
Rating: Not yet rated
Login to vote
