Company shows off IllumiRoom 2.0: RoomAlive prototype. Microsoft Research has released a video showing off a proof-of-concept prototype called RoomAlive, which "transforms any room into an immersive, augmented magical gaming experience". Building on IllumiRoom, a prototype which augments the area surrounding a television screen with projected visualisations, RoomAlive combines Kinect and projectors to extend an Xbox gaming environment to an entire room. "Users can touch, shoot and dodge augmented content that seemingly coexists with their existing physical environment," Microsoft explains. The video shows a room being transformed into a holodeck and a factory, among other environments, as well as a river running through the floor with dynamically generated raindrops. Whack-a-mole and shooting games are also demonstrated. While RoomAlive is highly unlikely to go on general sale in the near future because the technology would be too expensive and space consuming for the average consumer, Microsoft sees a future where it will be smaller and low-cost. "There's still lots to explore with RoomAlive as a gaming platform," a Microsoft Research spokesperson told The Verge. "We envision a future where games can use physical objects as part of the game."
