Philips Ambient Tech to SL via Rivers and SDK
According to a press release on the amBX site of UK consumer products company Philips (which features the virtual world of Second Life as the most prominent thing on its home page), Philips has licensed its amBX technology to metaverse services firm Rivers Run Red, which will “produce a dedicated amBX-enabled environment” for Second Life. What’s that? Read on.
amBX is a system of software and peripherals that, as I understand it, monitors your computer — whether you’re playing a game, watching a movie, listening to music or just working — and reflects what’s going on there in lighting, sound, vibration and air motion effects throughout the physical room you’re in, in an effort to create a more immersive environment around whatever it is you’re engaged in. Rather than do this in the same generic manner for every application you’re running, it sounds like amBX developers write an interface that sits between the application and the amBX hardware, to translate the app into physical effects in the most appropriate manner.
Rivers has licensed the tech for Second Life (though the release doesn’t say whether the license is exclusive to Rivers). According to Philips, “This will offer Second Life users the opportunity to experience their virtual world through real world amBX experiences, including light, air movement and rumble. The amBX agreement also extends to all-new commercially driven experiences, for future brand marketing campaigns.”
That last point is potentially interesting, but it depends, of course, on amBX peripherals being widely adopted by Second Life users. I’m skeptical. To me, amBX hardware seems like something aimed at only the hardest of the core. But with voice now a part of Second Life, who knows? Especially since the press release also contains another cool item: Philips will take advantage of the fact that the SL client is now open-source software by creating a software development kit that will allow users to author their own amBX effects. This could actually be something very cool, perhaps even useful on more than an immersive basis. 3pointD looks forward to seeing what emerges from all this.
Feeds
I look forward to seeing what they do. I was however rather disappointed by this text on the philips website:
“Numerous companies are already active in Second Life, including Philips. But whereas others are using Second Life as little more than another market in which to sell goods and services, Philips is taking a more sophisticated approach.”
That is a remarkably ill-informed statement to anyone really paying attention to the very wide range of corporate activities in Second Life, which do include marketing projects but also range to corporate training, R&D, consumer feedback, etc etc.
Philips has been playing with this technology for a while now and other than press releases and the associated news surrounding those, I rarely read or hear about their amBX-enabled devices. Like most product designers, I’ve long appreciated Philips’ work and was hopeful that their push into North America in the late 90’s (through Target via small appliances) would succeed, but they had a rough time of it here. Whatever problems they had then may be the reason amBX isn’t catching on now.
I am curious, however. Has this tech become popular in Europe?
Giff is right about the ill-informed statement. It sounds like something that could have been crafted 6 or 8 months ago - but is far less relevant today.
That said, there’s still plenty of companies who seem to think achieving the build is the end of process - not the start! As Churchill remarked after the battle of El Alamein: “This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.” :-)
I wanna know when Philips are going to open up that island of theirs that they’ve been building (with RRR) for months & months now.
There don’t seem to be any peripherals actually for public sale at all at the moment, unless I’ve missed something.
I imagine that home cinema types, serious gamers and so on will snap this sort of system up; I’m not sure about its general appeal within SL, which I don’t think attracts the “performance gadget” crowd except by coincidence. I doubt anyone will be relying on amBX in a world where you can’t even rely on the fact that residents will have _sound_ turned on. Still, if easy enough to develop for it could be a way of enhancing lots of things on the Grid.
One more general point which I just thought of is that, at the moment, there’s no direct way that I can see for an SL developer to access this sort of feature in a client. Say I want to have an ominous mood with dimming lights and so on when you enter a dungeon - the instructions to do that would have to come through the client, and there’s no LSL function for sending arbitary messages to the client, so some sort of hack would have to be used such as the client itself listening for input on a particular control channel or looking for a particular coded texture. A bit of a waste. Now, if there was a direct way to send information straight to the client, that would be a useful addition.
Aleister wrote: “That said, there’s still plenty of companies who seem to think achieving the build is the end of process - not the start!”
I sure hope that’s changing. It doesn’t take much digging to figure out that people are the key to marketing success in SL (if that’s the goal) and that means community and constant engagement. From a marketing perspective, SL’s power is in human connection! If you’re talking rapid prototyping, collaboration, education, etc, then there are other factors of course…
And you’re probably right Aleister - I bet that text is dated.
In’s and Out’s of Second Life…
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Just wanted to point to a neat little video over on blip.tv where Matt Biddulph gives a short presentation on getting real world data into Second Life. Always of interest to me. There’s also a related p…
I think we need to put this into context. Philips have been utilising second life behind the scenes now for months. In fact, they’ve been working with over 500 people in SL, developing an understanding of our space and it’s potential. This is not about public space, this is about understanding and promoting understanding. Philips are one of the major consumer brands in the world. They haven’t just rushed into this space. A lot of the major work in SL is happening behind the scenes: IBM is a great example of this evolution.
Hi Giff, I never thought I would have to post this. Pop along to the stand at GDC and see how a corporation like philips is developing a new experience under the open source agreement. We’re working to develop a really open development, one that all developers can take an active role?
Really confused here, what part of potential do you not understanda?
I have to say also I’m confused, I have seen this at GDC and the potential is huge. Just like voiceIP in SL, this is more than just a ‘hack’. This is about developing open source solutions beyond the current client. Esheep, is the competition getting a little too hot?
I’m not going to buy the kit, just yet. But I have to say this is a more just token development, this really adds value to the experience.
Giff, why are you giving this such a hard time?
I’m not sure what post justin and bluesapphire are reading, but I don’t think its Giff’s. His post mentioned that he thinks the wording of the press release comparing what Philips is doing in SL compared to other corporations sounds dated - and that he was excited to see what comes of the partnership itself. Why are you both taking shots at him for things he didn’t say?
Back on topic, I’m also very interested from a SL development standpoint on the possibilities that this will open up. My main concern would be the adoption rates of the hardware necessary to provide the effects - we still can’t be sure every user that comes to your project has Shiny enabled, much less extra hardware. I’d love to try it out on private projects, but using it in conjunction with paid projects that are meant to display to the widest audience possible may not be cost-feasible for some time. That being said, its a unique solution to adding extra levels of immersion and I for one will be thrilled if it takes off in conjunction with SL’s longterm viability as a platform.
Hi Cory,
We’re developing this across two areas:
Consumer
Philips have developed a series of periphals that take advantage of the amBX technology. We’re going to be adapting amBX to work as ‘real time’ effects within Second Life. We will do this as an open source initiative, this could be a lot of fun for everyone.
Adoption figures are essential, we’re also developing versions for other virtual worlds too. So the market is potentially millions of people.
Here is a link to the consumer version:
http://www.ambx.com/site/consumer/peripherals/
Commercial
The commercial version we’re also developing is an exclusive RRR product. Enabling us to deliver a brand immersion experience for our clients and agencies. This will extend the virtual experiences for showrooms, meetings rooms, retail spaces etc. We’re literally taking the virtual experience beyond the screen and into the room!
This is a demo shot a few days at our studios in London:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czYY9YqLLrI
I like the use of what appears to be scripted local lighting. We have a shortage of that; even in clubs, I’m surprised to see when it isn’t used more. Definitely a ripe opportunity to be explored.
The ambient experience has actually existed for a few years now. A company in The Netherlands makes superb ambient light systems for games, movies, media, what-have-you.
Find them at http://www.a-r-e.nl