Color Kinetics Lights up Games and Home Entertainment

Color Kinetics, building off a recent patent, has announced a method of augmenting a variety of digital content-including video games, music, movies and even information with the company's digital lighting technology. This technology, called Chromacore, from Color Kinetics covers systems and methods of combining and decoding lighting control information with an entertainment signal, so that video games, music, movies, and Internet content can directly drive full spectrum digital lighting as an enhancement to that content. The result is an immersive experience where any color or intensity of light interacts with sound, video or information. Chromacore technology uses microprocessor-controlled multi-colored light emitting diodes (LEDs) to generate millions of colors and a variety of color-changing lighting effects. Through Chromacore, single or multiple LEDs can be linked, connected with other digital appliances and then controlled through a network, which could range from a PC to an entire home theater/audio system. Color Kinetics cited specific examples where this technology could enhance the gaming experience, for example, if a person is playing a video game and as his character enters a red room, the physical room around the player also turns red. If a character is suddenly submerged in a watery environment, the room becomes a turbulent blue, with flashes of white light appearing in peripheral vision as an underwater vehicle approaches from the side.