amBX Gaming 2009 Takeover Initated, What Becomes Of Smell O Vision? What Becomes Of Entertainment As We Know It?

Phillips have done it again, Keen to improve the gaming experience Ambilight technology moves to your computer. Its called amBX shorthand for ‘ambient experiences’ and is designed to give you the most immersive gamming experience ever. Your senses are bombarded in beautiful coordination with gaming action and the changing scenery as you navigate around the virtual word. Users are sucked into the experience with the best sound, lighting, vibration and air movement effects available in the home today.




2009 is going to be the year of sensory bombardment, and with the release of amBX SDK its all-new developer programme on 12th January 2009, developers will be falling over them selves to create the best and most competitive content yet! Up till now the amBX technology has only been available on a project-by-project basis limiting new content but this release marks what I believe to be the latest movement in sensory entertainment development and the frontier of a new wave of Movies, programs DVD'S and games.

Digiscents (read more about them in my free smell o vision report), a small start up, tried to shake up the industry in the early millennium with the USB iSmell device however bad financing and lack of vision on the part of the venture capitalists cost us a revolution. amBX is backed by Phillips - an electronics GIANT, major players in the entertainment industry, experienced and powerful - just look at their vision of amBX "Our vision is to give you experiences you didn’t think possible" - don't think they will crumble to soon do you?


"If you’re a gamer, the virtual world reaches out from your screen. You feel the action: the movement of vehicles, shifts in lighting, rumbling explosions, ricocheting bullets, wind in your face. The mix of ambient lighting, vision, sound and tactile sensations mean the gaming experience will never be the same"

The hardware packages are designed to suit all budgets and offer very good value for money. Starter, pro gamer and premium kits are available starting from £99 (€129 or $149) going upto £199 (€249 or $279). The premium Kit, the most expensive of the lot offers the full experience complete with a wrist rumbler for vibration effects, two 5000rpm fans to move air, 2x 16 million colour hi intensity 2.1 160 Watt speaker-lights and sub woofer and the Wall washer light with controller unit to place behind the screen. Compare this to the pathetic attempt of Trisenx to break into the Smell o Vision market with a $349 fan!

Now I know allot of you haven't heard about this technology before and you may be a little surprised when I tell you this, I my self was a little thrown back. I mean this is the most important thing (in my opinion) when releasing a technology like this into the world. Without it the device is useless and competition and innovation never get a chance to do their wonders. It provides a valuation point for the consumer and developers alike, and somehow Phillips have done it. Yup im talking about content! BOY IS THERE LOTS OF IT.

I have managed to find over 170 games available RIGHT NOW with this technology installed and ready to GO!

Just look at what people are saying right here: amBX.com

Its not just for us geeks either, games are available across all genres; Action, Sports, Puzzle, Simulation - everything including titles like Call of Duty 4, DOOM, Assassins Creed, Guitar Hero 3 and Warlords IV! The even more fantastic news is that as of some point in 2009 amBX will move to the Xbox 360, Sony PS3 and the Nintendo Wii! The game console wars are known to be very very competitive- amBX is fuel on the fire! Further more this technology is so easy and inexpencive for developers to move to DVD everyone will be doing it soon.



Now back to the Smell o Vision topic, after all this is a Smell o Vision Blog right? What really angers me (be nice) more than anaything is Trisenx. For those of you who dont know, Trisenx are the US patent holders of a scent emmiting device filed by a Sandeep Jadika. The device has been manufactured works and consists of very basic on, off and idle programming, small heating reservoirs and a fan. THAT'S IT. The device and basic developer software can be manufactured for a few dollars yet the wholesale cost is $40 and the rrp is $349 dollars! (scents cost peanuts and libraries exist - so no research is required). Now excuse me but don't you think that this is going to deter the propagation of the technology and content development?..... people need to buy the device and no one is going to buy it at $349 especially if there is only one music album to enjoy the device with. Furthermore no one is going to make content if nobody own a device!

I see amBX as a real revolution, something that with the small addition of smell will be the Ultimate multisensory viewing and gaming experience available in the home. How difficult would it be for Phillips to add a small box to the back of the fans with a 20 reservoir tank? the amBX is a scripting language and the addition of a new defined entity that is either on off or idling each reservoir would be a piece of cake.

That's not the real problem, one could create the programming stuff in a few minutes. You see the addition of coding doesn't make a difference to the manufacturing process, however the inclusion of scent cartridges does. First the cartridges would have to be manufactured then sent to the DVD case making guys who would need to make a new DVD case to house the cartridges and put in a few leaflets for re-ordering the scents. You would have to have instructions indicating in which reservoir tank the individual cartridges would have to be placed. Then a machine could have to be brought in to put these sorted smell cartridges into the cases and then the rest would go on as normal. Not to easy!

What Phillips could do is have a library of say 100 smells all of which the developers would be aware of and able to use in their productions. This gives Phillips the power to benefit from a sort of premium continuity program, where basic smells are included in the initial packaged premium setup and the rest ordered on a hotline. This may be a very small profit and high hassle business and so they could then talk to Wal-Mart or Tesco in the UK and sell the packs of basic scent cartridges for $1 or something? Now if the developer wants to create an additional or specialty scent for their production they could do so via amBX and have them thrown into the DVD case to last 10 viewings or something (scent has proven to be most effective in very small subliminally perceived quantities).

Its scary whets happening with technology just a few weeks ago I was writing about Sky TV going 3D . They already have 3D content. Imagine the combination of amBX, Smell O Vision and 3D TV.