HP Labs meets GamePro Labs
- April 11, 2007 15:25 PM PST
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Mscape
Although everything on display was innovative in their own ways, one of the most ambitious gadgets that we saw was the mScape. According to HP's own fact sheet, the mscape "is a way to lay multimedia digital experiences--including text, audio and video--on a physical landscape." Basically, mscape sits on top of a GPS enabled device and overlays game data over a physical location, allowing you to interact with the environment in a tangible way.
We were shown a glitzy commercial that imagined a convoy of young gamers running around the streets of San Francisco with a variety of mscape enabled devices, which included PDA's and cell phones. By peering into the device's display, the gamer would see a virtual landscape that physically mirrored the actual world. For instance, a nearby skyscraper was virtually transformed into a medival castle. Also, gamers had to physically avoid traps and other deadly landmarks that existed only inside the mscape; one such trap--a pit that opened up in the middle of the street--required the gamer to physically move onto the sidewalk to gain safe passage.
The actual demonstration units that we were able to play with didn't offer up this kind of functionality--they used location-based IR transponders to offer up in-game cues, which was mildly interesting--and we're skeptical as to how, and if ever, they'll meet the space-age wonder of their fancy commercial. However, we easily imagine other, less exciting uses for mscape. Consider an attraction at Disneyland centered around a haunted house: visitors are handed an mscape enabled device at the door and are lead through a maze like corridor. While nothing would be visible to the naked eye, the guests would see hidden ghosts lurking in the shadows by using the mscape device.
While it will probably be impossible for HP to deliver on their promise of a portable device capable of overlaying a virtual world on to real-world locations in real-time, we're hoping that the technology will continue to mature to a point where a gamer can start up a game in their living rooms, then venture outside to continue the experience.
