TV outside the box
Augmented reality is an emerging discipline that uses handheld devices to superimpose digital data on the real world: If, say, you’re in Paris and point your phone at the Eiffel Tower, the tower’s image would pop up on-screen, along with, perhaps, information about its history or the hours that it’s open. With a TV enhancement called Surround Vision, however, researchers at MIT’s Media Lab are bringing the same technology into the living room. Santiago Alfaro, a graduate student in the lab of Media Lab research scientist Michael Bove, had spent a year investigating the use of cell-phone cameras as digital interfaces when he had an intriguing thought. The soundtracks of contemporary movies, TV shows and video games are often conceived in two dimensions rather than just one: Surround sound technology can allow an audience to, in effect, hear what’s happening off screen. “If you’re watching TV and you...