Hitachi Ltd has teamed up with US start up EDW to develop interactive entertainment facilities using new digital technologies. The companies plan to license products to theme parks and will both hold copyrights to jointly developed products, says the Nihon Keizai Shimbun. Games using imagery, music and special effects will be developed, enabling users to become physically involved via a choice of scenarios. Hitachi established an amusement systems division in August 1996 with the intention of applying its technology to arcade entertainment (CI No 2,981). But the division has not worked quite as the Japanese organization first hoped, and so far it hasn’t managed to produce a product that has been worth copyrighting. The plan is that EDW will help it on its way. EDW was established in March last year by movie special effects expert Douglas Trumbull, who has worked on movies including Star Trek: The motion Picture, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Blade Runner and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. He is also responsible for the special effects in the Back To The Future ride at Universal Studios in Florida and Hollywood.
