As a fully paid up member of the glasses-wearing wearing gamers' club, anything that will allow me to stare at a computer monitor for longer before eye-strain kicks in sounds like a good thing. Which is why I'll be reviewing Antec's new soundscience halo 6 LED bias lighting kit as soon as I can get one in.
The halo 6 is a USB powered strip of six LED lights which stick to the back of your monitor and brightness depending on what's going on on screen. The idea is that by filling your peripheral vision with ambient light, it's easier to focus on the on screen activity, and your perception of colour is improved.
The principle is nothing new - Philips have been doing this with their Ambilight TVs for a long time now, and developed the amBX PC gaming kits which work to bathe a whole room in colour*. Antec's system is different in that the light is constantly white, but my experience of these has been generally positive although not something I'm sure I'd pay for.
Antec, however, has directly addressed this last problem. The halo 6 is listed as being available for £10, which means it could make a neat stocking filler if it works.
* In case you're wondering, amBX was spun off as a separate company in 2008, with most of the Philips team that developed it joining the new company. I've not actually spoken to them since, but as far as I know there haven't been any new products released since then.
