Immersive entertainment, the next step in visual wizardry, is gaining momentum in cinema and gaming circles. There are 900 immersion domes currently being used around the world in places including theme parks and planetariums where the interactive 3D and holographic displays give the viewer the impression of being teleported into the heart of the action. However for Ed Lantz, President and CTO of Vortex Immersion Media Inc, we are already living in an immersive world: These are virtual worlds. The dome is one entry portal into those immersive worlds, your cell is another and your PDA. So, increasingly we are being surrounded by screens. What we're doing in the domes is we are exploding the frame. The image completely surrounds you so it's as if you are actually fully immersed in a computer generated environment. It's like taking 500 people and teleporting them into cyber space. The re-release of Titanic is another example of the huge demand for 3D cinema. Fifteen years on, the reworked film's popularity shows that the appetite for ever more interactive cinema, could set the president for Hollywood's future endeavours. Peter Caranicas, deputy editor of Variety talks about the impact technology is having the entertainment industry: The advent of social networking and the internet and video streaming is really changing people's viewing habits and I think the Hollywood studios are really at a loss as to how to deal with this as well as the major television networks so you're going to be seeing a lot of jockeying for position and a lot of ways to try to capture consumer dollars using alternative means over the next few years. Immersion entertainment is only just beginning but one day very soon, virtually interacting with film stars could be a reality. More about: Digital cinema, New technologies