CRISTAL: Control your living room with your coffee table
Researchers at the Media Interaction Lab of Upper Austria University have demonstrated an alternative use for Microsoft Surface tables. It’s called CRISTAL: Control of Remotely Interaced Systems using Touch-based Actions in Living spaces. In the demo video, you can see how the interactive table controls the entire living room, from the TV to the Roomba. It’s a pretty cool idea that is aimed at improving the living room user experience by consolidating remote controls and making devices more interconnected.
My concerns are that interactive tables are very pricey and the angle of control could be awkward for the user. Also, you can’t exactly keep magazines on your living room table any more, and kicking your feet up on a $10,000 multi-touch computer just doesn’t seem like a good idea… maybe someday these things will be more affordable and CRISTAL will be a reality.
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