Coffee Table Remote
In the future we won’t ever need to get off the sofa. We also never need to wonder where the remote is, because it will be under our cup of coffee.
Experimental Tech Turns Your Coffee Table Into a Universal Remote
By Priya Ganapati August 14, 2009
Stock up on coasters. A new technology combines the coffee table with a universal remote so that people sitting around the table can tap on a screen to change the channel, turn up the volume or dim the lights.
CRISTAL (Control of Remotely Interfaced Systems using Touch-based Actions in Living spaces) is a research project in user interface that attempts to create a natural way of connecting with devices. The system offers a streaming video view of the living room on a tabletop, so users can can walk up to it, see the layout of the room and interact with the TV or the photo frame.
“We wanted a social aspect to activities such as choosing what to watch on TV and we wanted to make the process easy and intuitive,” says Stacey Scott, assistant profess [From Experimental Tech Turns Your Coffee Table Into a Universal Remote | Gadget Lab | Wired.com]

