CRISTAL: Control Your Living Room By Dragging, Dropping, Swiping a Surface Table

CRISTAL is a research projection that moves the ecumenical remote to a Microsoft Surface - type board with unbelievably intuitive gesture . Want to watch over a picture show ? Drag the cover to your TV . It even lets you delineate a way for your Roomba .

The awkwardly - acronymed CRISTAL , which stands for “ ” Control of Remotely Interfaced Systems using Touch - based Actions in Living spaces , ” expend a camera to take an overhead shot of your living room setup , and you destine the compatible parts : telly , speakers , digital picture frame , HTPC , Roomba . Then you simply touch , swipe , drag and set down to control the room . Your digital media assembling shows up as almost a Cover Flow - type design , and can be dragged either to the speaker system or TV , or just examined more closely on the airfoil - type screen itself . I bed that you may learn a preview right there on the table , or quickly toss it to the TV to output it .

The system , right now , would cost a prohibitory $ 10,000 - 15,000 , but the team says costs could by all odds be lour . Presumably they ’re not using an literal Surface , which cost about that much by itself . Still , it see awfully responsive and just a blast to play with , so we hope they can figure out a path to get those costs down enough that , say , I can get one . [ wire ]