Filed under: Hardware, Odds and ends
Coffee Table Mac?
Remember the Microsoft Surface? It was a prototype device bringing an iPhone-like touch interface to a full sized table computer. The specialty home automation vendor Savant Systems has announced the "Apple-based" "ROSIE Coffee Table Touchpanel Controller." Apparently it duplicates the functionality of the company's in-wall touch-screen controllers, but in a 40" display mounted into the top of a coffee table. They don't specify in what way it's "Apple-based," but I would guess this thing probably integrates a Mac mini and one of the main selling points is its iTunes integration. They also don't say anything about it being multi-touch, so I suspect it's just a really big touchscreen. At the moment this thing is still vapor-ware, and of course there's no pricing info, but I wouldn't expect something like this to come cheap.
![TUAW [Cafepress]](http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.tuaw.com/media/tuaw-cafepress-promo.png)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
shaun said 10:29AM on 9-06-2007
If you owned one of those would you really use it to put your coffee on?
I doubt it is a mac mini in there as I'm sure the video card would have trouble with that display...maybe it's a mini thats been upgraded?
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drklrdbill said 10:40AM on 9-06-2007
I have a coffee table mac already, it's called a MacBook Pro
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Lauram said 1:27PM on 9-06-2007
This concept makes no sense to me. The purpose of a coffee table is to put stuff on top of it, not just coffee but the newspaper, books, the TV remote, some files you might be working on, a bowl of fruit or popcorn, kid's toys, a vase, your laptop, whatever. That's what it's for and that's how people use it. Who has a coffee table with nothing on it, except just after you've cleaned the house and just before the guests arrive? So what is the point of a music player that you have to clean off every time you want to use it, and who wants a coffee table you can't actually use as a coffee table because you have to keep it cleared off in order to use it as the biggest, bulkiest iPod ever?
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Greg G said 3:57PM on 9-06-2007
rofl.
I love the fact that they used Apple technology for this, and I hope they sell it for a lit less than the M$ Surface.
I've always like the idea, but not for a general use computer, just because of the way you have to hunch over it.
Still, very cool, and making use of the best OS out there? Also cool.
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