The day we can all afford — and easily access — tables with built-in touchscreens, the world will be a happier place. Sure, you’ll have to take extra special care of it, lest a wayward coffee spill brings your dreams of touch-based, living room nirvana to a wet, caffeinated end, but think of the board games! One option that brings us closer to a consumer-practical option is Ideum’s tables, powered by Windows 8 (and soon Android).
Starting from $US6950, the tables come in two size varieties — 32 and 46 inches. They make use of “high-performance” multi-touch technology, courtesy of 3M, that allows for the display and applications to handle some 60 touches at once. Right now, the only supported operating system is Windows 8, but Ideum recently announced that Android versions will be coming later in the year.
I’ve always maintained that board games would be a killer app for this sort of thing, as long as you don’t mind the loss of the tactile sensation of holding actual tokens, cards and other play pieces. But imagine having hundreds of titles are your fingertips, without all the fuss of setting and packing up.
Yeah, I can get on board with that.