A practical Smartsurface?

I promise I'm in the process of completing my entry on our second week task (Task 2 if you will).  That will be up with video and pictures shortly.

I found, while looking at Practical Arduino, a blog posting about Kitchen Cabinets That Open With a Wave of a Homeowner's Hand.  Personally I like to see all the appliances in the kitchen, but this is definitely an interesting idea. A surface that responds to motion, as well as direct user input (the touch screen.) It's very sleek, but the thing I don't think will be so clever is repair if things stop working.

I think that in designing anything that involves sale to someone with no technical experience it's important to take into consideration how dumb people are.  I'm not saying that everyone ever is unintelligent, but you have the underside of your  mother's iron, requesting that you refrain from ironing your clothes while you're still wearing them for a very good reason.  I can't say one person has done this, I can say that many people have done this, and continue to iron their clothes while still dressed in them.

So my opinion? This is really neat, but I'm more interested in thinking about, and eventually creating, a surface that improves our world, not something that makes rich people lazier.





I thought this video was really neat.  Neil had talked about wanting to set up an LED display to show what data our sensors would be reading.  This does something similar, only with a video directing the behavior of the LEDs.