We all know that a lot can happen over coffee. But now it is time to change the phrase a little. A lot can now happen over the coffee table. In fact the table can give discussions a guide and get actively involved in conversations. No, the table is not going to do the talking but it can help you in a number of ways. Thanks to the brand new concept of the Multi-Touch Coffee Table from Touchscape.
The concept of the touch screen is pretty well-known now. This very technology has been incorporated into the coffee table. The Multi-Touch Coffee Table has a 47 inch high definition LCD screen incorporated onto its surface. You might have seen something like these being used in movies but it won’t be long before you could run your fingers on one such screen in your very own living room.
This patented MT technology bearing coffee table screen boasts of having an HD 1920 X 1080p resolution. It is capable of tracking as many touches as can be fit on the screen. It has been powered by a Quad Core Processor and the surface configuration can be a Windows 7 touch input device similar to the Microsoft Surface. It can also serve TUIO touch events to be used with SUSHI or multitouch SDK. The unique experience of this table enables you to enjoy applications with your fingertips. Moving around on screen or browsing through photographs was never so easy before.
The processor is ably supported by a 4 GB memory while there is scope for storing a whopping 180 GB. That would take many coffee mugs to discuss all that data. It efficiently supports Bluetooth, Wi Fi, USB and Ethernet. Keeping with the times it is well ready to take on the 3G era in communication.
The ambient light sensor is able to adjust display based on the background lighting conditions. The self monitoring system keeps a watch on the performance by regularly checking for updates which keeps the system moving.
Since it is a coffee table it should be capable enough to support coffee mugs and this it can do with all expertise. The LCD display has features like being scratch resistant, wipe-clean top, and in the worst case replaceable.
Once you have invited guests over for coffee on the Multi-Touch table you are sure to have them visiting again. And you are going to be a beaming host to all.
If you've ever found yourself hopelessly lost in an Ikea store, you were probably not alone.
The home furnishing chain’s mazy layouts are a psychological weapon to part shoppers from their cash, an expert in store design claims.
The theory is that while following a zig-zag trail between displays of minimalist Swedish furniture, a disorientated Ikea customer feels compelled to pick up a few extra impulse purchases.
A-mazing: A route a customer took through a store. Professor Alan Penn said they are designed to stop customers leaving
According to Alan Penn, director of the Virtual Reality Centre for the Built Environment at University College London, Ikea's strategy is similar to that of out-of-town retail parks - keep customers inside for as long as they can.
'In Ikea's case, you have to follow a set path past what is effectively their catalogue in physical form, with furniture placed in different settings which is meant to show you how adaptable it is,' he said.
'By the time you get to the warehouse where you can actually buy the stool or whatever's caught your eye, you're so impressed by how cheap it is that you end up getting it.'
While its stores have short-cuts to meet fire regulations, shoppers find the exits hard to spot as they are navigating their way through displays of flat-pack furniture, he added. 'Also you're directed through their marketplace area where a staggering amount of purchases are impulse buys, things like lightbulbs or a cheap casserole that you weren't planning on getting.
'Here the trick is that because the lay-out is so confusing you know you won't be able to go back and get it later, so you pop it in your trolley as you go past.
Mesmerising: Ikea's store in Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire.The flatpack store is designed to make it difficult for us to escape
'It's not like somewhere like John Lewis where everything has a logical lay-out and you know you'll probably be able to navigate your way back to the same spot again.'
Alongside its reputation for good, cheap design, Ikea's distinctive labyrinth has been phenomenally successful with 283 stores in 26 countries and profits of £2.3 billion last year.
The sometimes gruelling strategy - dubbed 'more like S&M than M&S' by Prof Penn - is similar to that employed by out-of-town shopping centres to attract customers then keep them in side for hours on end, he added.
Studies at the Bluewater centre in Kent found that shoppers spent an average of just over three hours inside, with a significant number spending eight hours at a time there. Malls are subtly designed to keep shoppers moving around the retail floor, rather than towards the exit, while the frequent need to drive to the middle of nowhere means visitors are encouraged to make a day of it.
Along with familiar cafes and play areas, a common design is the 'dog bone' mall, where a large store at either end - such as Marks & Spencer or Debenhams - is attracted at knock-down rent, while smaller stores like Next or Mothercare cluster in-between to take advantage of the custom they generate.
Supermarkets use similar tactics, according to Prof Penn.
'They couldn't get away with having shoppers going in one single route like Ikea, so what they do is put popular purchases like milk and bread at the far end of the store so you have to walk past shelves of other products on the way.'
Big success: The Ikea store in Wembley, north London. Last year the Swedish giants made a profit of £2.3bn
He has a 'nightmarish' vision of a clothing store like Primark directing shoppers on a single route through the store, passing displays of different styles of outfits en route, but questions whether the Ikea template would work on the high street.
'It would be interesting to have customers go past lots of mannequins showing different lifestyles the clothes were meant to inspire before they actually got to try them on, but so far no-one's tried it.'
However Prof Penn said the trend was towards more subtle techniques, with new city centre malls having better links to surrounding shops while supermarkets devised more sophisticated tactics for targeting their preferred customers.
Ikea denied that its store layouts were designed intentionally to bewilder customers. 'Our furniture showrooms are designed to give our customers lots of ideas for every area of the home including your kitchen, bedroom and living room,' said Carole Reddish, Ikea's deputy managing director for the UK and Ireland.
'While some of our customers come to us for a day out to get inspiration for every room, we appreciate that others may have looked at the Ikea catalogue or online offer, have a specific shopping list in mind and would like to get in and out quickly. 'So to make it easier for those customers, we have created shortcuts.'
A man named Matt has built a coffee table. It is designed to look like the Nintendo Entertainment System. It is awesome.
Here is how it compares size-wise to an actual NES. The coffee table is bigger!
This is more than an enormous Nintendo Entertainment System. It is an enormous NES with a fully functionally, jumbo NES controller.
"Opening the lid reveals the storage for the controller, or even can store remote controls and game controllers in there for easy access/storage," Matt tells Kotaku. "The controller ports are actually two power outlets so I can plug in my laptop to charge."
It is also possible to open up the back of the NES coffee table for more available storage space. Check out a video of the coffee table in action here.
TreeHugger has shown many ways to hide the bed; most are designed to gain more space. But the Red Nest by Paul Coudamay doesn't; the bed is still there taking up space, but is hidden by the sliding bookcase. Why do it?
"The bookshelf is a mobile block that controls the opening of the bed. Its U-shape covers the bed and shapes the room by closing the dressing area, the bed or the working space. The mobile system provides a closed sheltered bed as required by the client without completely shutting the space."
Sliding the bookshelf to enclose the bed on three sides will add to acoustic and visual privacy, almost acting like a canopy bed. Opening it up will facilitate making the bed. In noisy urban cores of cities, it is an interesting solution to a big problem; Books are a great sound absorber.
So you're a huge geek and have some cash to spend. You're not going to settle for some memorabilia to hang on your walls and some costumes to wear to ComicCon. No, you're going to trick out your whole freaking house with some awesome geek-themed furniture.
Unfortunately, in the world of geek obsessions, practicality and style are often mutually exclusive. You'll have to decide which you want when shopping for a...
#10.
Frozen Han Solo Desk
As a reminder of the coolest scene in the coolest Star Wars movie, the Han-Solo-Frozen-In-Carbonite desk is straight up awesome. Having this beauty in your office would leave even the most tangentially geeky person in awe of your furniture owning prowess. How could anyone say no to a person sitting across from them at this table? One look down at Han's frozen scream and they'd do whatever you want.
The Downside:
But then the thrill of owning Han encased in carbonite dies down a little and you actually have to sit down at your desk and start filling out those TPS reports again. Just try to concentrate while Harrison Ford's ghostly visage, twisted in rage and fear, stares permanently up past your keyboard.
Now imagine trying to eat a quick office takeout dinner on this thing, with Han Solo's gaping maw silently demanding a bite of each nacho you lift off your plate. And then there are those extended fingers, that your imagination will surely see wiggling desperately out of the corner of your eye.
Also, there are no drawers so that seems really inconvenient.
#9.
Captain Kirk's Chair
Ah, now this is better. Having a Captain Kirk chair makes even the most mundane of tasks an action-filled adventure in the 23rd century! Whether you're ordering pizza, changing channels or just masturbating gloomily, you'll feel like Captain Kirk ordering pizza, changing channels and masturbating gloomily and have all the confidence of a man who humped his way across the galaxy.
The Downside:
At some point in this setup, the Starship Enterprise stops and your sad little apartment begins. And while that chair looks awesome in the middle of a space-age bridge and blinking computers, sandwich it between the charcoal grill up there and your cat's litter box, and you have a recipe for instant clinical depression.
And the garbage men just will not take it.
Honestly, we're not sure if the full-on Starfleet uniform hurts or helps that cause. Sitting in this in your old "Federal Breast Inspector" t-shirt and a pair of Bud Light sweats would seem to dishonor the proud tradition that chair represents, but dressing up like an aging William Shatner just makes it look like your own schizophrenic delusion has come to life. It's kind of a no-win situation.
#8.
H.R. Giger Coffee Table and Chairs
H.R. Giger's aesthetic is unmistakable, his black leather dong-inspired creature from Alien is one of the most original and terrifying monsters ever to later be ruined in a retarded crossover movie.
Giger, for some reason, then felt the need to branch into home decor. For instance we have these high-backed chairs, made for the film Dune, which would be perfect for some living room activities like passively observing an orgy while petting your white Persian cat and wearing your blue alien Sting speedo.
Meanwhile, this coffee table, also inspired by Giger's work, would definitely be awesome for scaring the shit out of your dog.
The Downside:
No matter how awesome your geek cred is, at some point you're going to wind up hosting your grand parents, or in-laws. You'll create many an awkward moment as Aunt Maria comments on how lovely the funeral service was as she sits daintily in a chair seemingly crafted entirely out of Xenomorph spines.
You'll come to regret your coffee table purchase when you stumble home drunk in the middle of the night and trip on it; the teeth of its alien jaws tearing open your scrotum.
#7.
Periodic "Table"
Do you know what's awesome about chemistry? Fucking everything, that's what. Argon? Lead? Molybdenum? Hells yeah, bitches. Back in the day being a geek wasn't just about video games and a shrine to Megan Fox, you also had to be the kid with thick rimmed glasses who carried a pocket protector and actually knew what the fuck calculus was good for.
Now that everything nerdy is ultra cool, it's time to embrace that genius heritage with the Periodic Coffee Table, which has a sample of all 88 naturally occurring elements embedded in a replication of the Periodic Table. Why put your feet up on some pressboard IKEA hunk of junk when you could be resting your dogs on sleek, sexy cadmium? They even found a way to include the toxic ones!
The Downside:
At $8,550, it ain't cheap, but keeping it real never is. And while the table is a guaranteed conversation starter, each element comes in its own individual cube, meaning if you ever throw a party, you're going to wake up the next day with a table containing only shit elements like calcium and fucking xenon gas with a busted thorium cube leaking small amounts of radiation. Meanwhile some jackass is trying to pawn the chunks of gold, silver and platinum you like to rest your coffee on.
#6.
Dragon End Table
It's Friday night and you're wrapping up another rousing session of D&D. The goblins have been slain, the maidens have been won. Good job, Dungeon Master. Kick back, and set your fine drink upon a glass tray held obediently by your stone "Subservient Dragon."
If you're not into D&D, it also works great for displaying your Harry Potter books or He-Man action figures.
The Downside:
Once more, what's awesome on its own becomes sad in context. The misleading photo up there portrays our noble dragon table in a palatial room serving goblets of gold. That sucker takes on a whole new light when it's offering a 32-ounce Mountain Dew from Taco Bell in a Transformers 2 cup, next to a wrinkled bag containing bits of Cheetos dust.
#5.
Rubik's Cube Coffee Table
Rubik's Cubes were once a huge part of our culture, and back in the 80s everyone had one. The fact that most people "solved" it by breaking it apart or rearranging the stickers didn't matter.
But for some puzzle geeks, the Rubik's Cube remained the exemplar of cool. In a masterstroke of unnecessary and inexplicable inspiration, someone gambled that those people might need a table to keep coffee on, or to toss out some copies of Wired magazine when friends were coming over. And thus, the Rubik's Cube Coffee Table was born.
The Downside:
We know what you're thinking. Get a bunch of friends together to try to solve this huge bastard, and you'll have a great time.
Sorry to spoil your fun, but retailing for $600, this table combines all of the function of a table with none of the fun of the Rubik's Cube, since it doesn't actually work. So really it functions as a table in much the same way any object of a similar size would, including the box the table comes in.
#4.
The Scrabble Couch
For anyone with even a smattering of nerd genes somewhere inside them, Scrabble was the awesomest of board games for one simple reason: it made you look smart. Sure, if you walk around all day spelling difficult words at people, you'll eventually get shot. But do it in the context of a Scrabble game, and suddenly you're the life of the party.
"Does anyone have enough letters to spell 'this party blows?'"
Oh, wait. No. That actually doesn't make sense at all. What do you do, have each player sit on the floor behind their sofa with a stack of letter pillows? The novelty of that will wear off about three seconds before you finish suggesting it to your party guests.
And what do you do between games? Shaped like the game's tile holders and probably made of the same wood, comfort couldn't have been high on the list of requirements during the design stage. Sure, it looks kind of cool and you could spend hours spelling out dirty words to make yourself laugh in those lonely wee hours of the morning. But who would want to sit on it? Its sharp edges and unforgiving angles look like something from the lab of an evil genius chiropractor.
#3.
The Star Wars Home Theater
For some folks, it takes a little more than one piece of furniture to geekify their domains. They'll turn a whole room into a shrine to some piece of pop culture. Like these wealthy nerds who decided to trick out their home theater to look like the control deck of the Death Star.
For an extra dash of coolness they added a life-size model of badass bounty hunter, Boba Fett, and a life-size model of closet case, C3PO. Throw in a massive flatscreen and a few wicked chairs, and you have the ultimate place to watch Star Wars. Having any kind of home theater is pretty awesome, but a Star Wars home theater is double deep-fried awesome with extra awesome dipping sauce. What we're saying is it's awesome.
The Downside:
It's pretty much only good for watching Star Wars. It might get a little weird having Boba Fett see you cry when Macaulay Culkin dies at the end of My Girl. And forget about porn. Can you imagine rubbing one out under the never-ending robot gaze of Threepio? His cold, robotic stare, observing you. Judging you.
#2.
The Star Trek Apartment
Not enough to just deck out one room? Well, you and Tony Alleyne of England will have a lot to talk about. A big fan of Star Trek: Voyager, he completely stripped his apartment and refitted it to look like the starship.
The Downside:
We like Seven of Nine's futuristic boobies too, and arguably there's something cool about living in an immersive world in which it seems like they're only a warp core breach away, but come on. We're talking about freaking Voyager here. While late at night after binge drinking Yoo-Hoo and schnapps it might seem like an awesome idea to model your entire home after Star Trek, but dressing it up as the second worst Star Trek series ever? Not Star Trek, not The Next Generation or even Deep Space Nine, but fucking Voyager?
This is right above the toilet.
And in the harsh light of day, the fantasy falls apart a bit. For instance, there is no longer the harsh light of day. Lacking windows as the dank starship Voyager did, Alleyne's home, the one that forced his wife to leave him, is a shut-in's dream cave making its owner a little more Gollum-like with each passing day.
#1.
The Star Trek Coffin and Urn
Any claims adjuster with glasses can live the nerd life, but it takes a special kind of geek to die a nerd death. If for some reason you want to be picked on in the afterlife as much as you were here, why not go to Valhalla in style?
The folks at Eternal Image have created two ways for you to spend your eternity safe in the knowledge that you probably were more disturbing to Leonard Nimoy and William Shatner than millions of other ravenous, reality-challenged fans could ever dream of being. The Star Trek coffin and urn can help you carry your love of sci-fi with you as you boldly go to the undiscovered country six-feet under.
The Downside:
On the one hand, it beats the shit out of the standard dollar store urn or pine box most of us will find ourselves in. But really, the funeral isn't for you. You'll be dead.
No, the funeral service is for all your friends and family to get together and celebrate the fact that you could have been a much worse person if you had really tried. But with these, you'll be reminding them that your entire days spent on this mortal coil were devoted to the show that gave us Tribbles and Ricardo Montalban's prosthetic chest.
They say that your bedroom says a lot about you as it is the place where all your belongings are kept, where you can shut yourself away from the rest of the world and be your true self…whatever that may be!
We have done some scouting and found you the wackiest beds in the business! Fancy a bite?
Have you ever wanted to curl up inside a tasty hamburger? Well worry no more because a new burger bed has been deisgned for all you fast food lovers! It even comes with a flexible styles allowing you to change it into a veggie, soya, chicken or just a pain bun bed, whatever takes your fancy! A load of balls!
This rather odd yet weirdly cool design works on the basis of all the soft balls being connected together by plastic connectors, allowing you to scuplt it into any shape you want. Still Sleeper
Wouldn’t it be great if the person we lived with was a still sleeper? No endless tossing and turning and fighting for pillows! In fact if you are looking for a way to train that person into sleeping still for the forseeable future, a body mattress bed might be the way forward for you! His and Hers
The first few years (or days) of marriage can be blissful but after a while things can become a little boring. However, what better way than to spice it up in the bedroom and have your partner living on spikes while you sleep soundly on a bed of roses. Perfect! When heaven falls from the sky
There is nothing more idyllic then climbing into your own bed at night, yet the thought of climbing to the ceiling may get a little tiring after a while!
However this bed (luckily) falls from the ceiling to give you the perfect vision of a God sent falling from the sky every time you come to bed.
Lets just hope after a few glasses of wine you remember your bed is on the ceiling and you need to get it down before you fall onto it in a drunken heap! Rocking Yourself To Sleep
It looks good, it is possibly great fun for about a day but I am sure the novelty would wear off after a while if you have had a long day and work and really need a silent, peaceful and STILL sleep! I rest my case! Set Sail To Your Dreams
The absolute dream bed for little kids! Setting sail every night to dream land and awaking every morning to the Pirates, I mean parents, waking you up in time for school!
However, by the time they start hitting their late teens this bed needs to be quickly disposed of. Not really a good impression for the ladies if your still jumping into a pirate bed and throwing your anchor out every night!
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All you art collectors out there. Here is a chance to get a Giclee copy of some of Ian M Sherwin work. Ian is planning on doing a whole series of Marblehead, Massachusetts paintings. His work is amazing.
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