Living rooms are usually filled with electronic devices and each one often comes with its own remote control. Finding the right remote and remembering the different layouts can be a challenge, but there is a simple solution. All you need is the coffee table.

Gone are the days when you had to search the room for three different remotes so you could change the channel on television, watch a movie or listen to music.
CRISTAL (Control of Remotely Interfaced Systems using Touch-based Actions in Living spaces) has merged everything you need into one universal remote control, more commonly known as the surface of the coffee table.

After a number of successful trials, Media Interaction Lab renamed the CRISTAL coffee table to NiCE (Natural user Interfaces for Collaborative Environments).
As technology becomes more compatible to the Internet and wireless networking, NiCE is a way to form a centralised control on the many different devices that feature in a living room.

An overhead camera is used to capture the entire floor plan and can include technologies such as the television, digital media players, home theatre speakers, lights, digital picture frames, even the vacuum cleaner.

The captured video is then displayed on a NiCE multi-touch coffee table so the user can directly interact with the different devices in the room from the comfort of their own couch.

The video image on the table itself is the interface, and it provides instant feedback with a single touch. Lights and speaker volume for example, can be adjusted with a simple sliding gesture on the image.

NiCE works on the lines of Microsoft Surface, a multi-touch computer that responds to natural hand gestures and real-world objects so people can interact with digital content in a simple way. Likewise, NiCE comes with a touch surface which can be manipulated in order to operate or adjust the different technologies. But, it may take another five to ten years to develop completely.

How NiCE works
Watching movies is made easier with NiCE if the films are stored on a media server. Users can then tap on the image of the DVD collection, move the covers around, read more about the film or watch a preview directly on the table.

When a movie is chosen, the user can simply drag the cover onto the image of the television on the coffee table, and the film will begin to play on the actual television.
NiCE also takes into account the growing trend of digital photo frames. You can tap on the video image of the photo album cabinet and open the digital photo collection. In a similar way to movie browsing, users can view photos directly on the coffee table, or enlarge them on the television.

This allows the photos on display around the living room to be changed on a regular basis. Users can drag a photo onto the digital picture frame on the coffee table, and this will upload the photo for display.

If you’re not a fan of cleaning, NiCE can also serve as an interface for a robotic vacuum cleaner, which will clean up anything that lies in the path drawn by the user.
NiCE is a novel and simple way to control and interact with digital devices around the house, all from the comfort of your own couch.