I'm watching a morning news show on the BBC, and they have a coffee table on which they have superimposed a map of Iraq showing troop movements, sand, Dubya's evil cackling face etc.
I was thinking I'd love to have one of these in my house. A coffee table with an 3D projector built in [link courtesy
of namuh], or an economy version with a simple 2D monitor built into it (like those old space invaders table machines).
The table has a disc or CD drive built into the side to load maps. In the advanced version these can be 3D renderings of a town/city, and in the cheap version they could be simple 2D road maps.
Instead of having to spread out your insanely large folding map all over your coffee table while planning a road trip, you can plot your route by runnig a stylus over the surface of the table, print out a paper copy with the attached printer, or download your route into your in-car routefinder.
When you don't need the table for your maps, you can use it to display anything: - a bowl of fruit, your favourite piece of art or hardcore monkey love - whatever floats your boat. Board games too, if that's what Basie wants.
This would be a valuable space-saver. My dad used to be a noted architect, and is now a sales manager. Half our house used to be filled with blueprints and road maps, covering tables and generally annoying everybody. He could have replaced his old architects table with this, and thrown out all the OS maps, if we weren't living in the dark ages of the 80's.
Sure, this could all be done on a PC, but not with this much style.