Murray Woodman

TV sets are now so massive that they dominate a room completely. A significant proportion of a room is devoted to them. We need to make more of this space.

Idea

A small internet connected computer with wifi is used to serve images to a screen, ideally a plasma screen hanging on a wall. In reality it will probably just be the home TV. The network can be used as a source of data to display images which may reflect the season, the weather, one’s personal photographic collection or one’s mood. Maybe it even synchs in with imagery associated with sounds that might be playing.

Detail

The user would need to be able to configure the device so that they can specify what images are to be displayed: local folder, URL, list of URLs, season/weather/mood server. Also timing, transition effects.

Implementation

A cheap small linux computer which can connect to the internet. It might have a hard disk and a webserver so that images can be ftped to it so that it can also act as a source of images.

Problems

Maybe this can be done already with consumer hardware that is out there. Games consoles can connect to the web. MP3 and phones can store images. They just need a little bit of software and the right hardware connection. This idea is different in that it can connect to a remote server and serve files that the user has never seen before. It can certainly be done with an ordinary computer and as media centers become more popular they will win out. Maybe a simple client (web browser) and some server software is what is required.

Refinement

So what we have left is just a website capabale of serving images from various sources.