Current trend in interactive furnitures and roomware

Information Technologies until recently mainly have been focused on very constrained artifacts like desktop computers, set-top boxes or handheld. There is now a shift towards integrating technologies in everyday artifacts, ranging from tables to walls and even carpets or kitchen furniture. In this paradigm, the computer disappears and objects take advantage of computation capabilities to support new usage like collaborative work or learning. In this approach, the world and its artifacts are then interfaces to information and collaboration among people. This new field is referred to as “roomware” (Streitz et al.,s 1998) or interactive furniture. It addresses the design and the evaluation of computeraugmented room elements like doors, walls, furniture (e.g. tables and chairs) with integrated information and communication technology.