Engadget recently published an interesting article entitled, "WiFi-enabled Crestron touchpanel aids in stargazing." Some clever fellow has found a way to use his whole house wireless touchpanel to remotely control giant telescopes. A Crestron touchpanel is certainly not something mainstream consumers are likely to purchase at the store but it got me to thinking. All the tools are readily available for mainstream users to travel the galaxies and view black holes, quasars, nebula's, planets and stars on their big screen TVs. Imagine sitting in the comfort of your own living room traveling through space on your big screen TV.If you haven't already, download and take a look at Microsoft Research's WorldWide Telescope. If you like to view satellite images with Google Earth, you'll love the WorldWide Telescope. Suddenly you have access to the same galaxial images as the world's leading astronomers. They even have guided tours and collections to make it easy. What's more you can install an application from ASCOM, a loosely-knit astronomy standards and developers group, that enables you to connect and control the same giant telescopes around the world as the experts for free. Truth in advertising, its not exactly easy to setup the application and get it to work but it is possible, especially if you have a little bit of astronomy and telescope knowledge. But that's the point. As major TV manufacturers look to integrate the Internet and interactive content with their digital TVs, why not build a simple and elegant interface for stargazing on the TV.
Now that's an out-of-this-world experience that I'd like to see.
