Missing In Canada is a weekly feature where I will profile gadgets from other countries, consumer items that aren’t available here and (except for rare import shoppes) probably never will be.

New York-based inventor Alpay Kasal was inspired after he saw the luxury bathroom mirrors being sold on the market with embedded LCD screens inside. The idea behind the high-end mirrors is to allow users to access their computers while they brush their teeth, to view the latest news, weather, and traffic information. But for Kasal, he saw an opportunity to apply the touchscreen and gesture comments of today’s hottest handhelds and craft an interactive mirror that can offer a more immersive experience.

His Interactive Mirror comes to life with just a few swipes of the finger and such presses and gestures can be used to activate onscreen buttons and animations. From those who have tried it, Kasal reports that the mirrored surface, the fact that you can see yourself and the room you are standing in as the world that you are playing, creates a touchscreen experience unlike any other. It’s no longer just about intuitively playing with the computer itself, but now that you are the desktop as it were, the potential is there to interact with your own world through its reflection.Right now the Interactive Mirror is just a concept device, although Kasal is serious about bringing it to the market as a future product. His prototype is impressive offering a paint program, options for custom decorative trim along the edges of the mirror, a demo program that will let you design and order your own T-shirt, even a Space Invaders-styled video game.

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Interactive Mirror from Alpay Kasal on Vimeo. Alpay Kasal can be reached through:his blogstudio websiteand through InterferenceInc.

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