Hasta La Ideas

A sociologist might say television mirrors our desires as a society. But one thing I’ve wondered is why television manufacturers, now that TVs are flat, don’t design their screens to be actual mirrors. The TV is always placed as a room’s centerpiece, and when it’s off you’ve got a large, black rectangle staring back at you. Wouldn’t that be the perfect place to have a reflective surface?

A company called Seura thinks so, as they manufacture and sell an ultrathin television-covering mirror in a variety of frames and sizes, allowing the TV to completely disappear. Their bathroom series even allows you to tuck a monitor over your sink, though the somewhat hazy product photography doesn’t present a clear image of how well they’re able to pull this off.

Another company manufacturing TV mirrors is The Art of TV, who demonstrates a neat trick: The mirror and TV needn’t match in size.

However, given a choice I’d opt for a perfectly-fitting one so that the image completely takes up the mirror. I don’t need to catch a glimpse of my ice-cream-covered face and trash-strewn apartment while watching “Shipping Wars.”

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