I’m pitching the idea of developing an electronic goban, which I’ve described on the HacDC wiki.

Many clients exist to play Go on computers/handheld devices. These are wonderful in that they can record your game in the SGF format, which is (near) universally used by players to review their games (an important part of getting better, often done with a teacher or opponent). They’re also handy when you’re moving around, and can’t set up a bunch of slick stones on a slab of wood (trains, planes, automobiles, bicycles). For casual games, it’s nice to be able to stop and resume at any time.

The big downside is face to face interaction. It’s simply nowhere near as enjoyable to play by passing a handheld back and forth or staring at a computer, the latter not being particularly portable most of the time anyway.

So the plan would be to build something that’s as close to the form factor of a real goban, but shrunk a bit for portability, and completely electronic. I’d say about a 30cm square (~1 foot for the unit challenged) and no thicker than a paperback book would be a good size. Something you can throw in a bag without hesitation. It should have as intuitive an interface as possible, the ability to automatically score the game, and best of all store games and export them to a computer somehow.