The official answer, to this official question:

The Freedom Tray is a tribute to the world class manufacturing and dedication of the hard working people of this country. We are proud that the Freedom Tray is completely made and manufactured in the USA with US-made materials. Also, as the name implies, the tray provides you the freedom to live an organized, spill-free and uncluttered life without changing your day-to-day routine.

In other words, yes. It also holds drinks, fries, chicken, or drink-fries-or-chicken-shaped-things, has legs sometimes, and is basically a small plastic folding table with rubber bands, which costs $20. I now yield the floor to the ever-so-slightly not American-sounding Ewa Mataya Laurance:
Being in your car, watching TV, boating, camping, at the game, the race, or serving up burgers at the tailgate party! This stuff belongs in our constitution, somewhere. Along with a coupon for the Freedom Tray. [Wonkette]

Now, if artist Ate Atema could get this thing to recycle old cellphones or something, instead of old egg cartons, that'd be something. Until then, my herbs stay rooted in the garden. Outside. [Inhabit Blog via Neatorama]

The artist, James Tooze, said he developed the table, titled "A New Perspective," to encourage people to "be curious and question how things are made." And here I thought he was doing it as a tribute to either Tron, or the last good Indiana Jones movie, or both. [Batchdesign via Core77]

The fact that the Push-Up could effectively do the work of two separate tables makes it practical given the trend towards designing for smaller spaces. Plus it kind of looks like a metallic spider—and let me tell you—the creepy look is in. [Chris Murphy Furniture via Likecool]

Although it did begin its life as a regular tablecloth, after being soaked in some sort of resin dried over a template the cloth rigidified into a standalone table. The designers site doesn't have any info as to what kind of resin he used or for that matter how sturdy the table is, but something tells me you shouldn't serve a four course dinner on it.

There's no indication that this literal 'table cloth' will get produced any time soon, so it's a DIY project in the strictest sense—not only do you have to make it, you have to figure out how. [Pink Wolf via FreshHome via BBG]

Sadly, there's no stat as to its weight or tensile strength, but at 3 meters long (that's almost 9 feet), I can't imagine you could stand on it, shouting "I have a carbon fiber table, so I rule this house at last!" I mean, you probably could, but it might snap beneath your noble mass, once again returning the control of the house to your stowaway cousin who owns last year's 3mm carbon fiber table. Rats! [StylePark via bbGadgets]

Inamo's tables are also capable of running games and providing location-based services, like ordering a cab. Planned out by Blacksheep, Inamo also features state-of-the-art design that pays special attention to factors such as colors, spacing, and visual coherency. Sure, the tables may not render 3D models like some concepts we've seen in the past, but these ones actually exist in a public space. Here's the description straight from Blacksheep:

The ‘cocoon’ projectors are set at the same height throughout within the suspended high gloss black ceiling and come in three sizes to light 2-cover, 4-cover or 6-cover tables. When customers sit down there are white spots for plates and an individual ‘e-cloth’ for each table. Customers use a touch panel to order food and drink or change their table top to one of the seven other patterns available. ‘Serving staff are available at any time to help customers to navigate their menus or answer any other queries, but the menus have been exceptionally clearly designed and should be both intuitive and fool-proof for users!’ Project Designer Benjamin Webb commented.

Check out more photos over on Contemporist. [Inamo and Blacksheep via Contemporist]

They're all made out of the hoods of vintage American cars, making every table one of a kind and each one coming with what I can only assume is a light scent of gasoline. Not only are they beautiful, but they're also environmentally friendly: each table represents a hood that's not in a landfill and a tree that didn't have to turn into a table. They start at $850 and he also makes bed frames, desks and other furniture out of hoods. [Joel Hester via CoolHunting]

It's not the best video, but you can see what's going on. Players on each edge of the table block the balls that keep increasing in number to cooperatively boost the score until someone can't keep up. Aside from old-school games, the table can also display some pretty great graphics:

Think of it as a DIY Lite-Brite (although I still want the Luminodot). [Sparkfun]

It depends on the type of device you use (laptops get 3 hours, TV gets "a couple"), and you can check on how much juice is left with the LED display on the side. Unfortunately, it's $3600, but if you love working outside on your deck in the summer, this does seem pretty awesome. One warning though: don't sprawl your papers and crap all over the table when you're working. [Treehugger]

The table comprises the solid structure base with 100 large acrylic pegs inset; the pegs can be rearranged to live out your wildest acrylic peg rearrangement fantasies. As if that was not enough to satisfy you, the magic happens when a small light source is placed under the table. The light shimmers through giving you the feeling that perhaps magic mushrooms won't be needed to reach your oh-so euphoric high. When you come round to your senses and realise that you've just spent $600 for the said privilege, you may, however, reconsider your recent drug-free decision. A shame then you'll have no money left over to indulge your sorrows. [jelio]

We're not sure what practical use this table has, but who can say no to LEDs? – Jason Chen

Project Page [Too Many Designers via Core77 via Slashgear]

Yeah, yeah, we know this design has been around since 2004, but maybe its electroluminescent technology is a little closer to the realm of the possible. We wish. And then, well, we couldn't resist the punny name of the thing. – Charlie White

Time Table [Normal Design, via Crib Candy]

Here is the Cisco TelePresence 3000, a 12-person virtual conference table, seating up to 6 actual people in any one location. Three 65-inch HD plasmas make up one side of the table and coupled with properly positioned speakers, the experience looks like it would be seamless (or as seamless as talking to a bunch of TVs can be).

Believe it or not, writing in my underwear doesn't require high-end digital conferencing equipment. Do any readers out there use one of these at their jobs? And if so, did this post completely ruin your weekend because now it feel like you are at work? Scratch that. If you are using this table, you probably never leave work. – Mark Wilson

Product Page [via digg]