Microsoft may want the new Xbox to be the go-to living room entertainment center, but they had better look out: a tech start-up company called Fanhattan has similar plans, and from the looks of their new device–dubbed the “Fan TV,” they could be a force to reckon with.

The Fan TV works by ditching almost every vestige of what has defined the home entertainment experience up to this point–the cable boxes, the DVD and Blu Ray (or VHS?) players, the shelves upon shelves of films and TV series–and replaces them with a simple and sleek remote control touch pad. With a simple swipe of the thumb, users can rotate between live television programming, on-demand titles, streaming cloud services, or even their own DVR databases, without getting off the couch or trying to find the right remote control.

According to an article posted Thursday on pcmag.com, Fan TV founder Gille BianRosa built quite the team of tech veterans to help him pursue his vision, including professionals “formerly from Apple, Google, Amazon, TiVo, Sonos, Netflix, and Hollywood Studios.” That list represents quite the breadth of entertainment experience, and bits and pieces of each company–from Google’s search capability, to TiVo’s self-programming design, to Netflix’s array of streaming options–seem to manifest themselves in the new Fan TV set-up.

But the entertainment doesn’t stop at your TV. BianRosa noted that part of Fan TV’s appeal is its ability to take the television experience beyond the living room–to the screens of iPhones and iPads, for example.

“Our goal is to inspire your entertainment life across every screen — from your TV to the web to your iPad and iPhone,” BianRosa wrote in a blog introducing the Fan TV concept to the world. “We designed a cross-screen experience that follows you as you leave your house — enabling you to both watch and program your entertainment life on-the-go.”

It’s currently unclear what forms such outside experiences could have to offer, though BianRosa’s determination to bring the television and home entertainment experience into the modern touch screen age is certainly a noble one. As Netflix and other streaming options hinted when they replaced physical video rental stores, the cloud is indeed the future of the entertainment industry.

However, according to early reviews of the Fanhattan iPad and iPhone apps, the service still has a lot of ground to cover in accumulating the licenses and permissions for a comprehensive content library. And with Netflix actually losing a significant number of films from its database, cloud users might want to hold onto their DVD collections for a little bit longer.