
Fox News Touchscreens are Microsoft Perceptive Pixel Displays Running Windows 8 - aelaguiz
http://techcrunch.com/2013/10/07/those-giant-fox-news-touchscreens-are-microsoft-perceptive-pixel-displays-running-windows-8/
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dmazin
'Aside from it being simply neat of Fox News to use the displays,'

Nah.

'it’s a nice moment for Microsoft:'

Nah.

'the company has found an early commercial use for the technology.'

Nahhhhhh.

To me it's more likely Microsoft is driving hard these visible partnerships,
for example like Delta Air using Surface tables, at a loss for exposure. But I
wouldn't know, I'm not a TechCrunch journalist.

~~~
jmduke
Why don't you think it's a good example of a commercial use? Why don't you
think this is a good moment for Microsoft?

~~~
dmazin
I don't believe it's a good commercial use because I don't believe Newsrooms
need that kind of technological change - they are clearly intended to be
showy, not useful, as a 17" screen would certainly do for research.

I don't think Close-up, a 55" 1080p resolution can hardly lead to productive
work. I sometimes use a 55" 1080p screen from five feet away and even there
the text is not clear enough and too large to fit entirely in my field of
vision.

It's not a good moment because it's a completely irrelevant moment. I am sure
Microsoft has other exciting products in thr works.

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minimax
It's hard to find tech specs on the Perspective Pixel displays, but at least
one source† says they are 1920x1080. The idea of doing lots of text-oriented
work sitting inches away from a 55" 1080p monitor sounds _horrible_ , but I
guess it makes for good TV.

†
[http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2819660](http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2819660)

~~~
donohoe

      1920 / 55 means 34.9 dpi ?
    

If thats correct then this is just awful. I feel sorry for those who have to
use this daily.

~~~
nwh
I don't understand how anybody would use that to do anything serious on.

~~~
rbanffy
Fox News is not serious.

------
hawkharris
I think it's great that Fox employs tiny journalists. They're just as
intelligent and capable as other newspeople.

~~~
Shivetya
as with other people, there is a tendency to confuse their journalists and
their talk show hosts. Separating the two in your head allows you to watch the
appropriate shows on each channel without screaming at the set, or dismissing
what is being said from misconception.

~~~
jlgreco
They have a bunch of people in the background using them apparently, not just
the hosts. Do those people actually do work, or are they just 'extras'? Are
they actually even there, or is looped footage of them bluescreened in?

Seems like an awful job if they are actually real, having to sit at a desk
with a tv camera pointed at your back the entire time...

~~~
krapp
At the tv station where I was last employed, they decided to change the format
of their newscasts by filming in the newsroom... so if you happened to be
cutting packages together for the next newscast or whatever you ended up in
the background.

It did kind of suck.

------
nextstep
Glad to see our corporate overlords are equipping their propoganda departments
with the latest high-tech gear.

~~~
u2328
You mean, the _illusion_ of the latest high-tech gear.

------
iharris
Those bezels look larger on one side... which must make their work lean
heavily to the right. /snark

In all seriousness, though, I can't imagine how they are going to be any more
productive at those resolutions than they would be with traditional input
methods, not to mention the sore arms that these will cause.

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gamegoblin
Does anyone remember the CNN hologram?

I don't quite understand the newsroom gimmicks...

~~~
krapp
Have you ever been to a midway at a carnival?

Think of each booth as a different station trying anything to catch your
attention and you'll understand. It's just a hook. Doesn't matter if it's
clever, or stupid, or if they think it's clever and it looks stupid - if it
gets you to watch the commercials than it works.

------
davvid
We would have bought some at $dayjob but their Linux support required coding
against a proprietary API. We'd like a nice big interactive display (e.g. take
a wacom, make it big) that works on Linux. No custom APIs, please; if your
hardware needs special bits please improve the Linux ecosystem and contribute
them there.

Apologies if this has changed since we demoed them, but those were my notes at
the time.

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melling
It's great that they're trying to leverage the technology like this. Ideally,
we'll get a little news room arms race, which will hopefully lead to a few
innovations. The next newsroom needs 8k screens. :-)

------
hownottowrite
Giant displays or newsalumpas?

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jared314
Previous post (5 hours ago):
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6509781](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6509781)

~~~
aelaguiz
Sorry the new information is that they are Microsoft Perceptive Pixel displays
running Windows 8.

~~~
jared314
That was already figured out in the story comments of the first link.

[http://www.theverge.com/2013/10/7/4812630/fox-news-
shepard-s...](http://www.theverge.com/2013/10/7/4812630/fox-news-shepard-
smith-news-deck#189277143)

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CrunchyJams
Those poor bastards. Their arms are going to be unbelievably sore by by 10a
every day.

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ma_mazmaz
It looks like the keyboard and mouse shown are made by Apple.

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rbanffy
"The Attack of the Giant iPads"

Or Surfaces...

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pokpokpok
can anyone say, gorilla arm?

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barista
Either the Fox staff does not know how to use these or they were captured
using it not exactly the way it was intended. From what I know these are not
supposed to be used as tablets like the guys in the article are doing. These
are huddle around whiteboards. Something you can use in a meeting room. Their
use in media is interesting and the use of these in a broadcast is just a
minor use case for these amazing devices.

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oddshocks
So a shit fascist news service is using a shit fascist operating system.

Bring on the haters.

~~~
krapp
It's less fascist than OSX.

~~~
oddshocks
At least OSX is Unix-based and actually makes some sense and can do useful
things

~~~
bgroins
You'll fit in well here at HN.

