Fox News Touchscreens are Microsoft Perceptive Pixel Displays Running Windows 8

http://techcrunch.com/2013/10/07/those-giant-fox-news-touchscreens-are-microsoft-perceptive-pixel-displays-running-windows-8/

by aelaguiz • 13 years ago

48 47 13 years ago

techcrunch.com

hownottowrite• 13 years ago

Giant displays or newsalumpas?

jared3142• 13 years ago

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

aelaguiz• 13 years ago

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

jared3142• 13 years ago

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...

minimax• 13 years ago

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

lostlogin3• 13 years ago

Good for TV? Its Fox, so anything that distracts from the words they are saying is great for TV.

jebblue• 13 years ago

I find a lot of relevant news on Fox, relevant commentary, knowledgeable opinions. Unless you can cite an example of what you mean then it's just a personal attack against Fox with no basis.

donohoe• 13 years ago

  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• 13 years ago

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

xenophanes• 13 years ago

that's not correct, 55 inches is diagonal.

kevhsu• 13 years ago

(16x)^2 + (9x)^2 = (55)^2

x ~= 2.996

1920/(16x) ~= 40.05 dpi

krapp4• 13 years ago

I've done graphics for television (literally fullscreens and boxes for newscasts and that sort of thing) - if something appears onscreen (especially on a screen on screen) you'd be surprised how terrible the resolution has to be before it even matters visually to the home viewer.

mey• 13 years ago

If this is the display tech I saw over a year ago at OSCON, they were visually fine. When I pushed the MS rep on the booth for info about pricing and it was in the 5 digit range I politely moved on without getting more info. They looked good very close at finger touch range, but don't know the pixel density.

kmfrk• 13 years ago

Here is the product page: https://www.microsoft.com/office/perceptivepixel/products/de....

davvid• 13 years ago

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.

nextstep• 13 years ago

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

u2328• 13 years ago

You mean, the illusion of the latest high-tech gear.

MaysonL• 13 years ago

82 inch screens @ 1920 X 1080

iharris• 13 years ago

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.

dmazin2• 13 years ago

'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• 13 years ago

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?

dmazin2• 13 years ago

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.

hawkharris• 13 years ago

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

Shivetya• 13 years ago

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• 13 years ago

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...

recusancy• 13 years ago

Which one is the journalist? Baier? Wallace? haha

pokpokpok• 13 years ago

can anyone say, gorilla arm?

oddshocks2• 13 years ago

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

Bring on the haters.

krapp4• 13 years ago

It's less fascist than OSX.

oddshocks2• 13 years ago

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

melling• 13 years ago

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. :-)

rbanffy2• 13 years ago

"The Attack of the Giant iPads"

Or Surfaces...

gamegoblin• 13 years ago

Does anyone remember the CNN hologram?

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

krapp4• 13 years ago

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.

bsullivan01• 13 years ago

I don't quite understand the newsroom gimmicks.

They aren't really newsrooms, at least not like they used to be. Now it's all about improving ratings at the expense of long term credibility.

(But then if all are doing it, we're talking about relative credibility.)

barista• 13 years ago

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.

ma_mazmaz• 13 years ago

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

CrunchyJams• 13 years ago

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

Fox News Touchscreens are Microsoft Perceptive Pixel Displays Running Windows 8

Related Stories