26 January 2008
Wolf Blitzer has some new gadgets in the CNN news room this election season, chief among them a brand new multi-touch display.
The “Magic Wall” was unveiled during the Iowa Caucuses and is powered by Jeff Han‘s incredible software. Han first showed his technology to the world during the 2006 TED Conference and received widespread acclaim and soiled pants from obsessed fans. As he used both hands to manipulate a globe, fly over mountains, edit images and delicately move flickering orbs around the screen, the audience giggled with joy.
Blitzer’s implementation of the technology seems to be improving with each primary election broadcast and tonight’s was a clear improvement, not only in technology but in their use of it. Previously befuddled by the new teevee, the CCN anchors did little more than throw images around the screen. Later, they used virtual bingo balls to dump them into candidate buckets, representing votes. Flashy, but still pretty useless.
Tonight, they had a map of South Carolina and were able to watch data from each county load in simultaneously, zooming in to each region, watching exit polls and final results, annotating with markers and using the pinch maneuver with increased skill. The potential for this technology is ming-boggling and I can only hope that they continue to perfect it for the general election in November.
Remember Tim Russert’s white board from the 2000 election? They upgraded to a tablet PC in 2004. We’ve come a long way.
