Move over Power Point. Hello Holograms and Magic Walls.

I saw two amazingly effective pieces of presentation technology at work today during CNN’s broadcast of the US election. The holograph interviews of reporters and others that were beamed into the network’s Atlanta studios were dazzling; shades of Star Wars all those years ago! And what about that marvellous touch screen … the magic wall … with the capacity to drill down into voter details at the touch and swipe of a finger. I want to play with them both. I wish!

I started thinking of their use as presentation aids. I imagine they are fearfully expensive pieces of kit, but hey, this was CNN … but that said, think about the potential and the impact of bringing together virtual people via hologram from around the world.  Simulated role-plays and specialist seminars would be given the additional impact of an apparently three-dimensional, ‘live’ presence in the room.

But it’s the magic wall that I marvel at. This is a combination of Power Point, your average office whiteboard and the touch screen of the iPhone … but on steroids! The CNN reporter’s fingers flew over the screen as he worked with the programmed material to support his presentation. The content was being updated constantly as information flowed in from polling stations around the nation.  New data was flowing live into databases, and represented visually as tables or maps of the US. Swipes of a state map, coloured red or blue to indicate its status as Republican or Democrat, was also programmed to reveal electoral information from 4 years previously. Another touch of a button enlarged a portion of the map to bring up a county and its metrics for comparative analysis with the updated data. Demographic information on which segments of society had voted Republican or Democrat was also streaming in, and it too was accessible with a touch. We can only mull over the potential this technology has for business presentations and education. Here it is in action.

Whilst the sheer showy genius of this invention was undeniable, it was the way the presenter and his material flowed together so well that caught my attention. I felt at times as though he were ‘playing’ the screen like an instrument, and it reminded me of Tom Cruise’s cop character manipulating the touch screens and holograms in the then-futuristic technology of the 2002 movie Minority Report. 

The CNN presenter’s commentary, combined with his expertise in handling an enormously sophisticated piece of technology made for a dynamic and successful presentation. It was a great example of the technology working with and not against the presenter. Welcome to the future.

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