Wednesday, September 10, 2014

A different form of crazy. $400 million Microsoft dollars spent to promote "an i-Pad like tool."

The Verge, this link. Images of the things in use, here and here. The latter link, from a month ago during the preseason reports:

Teams wrapped up the first full preseason test of the new Surface tablet from Microsoft for NFL sidelines with mostly good reviews and some glitches to fix. And yes, they were designed with a protective case to survive rugged weather conditions.

Titans coach Ken Whisenhunt said Sunday he only heard positive feedback on the tablets and the photos available, especially upstairs in the coaching booth. He thinks the key now is only getting accustomed to using the tablet.

"One of the concerns that you had was the rain and how that would affect that, but it didn't affect it last night," Whisenhunt said. "And the players seemed to like it too. I mean the ability to zoom in and out to see those looks is a pretty neat thing. I think as the preseason progresses we'll get more involved with those because it is a tremendous tool."

The tablets also come with one very big difference from the black-and-white photos.

"It's color," Washington quarterback Robert Griffin III said, laughing. "We went from black-and-white to color."

The tablets had their biggest weather test in Nashville where a couple inches of rain fell Saturday night during the Titans' 20-16 win over the Packers.

Packers coach Mike McCarthy also gave the tablets a rave review.

But where's the bang for those millions of bucks, if the MS Surface gets only "i-Pad like" respect from the booth bloviators, (who should be programmed better)?