Microsoft Surface being used to coordinate Super Bowl security
By Nilay Patel 
posted January 29th 2009 8:36PM
posted January 29th 2009 8:36PM
posted January 29th 2009 8:36PM
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MS sucks. Who cares?
The NFL.
And about 90% of the market you Mactard.
I'm glad that the Superbowl isn't relying on a certain *complacent* computer firm for security.
i do.
More than *just* a measly 8% of the market, that's who cares.
Glad an unhackable, uncrackable, time tested, repeatedly proven technology is being used when so many lives are at stake!
seems like a publicity stunt more than anything.
Unhackable, uncrackable, time tested, repeatedly proven technology? Sarcasm I suppose.
What would you use that is ALL of these?
Or an experiment.
No better way of finding uses for new gadgets than to put them out there in real-world situations.
Lemme see...
The Companion Cube?
Chocolate?
Capitalism?
Engadget commenting system?
:P
Shit, guys, everybody knows that multilateral real-time event security coordination is best done from the Unix command line!
the bigger story here is....they just started organizing security?
No - security planning for next years Super Bowl is already in the works. As soon as the site is announced a chain of events starts to get everything into place.
As a physical security professional I think that this is a great use. It gives an extreme amount of flexibility to C&C to provide them with full situational awareness but in an organized fashion.
Let me zoom in on an area, see a listing of incidents that have occurred (and let me select them so i can read the details), let me touch an icon of a camera to pull up my view, provide me sales data of the kiosks in the area so I know how much cash is floating around there, integrate it so that it can be easily entered by dispatch, and I am a happy guy.
Worst. Video. Ever. It's 40 seconds of some moron recording a fat moron recording what we are supposed to be seeing :|
yeah I was kind of wanting to see what he was talking about...
They probably got the tape off the wrong cameraman :P
serious. and the only time we got to see fat moron's footage was when he was filming the officer
I actually kinda enjoyed seeing law enforcement using some new technology. Its a refreshing change from my usual expectations of cops being lazy, corrupt, and idiotic as well as behind the curve...
"Safest place you can be"
No such thing. If there is a place with a lot of people around it, there will be a way to successfully attack it, especially since most security system failure exists between keyboard and chair - been true for physical security + computer security ever since the concepts existed.
Hell, just launching an attack, even if it's shot down so long as it's splashy will have a well-desired effect. That's why I stay the fcuk away from things like the Super Bowl and the Inauguration where, even if the attack failed, I run a high chance of being stampeded and people rush for their lives (ironic, since statistically speaking there's only 1 attack in an area at a time and even if there's another attack in the area, it's generally done with a time buffer long enough for people to *walk* away from the scene, so if you're not hit by the first attack you're not really in immediate danger).
Why do you know so much anyway?
Wow, we've got commenters from the NSA!
Surface doesn't have a keyboard, it is the safest place!
@Mobius1:
You just compromise his security...*BOOM*...hey where'd you go?
"'Safest place you can be'
No such thing..."
That's nonsensical. Of course there is always a safest place you can be, even if that place has terrible security.
This guys been watching 24 I see.
So you 'stay the fuck away' from places with lots of people in case you get bombed?
Terrorists have well and truly pwned you!
Sigh... You are SIGNIFICANTLY safer at the Superbowl than you are in the mall or driving to work every morning.
Hell you are probably safer at the Superbowl than you are in your own house.
This just in! MS Surface bought by yet another organization! At this rate, they'll have sold about 10 in another couple years!
Naw, but I played with one at some business tech convention thing, they are pretty cool, but not nearly as impressive after having owned an iPhone for a year. Multitouch really loses its edge after you get used to it. It's kinda like the Wii, in that its application is better noted once you get past the shock factor, and you can tell when the unique feature is being forced.
"And I can just take California... and move it over here..."
Yeah cant we get video of what the other shot?
I know, right? The first 30 secs I'm like "show us the other cameraman's shot!" they finally do and it's right as he lifts up the camera to show us the cop talking. Wtf?!
damn that is ridiculously slick! i wouldn't mind having my house organized with one of these!!!
I'd imagined a huge one (like the size of typical war room desk) in the centre of the room and touch-sensitive holographic screens all around the room where 20 men and women wearing advanced secure radios relay instructions and situations to fully armed security around the place.
Too much TV can do that do you :)
"What the mind can conceive, the hands can achieve."
Lockheed Skunk Works
"I can select a group of grenadiers and send them to flush snipers from occupied buildings. I can queue up rocket tanks and deploy th... aw man, my power plant!"
You!!! I hate you... now I have a sudden urge to play C&C
Finally, MS Surface putting to real world use other than playing with photos or ordering cocktail drinks...
"I can know where all my counter snipers are"
Counter Snipers?! O.o *gulp*
yeah... I'm shocked this was the first post about it...
AWP whores
Playing a NFL video game with the Surface would be cool... i guess....
How about the coach coordinating players with it.
SMART Board would be better for that...
Holograms!
...and Ponies.
Is that a completed, working program or a mockup. You can barely see any detail and when you do see him open a "hotspot" it's pretty much an empy page. When I saw the video demo of the new UK air traffic control system you could see some incredible detail on there, and the vast networking involved. This, it looks more like a "proof of concept" than an actual working solution. Is there any more detail available than this?
want.
...that was mostly a video of pink-shirted camera man!
Way cool. I wonder if it take turn the leather footballs inside out. There's a full time man doing that at the stadium.
They're justifying building the interface just for the security for one event by creating a niche market: Big-Ass Virtual Foosball.
but will it blend?
Terrorists care when it crashes and security fumble around putting the backup plan into action.
R.I.P. Ensemble Studios.