Technologies

You may know it from CNN's primary election coverage as the "Magic Wall", an 8 by 3 foot touch sensitive video screen. The magic of this video display is the ability to manipulate graphical information, scale, rotate and get the big picture of a concept.  According to a report from the NY Observer the jumbo pricetag on this jumbo technology is $100,000 with only a handful of units in existence.

This presentation format will decrease in price eventually and arrive in businesses, government, educational institutions and even the home. The beauty of this technology isn't that its a giant touchscreen, it's the ability to mashup data from multiple sources and form useful displays of information. The hand manipulation boosts our cognitive abilities to absorb and process this information into knowledge. 

TechPresident's Micah L. Sifry points to this potentially groundbreaking site: VoterVoter.

This new service lets you produce a campaign commercial, raise money/seek sponsors, and purchase airtime with their contributions. This whole process used to be an insiders game, forcing small grassroots activists to avoid the expensive and complicated task of buying airtime.

As this tool matures I think we'll see more and more amateur commercials getting more professional attention.