The Fox newsroom has got a major upgrade with anchor Shepard Smith showing off the new hi-tech "Fox News Deck", Monday. The traditional desks have been replaced by large 55-inch touchscreens, suggesting the future of newsrooms.
It's time newsrooms get a makeover. Fox News is leading the way by revamping its whole newsroom set with ravishing new enormous tablets replacing the traditional desks. It is called "Fox News Deck." In a video posted by Fox News Monday, anchor Shepard Smith introduced the overhauled hi-tech newsroom set featuring the latest Microsoft 55-inch touchscreen monitors.
Smith calls these large tablet screens "BATs," which is the abbreviated version of "big area touchscreens." Of course, they are bigger than the traditional tablets we use, a lot bigger indeed. These new touchscreens are accompanied by a 38-foot video wall, where images can be projected using a single remote controller. Other screens will show real-time tweets and social media updates.
"That's where our journalists will be, using brand new tools to track developing stories and bring them to your screen as quickly as possible," Smith said. "We call these BATs. Big area touchscreens."
The large screens will enable multitasking, says senior producer Jonathan Glenn, helping news reporters to do a quick and a better job.
Fox confirmed that the large screens are running the latest Windows 8 operating system, according to Mashable, and each touchscreen costs around $8,000. The new concept of newsroom reporting is bound to gain huge popularity and also be adapted in other newsrooms in the near future, says Kim Rosenberg, senior executive producer.
So what's next for the newsroom sets? May be a 3D projector and hand-gestures controls on these large screens? Not for a decade or two at least.
