Ask HN: What powers CNN's touchscreen graphics?
I'm really curious to know what CNN uses to power the interactive graphics on their big touch screen displays, particularly the maps where they can zoom in on states to see counties, etc.
As far as I can tell, it's powered by an NVIDIA Quadro 6000 workstation. Not sure about the software, but it's likely custom-tweaked.
Perceptive Pixel's tech was originally developed for military applications (and the military does use their displays), but you can see why newsrooms would swoon over tech like this — especially for election coverage.
Here are a few links to related articles that might provide you with more information:
Wikipedia article on Multi-Touch Collaboration Wall: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-Touch_Collaboration_Wall
Perceptive Pixel's page on their 82" display: http://perceptivepixel.brandgreenhouse.com/products/82-lcd-m...
NVIDIA's Quadro 6000 page: http://www.nvidia.com/object/product-quadro-6000-us.html
2008 WaPo article on CNN's Magic Wall: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02...
Jeff Han TED Talk from 2006: http://www.ted.com/talks/jeff_han_demos_his_breakthrough_tou...