More and more it seems as if CBS scripted shows are looking like infomercials for Microsoft’s Surface RT.
Evidently this has been the buzz in some media sectors since last November, but I don’t watch much TV so I didn’t see it for myself until a few weeks back when a couple of minutes in a Hawaii Five-0 episode I was half-watching out of the corner of my eye while working on an article suddenly turned into what was unmistakably a commercial for Windows RT and the Surface tablet. Since then I’ve seen more obvious product placements for Surface RT in episodes of NCIS LA and CSI.
We’ve grown used to seeing demonstrations of computer tech in these police proceedurals, but rarely anything that looks so obviously like a commercial. In all instances, the camera lingers on a shot of the GUI formerly known as Metro. In some cases we see Skype being used, with the brand conspicously evident. In others, we get treated to watching a handheld tablet turn into something resembling a laptop, perhaps a netbook, when the device is connected with it’s cover keyboard. Wow! Microsoft magic at work.
Christine Hall has been a journalist since 1971. In 2001, she began writing a weekly consumer computer column and started covering Linux and FOSS in 2002 after making the switch to GNU/Linux. Follow her on Twitter: @BrideOfLinux
