The big game and more

Like millions of others, later today, I’ll be watching the Super Bowl.  I wouldn’t miss it.

At times, the actual Super Bowl game can be a let down when compared to the divisional playoffs.  I hope that’s not the case this time.  I’d like to see a really good game with the orange team ultimately winning.  I had a confirming conversation with a friend earlier this week about how things have changed since Barry Sanders just exuded class in the game.  No scoring a touchdown and then dancing or doing any of the other antics that are so common today.  We’d love to see a return to that but we live in a world of showmanship, I guess.  And technology has kept up with the times.

Of course, I’ll be checking in on the commercials during the half-time show but it’s different in Canada as the ones that garner so much attention in the US are overdubbed with Canadian ones.  Typically, we have to check them out online or after the game but that could change in future years.  (Or watch the game over the air from Detroit…)

But, the computer geeky folks like me will also keep half an eye open to the technology that the teams use on the sidelines.  By now, there’s not a person who doesn’t know of the mess up with viewing offense/defense layouts on the Patriots’ sidelines in the championship game.  It was a big black eye as news reports incorrectly identified the problem as being with the Microsoft Surface.  It later was revealed that the problem was with the wifi used for connectivity.  That was later proven to be incorrect and blame was laid on a bad cable.  That could happen to anybody’s technology.

Doing my due diligence as a geek, I did a bit of poking around to see what’s being done to be proactive for the big game.  As we all know, there’s many a point of failure whenever you talk about networked devices.  Sadly, the reporters are like so many with their analysis – “it’s not working”.  It’s only later that we get the complete story and the damage has been done by then.

Here’s a couple of stories to whet your appetite.  I did the heavy lifting so you don’t have to.

• Microsoft Surfaces at the Super Bowl: What You Need to Know About Those Little Blue Tablets
• Microsoft’s Surface girds for Super Bowl

It was interesting to read how this powerful device becomes just a single use tablet for the game.  No Facebook updates or selfies here.

Of course, if things go wrong again, maybe it’s time to learn How to install Ubuntu on the Surface Pro. Of course, they’d have to find an orange case for it.