In the April 2008 issue of MSDN Magazine, there is an End Bracket essay called The Magic of Software, which I wrote back in January that was inspired by a recent trip to Microsoft where I learned about how Microsoft envisions its future software and also got to play with a Surface computer. On my way home from that meeting, I started thinking that maybe I shouldn't laugh so hard at some of the far out things that computers do on CSI. It was good fodder for an essay and you can read that here.

A few weeks before the magazine hit the streets, I turned on the t.v. one night and CSI was on and wouldn't you know ... they were using a Surface computer!

Today I got an email from Joan Levinson from MSDN Magazine, who did a beautiful job of editing my essay, pointing to a USA Today article titled "CSI sleuths out Microsoft's latest Technology", about CSI usingnot only a Surface computer, but MSR's Photosynth which appeared on the public radar about 4 months ago.

Very cool!
In the past, the reason for scoffing at CSI was because they seemed to use videos to emulate what a computer should be doing. Now they are just going right to the source of some mind boggling technology and using that instead of inventing their own.