On election night, huddled on a sofa in a Manhattan apartment on East 31st Street, we watched some of the coverage on CNN. It was quite exciting watching the votes roll in... but then Wolf Blitzer announced a TV "first" that was so ludicrous we all fell about laughing. Talk about spoil the moment.
The "first" involved a Chicago-based reporter, Jessica Yellin, being beamed into CNN's New York studio using "hologram" technology. She looked like a character out of a video game -- or as T described it, Princess Lea from Star Wars.
I'm not sure what the point of it was, because frankly it would have been more authoritative for Blitzer to interview his colleague over a live video link instead of this rather dodgy-looking stunt. This was using technology for technology's sake.
Or, as it later turned out, CNN was using technology to fool the viewer: the so-called "hologram" was nothing more than smoke and mirrors, a hoax, if you will.
You couldn't make it up if you tried...
