It’s amazing how digital signage works to augment our day-to-day reality. Earlier this week, I watched a clip from the NFL Network, where the commentators used an interactive touch screen application to show a March Madness bracket to project the “best future NFL player”. Charles Barkley simply tapped once on the team he liked, and the ‘team’ would move onto round 2 of the predictive competition.

The commentators started with the top eight players ranked in this year’s NFL Draft (April 23^rd for those interested in watching). They were making many assumptions about how all of the professional football players would pan out. “How can you project the possible outcome of these strangers’ careers?” I asked myself.

But the show was still fun to watch because of the context – we’re all watching NCAA Basketball’s March Madness play out as well as any year I remember. It’s almost completely unpredictable, and I think that’s what’s so intriguing about it. Really, Yale? Wichita State? It’s always a good show.

It was entertainment because of the technology – I can touch the screen to advance a team or individual to the next round. We can all imagine that two talking heads would be less entertaining if not grounded by the “visual aid” of the interactive screen. There’s nothing like an interactive screen as an aid, versus a static graphic.

It’s clear that, even with an occasional blooper by Charles Barkley, touch screen technologies augment our reality and make the great American pastime of watching TV that much more entertaining! Seth Davis takes on the second half of tapping through his guesses on the touch screen soon after.

Technology is amazing. What’s one way that technology has changed your day-to-day? I’d love to hear from you.