Movie & TV sell-outs: When tech product placements go bad

By Ian Morris on 23 June 2008, 3:22pm

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CSI: NY: Microsoft Photosynth
With Apple clobber saving the universe all the time, Microsoft had to do something to redress the balance. Windows isn't all that cool though, so it needed to push something else out into media-land. Enter a Microsoft Research application called Photosynth, which allows you to take a series of photos in one location and then stitch them together in a 3D environment.

In CSI: New York, Photosynth is deployed to look for a murderer in a stack of photographs. You might find yourself wondering why they don't just browse through all the photographs like normal people, but that's not the Bruckheimer way. Indeed, when the CSI people use the software, it makes some insidious beeping and whizzing sounds -- because, in fiction, computers must not operate quietly -- which the real product doesn't do at all.

It's worth pointing out that Microsoft doesn't pay for these appearances in CSI -- it's part of a deal where the producers get to see the latest toys and research, and in return put the product on-screen. Which goes some way to explaining the vomit-inducing line: "It's Microsoft's world, I'm just living in it."