The big news over at Hitachi‘s booth wasn’t just projectors; it’s done that well. This year, the company is taking on more of the interactive whiteboard share, combining both the company’s short-throw projectors and interactive touchscreen technology.

I was astounded at the mammoth size of these units. Little isn’t definitely not a word in the company’s vocabulary. The StarBoard FX Duo 88 is 88in. in size. Its 16:10 wide aspect ratio not only provides more screen real estate, but it also reflects the change to widescreen laptops and content settings. Although SmartBoard has been the go-to for whiteboards, you don’t get the sense that Hitachi can’t succeed here. The company is also confident of the product’s screen durability; it’s been tested: a company employee once shocked a conference room gathering when he chucked a coaster at it after hearing it could withstand a wineglass smashed against it. That’s true R&D. The company also released a 63in. version for “smaller” classrooms and boardrooms.

These whiteboards are doing more than just giving presenters a high-impact tool in which to educate or pass on multimedia content, they’re shifting the paradigm of security. Hitachi hasn’t forgotten the basics of security features such as movement alerts and unit locks, but it’s also thinking about the wider concept of what its products can do to alert groups to potential dangers and prevent tragedies that happened at Virginia Tech last year and, earlier this year, Northern Illinois University. Because the product is already on the network so Starboard products can talk to each other, that networkability provides another resource and function to users with an alert system. It’s as simple and as smart as that.