Not to be outdone by Samsung's announcement that the Galaxy S3 is to be the official handheld of this summer's London Olympics, HTC have announced that their CEO Peter Chou will be among the runners in the Olympic torch relay.

Chou will carry the Olympic flame on July 6th, three weeks before the opening ceremony in Stratford

Chou has been given the opportunity for his contribution to the mobile industry and economy of Taiwan.

Here's hoping his own organic batteries last a bit longer than the average smartphone does...

Via: Taiwan News

While all eyes are on the 2012 Olympics as the nation's favoured sporting occasion for this year, the summer also offers the Euro 2012 international football tournament. After a string of disappointing performances at the top-flight of football for the England senior's squad, blame often falls at the feet of the FA, and the coaching staff, as ex-England manager Fabio Capello's recent departure will attest to.

Looking to strengthen England's coaching prospects from the ground up, and looking for long-term fixes rather short-term ones, the FA are building the impressive 330-acre National Football Centre (NFC) at St George's Park, Burton-upon-Trent.

It's a massive undertaking that encompasses building leading football training facilities (with 12 pitches, including two full-size recreations of the Wembley Stadium pitch, both outdoors and indoors) and creating two world-class hotels for accommodating players, coaching staff and eventually the public too.

"The project started around and got the green-light in November 2010. We first cut the ground here in February and we're on target for our summer deadline. It's gone very well so far, it's been a smooth ride," says the FA's director of Digital & Information Technology, Rob Ray.

"It's all about delivering better coaches for better football, it's not a finishing school for elite players. This is about moulding elite coaches. It's very much a long-term strategy."

The improvements in coaching training will come from the implementation of advanced technology across the site. With a £100 million budget, a generous £3 million has been set aside for technology.

23 touchscreens will be installed in key training locations across the site (partners for the touchscreens have been confirmed, but have not been announced yet), while pitch-side cameras will capture training sessions from many angles, streamed instantly to locations both on and off site. Players will be outfitted with GPS modules to track their work rate, as well as biometric monitoring equipment, and coaches will have access to the same touchscreen software regularly used by the likes of Andy Gray and Gareth Southgate, with 50 terrabytes of storage set aside for video recordings of training sessions.

"We're also expecting coaches to take a tablet to training sessions," says Ray, hinting at the iPad being the FA's slate of choice.

"The coaches definitely have a preference and it's a very good device but then we see them go 'Oops!' and drop them. We have to look at technologies that are as robust as possible, but we have a number of iPads in-play now, and our coaches like them."

Solid web infrastructure is also a key goal of the site:

"There's a lot of information technology going into the whole site. BT are a key provider and key supplier of our technology here," said Ray.

Indeed telecommunications support is vital for the site. St George's Park will be linked with Wembley Stadium and other international sites via high-speed broadband provided by BT. This will allow for massive amounts of data to be transferred between coaches across sites (particularly useful considering the amount of pitch-side video capture expected to be done on site), as well as talks from leading international coaches across the globe via teleconferencing in one of the site's many conference and lecture rooms.

This isn't the implementation of technology just for the sake of bragging rights though, and Ray is being sensible about what installations will actually be beneficial to staff. "We don't need touch everywhere," says Ray for example, when questioned about the distribution of touchscreens across the site. Frank Lampard won't be sitting on an Android-powered toilet, for instance.

Improving sports science literacy among the England support staff is also a major goal of the site, and advanced facilities will include a minor procedures room, a hydrotherapy pool and even a velocity-sensitive running track that can measure when a player is putting more weight and strain on one leg than the other.

"We're aiming to reach the FIFA F-Marc standard; there are only ten facilities around the world that can claim that at the moment, and we're going to be the eleventh," beams Ray.

Training world class coaches is not an overnight task, though those looking for an overnight stay at St George's Park will be well catered for.

"We have a partner in Hilton Hotels, who are providing 128 beds in the Hilton wing, and 86 beds in the Hampton wing," says Ray.

"It's the first time they've combined two different star-rated hotels on one site. We have 24 England teams, and they'll all train here, and need accommodation as well."

The hotels, and select areas of the site, will be open to the public, and Ray is keen to stress that it's very much a business proposition too. As well as generating revenue from public visitors, St George's Park is also offering the use of its facilities to travelling international teams.

"We're close to Birmingham and Manchester, so who are our other customers? I'd say Real Madrid. Barcelona. They can be here bracing themselves for a match against Manchester City, United. Any of the European teams, or even members of other sports, will want to train here," suggests Ray.

In fact, lots of different sports are being considered for facilities on the site:

"Tennis, badminton, netball; we're still figuring out the colour combinations for pitch lines," says Ray. "But this will become a great facility for many sports."

But the focus, naturally, will remain on the England stars, both new and old, says Ray:

"Part of the vision, and Stuart Pearce (current manager of the England national under-21 team- ed.) would articulate this better than I would, is to see the England senior teams, under 21s, under 17s and the women's teams training at the same time on site. Getting all those people together and creating a sense of being one united England team under the 24 individual banners will be greatly beneficial to players and managers alike."

Work on St George's Park is expected to be completed by the summer. For more information on St George's Park, click here.

The name Epson may conjure images of flashy projectors and all-in-one printer scanners, but the company look set to be expanding into a fairly unexpected avenue: sports watches.

To be precise, Epson are looking to take on the Nike+ SportWatch GPS and the Motorola MotoACTV with a GPS timepiece all of their own.

The company have announced that they are looking to launch their "first entry in to [the] electronic sporting goods market", describing a product that will "help people enjoy healthier, fuller lives by using its technologies and skills in sensing, low power, and device downsizing to provide wrist-wearable devices and web-based services."

Though it may seem a strange direction for the company to take, when you note that Epson are a division of Seiko, known for their watch manufacturing, it all starts to make a bit more sense.

Details are slim so far, with Epson only offering up the "conceptual image" above and the fact that the eventual product will weigh just 50g and give you 12 hours of battery life per charge. It will also be waterproof to 50m.

Compared to the futuristic looking Nike and Motorola gear, the Epson concept looks fairly basic. However, its waterproof features are unique at the moment, which will make it great for swimmers looking to track their training, particularly over long distances. Also, seeming to lack any sort of touchscreen wizardry, we'd imagine the entry-price will be fairly low, which will likely appeal to those who want a robust training tool that won't need insurance should they take a tumble and happen to land on their wrist.

Colour us intrigued. We'll keep you posted with what Epson offer up as the finished article once we see it.

NIKE have added a new gadget to their range of digital fitness products today. The NIKE+FuelBand sits on a user's wrist, and is designed to track everyday movements that could encourage people to live more active lives.

Pairing up with the NIKE+ website or a free iOS app over Bluetooth, the NIKE+FuelBand uses an incentive system called NikeFuel. A normalized score that awards equal points for the same activity regardless of physical makeup, users can set a daily goal of how much NikeFuel they want to earn through being active during the day.

Whereas previous NIKE fitness systems have required users to set aside time for a workout, the FuelBand instead uses four slightly more passive metrics (Time, Calories, Steps and NikeFuel) that can be tracked throughout an entire day, letting users gradually adapt their days to make them a little more active.

The wristband itself lets you track how close you've come to reaching your target goals over a day through a series of 20 LED lights, gradually building from red to green as you approach your set achievements.

"The NIKE+ FuelBand is a way for Nike to further evolve the exciting possibilities of merging the physical and digital worlds," said NIKE, Inc. President & CEO Mark Parker.

"Nike has always been about inspiring athletes, and the NIKE+ FuelBand will help motivate them in a simple, fun and intuitive way."

The NIKE+ FuelBand already has the backing of some major names in the world of sport too, including seven-time Tour de France champion Lance Armstong, Oklahoma City scoring champion Kevin Durant and 2011 IAAF women's 100 metres World Champion Carmelita Jeter.

"What's great about the idea of NikeFuel and the FuelBand is the way it provides real information and numbers to show how much people are doing all day, every day," said Armstrong.

"That's what will get people challenging themselves to do more and better their own scores. It's a tool to get people more active."

The Nike+ FuelBand will be available in the UK from the 1st May, priced at £139.

Apple and Google are each expected to be planning to buy the rights to Premier League football coverage in the UK, taking on the might of broadcasters like Sky and ESPN for the priviledge.

According to the Daily Mail, Apple will be looking to boost their rumoured Apple TV revamp and iPad live offerings with the footie coverage, as will Google be looking to bring more attention to their Google TV platform when it launches in the UK later this year.

"The involvement of Apple - and their great multimedia rivals Google are also expected to make similar soundings - would give the PL a hugely competitive market at a time when the price of other TV sports rights are in decline," reads the Daily Mail's report.

In the US Apple already has deals in place with the NHL, MLB and NBA, (with HD coverage and season tickets available) but in the UK its sports coverage is more than a little lacking. Premier League football would be a great boon to their catalogue, especially if the Apple HDTV finally is launched this year.

Sky currently hold the majority of Premier League coverage rights in the UK, picking up 5 of the available 6 package for a gigantic £1.6 billion. ESPN have the remaining package, thought to have cost around £90 million.

Goal-line technology may be headed to the Premier League as soon as the start of the 2012-2013 season.

That's according to Alex Horne, the FA's general secretary, who has revealed that the Football Association have begun trialing a number of different goal-line monitors, including the same Hawk-Eye kit that silences would-be John McEnroe's at the Wimbledon tennis tournament each year.

"It's possible we could see [goal-line technology] in the Premier League as early as 2012-13" Horne told the BBC.

"It's easy to make mistakes and we've all seen examples where the referee and assistant referee can't see if a ball has crossed the line or not. We need to support them in decision-making."

However, Horne revealed the FIFA bureaucracy and the sheer cost of the equipment could hold back the uptake of the technology.

"Whether there is enough time for the technology to be bought, paid for and put into any league or competition for next season, I'm not sure. It would be really tight - but it might be possible for next season," he concluded.

13 companies are said to be in the running to bring the technology to pitches up and down the UK.

For any football fans out there you will know that Budweiser is the new sponsor for this year's FA Cup competition. As part of their co-operation with the tournament an app is being release for all fans called Budweiser Man of the Match.

This free app is the ultimate tool for any football fan planning to watch the FA Cup this season. The app includes a feature that allows the users to vote for their man of the match for any match in any round of the competition. For the first time in history the fans will have the decision to who will claim the award at the end of the match, along with a magnum of beer.

Other features include live up to the minute match facts, view upcoming fixtures in the competition and win tickets to upcoming matches.

Ian Newell, Western European Marketing Director for Budweiser comments: "We know how passionate football fans are about The FA Cup and we wanted to let their opinions be heard. By giving fans the change to choose the Man of the Match, Budweiser is bringing something new to the most iconic football competition in history."

The app will be available for download for free from the android market and app store for 11th November.

Manchester City have become the first Premier League football club to sign a content deal with video streaming kings YouTube.

The club, who produce around 100 youTube videos each month, get control over rights-owned or club-created videos in the deal, and are also able to tailor advertising as they see fit on their page.

"Manchester City is having a phenomenal year of growth and development online. Our goal is to deliver a market leading experience for fans in terms of online video," said Richard Ayers, Head of Digital, for Manchester City.

"That means delivering the great content we make to where the audience is - ie on YouTube. This deal is the first move in laying the foundations of our syndication strategy and is part of a series of deals to expand our online capabilities.

"The ability to extend our reach and to increase accessibility to audiences is great, but we're also looking forward to exploring the differentiating factors of YouTube, like using annotations, making bespoke interactive video and, more than anything else, becoming part of the thriving YouTube community."

Jeff Nathenson, Head of Sports Partnerships for YouTube, was also keen to talk up the benefits of the new deal:

"We are excited that Manchester City has become the first English Premier League club to become a commercial partner with YouTube. They are proving to be an exciting club both on the pitch and in the digital media space. We believe this kind of deal will have a global impact, allowing them to reach new fans in new territories with compelling original content."

The Manchester City YouTube channel attracts 3 billion views per day worldwide, with the first video uploaded of Samir Nasri signing for the Club reaching 500,000 views in just three days.

Didn't manage to grab a seat at the 2012 Olympic Games after that ticket booking fiasco? No problem; the BBC are readying a handful of new massive public screens that offer 16x the picture clarity of high definition sets in the home, making you feel as if you're not just at the games, but are in the front row too.

The "Super Hi Vision" screens are 50ft in size,and will be erected in London, Glasgow and possibly Bradford to coincide with the games.

"When you sit and watch it you really get the experience of being in seat D5 in the stadium," said the Corporation's director of London 2012 Roger Mosey.

Mosey also saw the potential for the screens to eventually be more popular than 3D displays.

"Super Hi Vision might be a better long-term prospect than 3D in some ways as it gives you the feel of being in the stadium. People are knocked out by it."

Like the idea of having a Super Hi Vision set in your home? Mosey also teased that Sharp are putting together an 85 inch Super Hi Vision set for consumer use. But don't pull out your credit cards just yet; he anticipates at least a decade-long wait until the tech will be suitable for home use.

Via: Guardian

Name: Speedo Aquacoach

Type: Swimming Computer Lap Counting watch

Specs: Click here for full video specs

Price: £99 from Amazon

Whether you are a recreational or serious swimmer it's good to be able to monitor your progress in the water. Up until recently, if you wanted to work out how far you'd swum in any one session you would have to count up the lengths and multiply them by the length of the pool - a process fraught with complications especially, if like me, you tend to forget to keep tally after a few lengths. However, here's a gadget that automatically works out how far you've swum - and does far more clever stuff besides. Read on to find out more.

While watches for swimmers are not new, it's only recently they have become advanced enough to automatically count your laps (lengths) for you. Previously if you wanted a watch to work out how far you'd swum you would have to manually hit a button every time you got to the end of the pool - not exactly ideal.

However, a few years ago Swimovate developed a new technology which used algorithms to sense a break in the stroke pattern every time you turn around in the water. It works with all four strokes (front crawl, breaststroke, backstroke and butterfly) and with standard turns as well as tumble turns though it won't work if you change your stroke half way through a length. The watch will also work on either the left or right hand.

It is this technology that is incorporated in Swimovate's range of Poolmate watches - available in pink, blue, black and grey for £69.99 online.

Essentially, the Speedo watch licenses Swimovate's core technology and though the model is a little more expensive than Swimovate's (the Aquacoach is currently retailing for £99) it does look a little nicer as well as feel a bit more chunky. Available in blue or red versions, it has a large flat digital display and four control buttons - two on each side of the watch. A green backlight is on board and the watch can be worn at depths of up to 100m.

Before you swim you need to set the length of the pool you are swimming in as well as your weight (it uses this to work out how many calories you have burned). Settings are in lbs and yards or kg and m and it will work with all pools over 15metres (most public pools are between 20m and 35m). Unfortunately, though, it can't be used in open water to measure distance - for this you would need a watch with a built in GPS!

While the Aquacoach can be used just to work out the distance and time of your swim (simply by pressing the bottom left button at the start and end of your swim) keen swimmers may be interested in its additional functionality. This includes average speed (how many seconds it takes to swim 100m) and stroke count - how many strokes it takes to get from one side of the pool to the other (basically the lower the better). You can also measure individual 'sets' within each of the sessions.

However, it doesn't have the 'efficiency' setting of Swimovate's Poolmate which uses a clever little metric to work out how well you are swimming - maybe Speedo felt this was a little gimmicky or a bit crude.

Verdict:

For keen swimmers this is definitely a must-have gadget. While it's not perhaps the most intuitive of products to set up, once you have figured out what all the buttons do, it's reasonably straightforward to use. Up to 99 swims can be stored in the log, complete with a breakdown of the date, time, speed, calories burned etc. And while I'm not always in the mood to monitor all of my swims, I do find it useful if I just want to gauge my progress from time to time, especially when it comes to reducing stroke count per length. Recommended.

See Speedo's Aquacoach video here:

This year's FA Cup footie tournament is to kick off with a live Facebook stream of the preliminary round face-off beween Ascot United and Wembley F.C this Friday.

A first for both Facebook and the FA, the live stream has been put together in association with sponsors Budweiser, who have built a Facebook app page to host the stream.

"As a long-standing supporter of football globally, Budweiser is committed to bringing the world's most prestigious knockout competition closer to the fans," said Iain Newell, Marketing Director, Budweiser UK.

"What better way to demonstrate this than by broadcasting the very first kick to a global audience via Facebook. This is the first time a FA Cup tournament fixture has been broadcast live on the social network, which is great news for football fans and clubs alike."

The match kicks off at 7.45pm on Friday 19th August at Ascot United's Racecourse Ground. Live coverage from Facebook can be caught from 7.30pm the same day over at the Budweiser UK Facebook page (www.facebook.com/BudweiserUK).

Note however that as the page will also feature advertising of Budweiser beers, it will only be accessible to Facebook users of legal drinking age.

The 2012 London Olympic Games are nearly upon us! In just under a year's time the game's opening ceremony will kick off proceedings, with the world's most elite athletes decending on the capital, sights set on the gold.

To mark the countdown, the 2012 team have opened the doors of the 2012 Olympic Twitter Stadium, where fans from around the globe can show their digital support for each nation's competitors by leaving a tweeted message.

Click here to have a look.

There's even a leaderboard to see which country have the most vocal fans. Currently Team Great Britain are sitting in 2nd place, making up 16% of all the tweets sent so far, behind Brazil with 24% and ahead of the USA who have 12%.

It's unlikely the GB team will top the USA in the real medals table, but we could pip them to the podium here, so get tweeting!

Push The Limit, the Xbox 360 Kinect game starring half man/half fish Olympian Michael Phelps, has made its public debut at Shanghai's Fina Swimming World Championships. Keeping their feet firmly on dry land, the attending vistors and media were able to get in the virtual pool for the first hands on sessions with the game.

Using the Xbox 360's Kinect controller, players mimic swimming moves with their arms, with their stroke styles replicated on screen.

"Michael Phelps' Push The Limit takes the thrill of competitive swimming from the pool and into the living room, giving even those who don't swim regularly the chance to get involved and engage with the sport," said Sean Hastings, Vice President of Product and Marketing at Speedo International.

"I'm sure that individuals, friends and families worldwide will enjoy the challenge of taking on Michael Phelps, and we hope it may even inspire those who play the game to take to the pool for real!"

We'll have a full review of Michael Phelps' Push The Limit in October, so be sure to check back then to see how much fun swimming on the sofa really is.

Twitter has scored another first today, after Yeovil Town football clubs manager Terry Skiverton has said that his latest transfer is all thanks to the social networking sensation.

Hailed as the first "twansfer" as Twitter was so instrumental in the signing, Skiverton took to the Yeovil Town Twitter account and asked fans to suggest potential signings. After an overwhelming response, Skiverton chased up Kieran Agard (pictured), who many of the club's followers recommended.

"A few people are calling it the first 'twansfer'," Skiverton told BBC Somerset.

"I'll be retweeting the ones that came up with the name Kieran Agard. There's a couple of people who had mentioned him, so they'll be taking the credit."

Could this also be considered the first case of football crowd-sourcing then, using the the collective knowledge of footy fans on the web and putting their suggestions into practice?

"The help from the supporters has been magnificent," continued Skiverton.

"What I didn't realise was other supporters from other clubs had jumped on the bandwagon. I've had supporters from Liverpool, Man Utd, Tottenham, Arsenal, Chelsea and Championship clubs like Cardiff, all telling me about their best youngsters and players are available on loan.

"The supporters sometimes feel left behind but in this case they've been asked for their opinion. I'm trying to do it a different way by giving them a bit of interest and it's been excellent."

So everyone ends up happy: Agard gets a one-year deal following his release from Everton, the fans get to put "Football Scout" on their future CVs, and Skiverton goes down in history as the first "twansfer"-savvy manager in the history of football. It's a beautiful game.

Via: BBC

While there can be only one winner between Manchester City and Stoke during this weekend's FA Cup Final at Wembley Stadium, at least even the losing fans can happily know that by the end of the match they'll all be record breakers.

That's because all in attendance will be part of a record-breaking attempt to create the world's largest 360° photo.

Working with renowned photographer Jeffrey Martin from 360Cities.net, fans will be able to tag themselves the following day in a 10-gigapixel panoramic photo of the event.

It's quite a feat, and one not very easy to achieve. The process, according to the press release, is as follows:

The shoot itself is done with a professional grade digital SLR camera and long lens, and the camera-lens assembly is itself mounted on a robotic tripod head.

The robot turns, focuses and snaps photos in a continuous motion around 360-degrees until the entire inside space of the stadium has been captured. Only many years of experience and 360Cities.net' automated stitching technology can produce a high-quality image in such a short time.

Upwards of 1000 individual photographs are sorted, merged and enhanced to produce a finished image that would otherwise take days or weeks to create. That and a turbo-charged computer with more cores and gigabytes of RAM than you knew could be levered into a computer make it possible for The FA Cup Final gigapixel panorama to be online the next day, ready for people to view and tag via their Facebook accounts.

Roger Maslin, Wembley's Managing Director said: "We are delighted to be able to offer fans a special memento of their day at this year's FA Cup Final and hope the photo will be the first of many to capture the fantastic atmosphere fans bring to Wembley Stadium. We have some very special events at Wembley this summer with the Champions League Final and 8 nights of Take That's sell out Progress Live tour."

Head over to www.wembleystadium.com/wembley360 for more info.

Name: Transcend GPS (Zeal Optics)

Type: GPS-enabled snow goggles

Specs: Click here for full specs

Price: £449.99 from Firebox

Zeal Optics are really upping their game with their latest pair of ski-googles, the Transcend GPS model. With a whole host of location-aware features, these shades are one-part eye protection and one-part fighter-pilot HUD techy-goodness. But is the addition of a screen little more than a novelty, or a full-blown Robocop-on-the-slopes experience?

As a straightforward pair of ski-goggles, the Transcend GPSs are surprisingly comfortable. Despite the added bulk of the onboard screen tech and battery, they manage to sit snugly on the head without little noticeable neck strain from the extra weight. A fully adjustable elasticated strap means the headset will fit over most helmet and head sizes, with rubberised grips to stop them slipping.

Two lens options are available; a fixed tint SPX set or adaptive SPPX lens which changes depending on conditions. It's not as varied a range as you'd get from regular ski googles, but as we're going to explain, these are no regular ski-shades. Plenty of air gets behind the well ventilated frames, and our sweaty testing session produced little fogging on the inside of the goggles.

The magic lies with the 320 x 240 resolution display that sits in the bottom right corner of the Transcend GPS goggles. This will pump information including GPS location, temperature, altitude and speed into the goggles, allowing you to keep track of your performance on the snow. At first I was a little disappointed with the placement of the screen. I'd hoped for a wider view of the information directly ahead of me rather than tucked away in the corner, but in all truthfulness, it's probably for the best; lots of information flashing up unavoidably in front of your eyes would likely make you a danger on the slopes. The goggles themselves do however make you lose a tiny bit of peripheral vision.

The bright screen is easy to read despite its small size, helped along by a sensible array of icons visually describing the many features included. Three chunky buttons on the side of the goggles, easily pressed with thick gloves on, let you scroll through and select menu options including a speedometer, current and average speeds, altitude levels, a stopwatch, environmental temperature and coordinates amongst others. It can take a while however for the goggles to catch up with dramatic changes in your movements; slowing down suddenly doesn't always see the corresponding figures appear on screen, and we'd imagine the same would happen were you to (heaven forbid) fall off a cliff with the altitude monitor.

Tracking our movements reasonably well then, the GPS system onboard can be hooked up with a PC software suite called Recon HQ, which is arguably the best part of using the Trancsend GPS headwear. Pulling the GPS data from the goggles via microUSB, it uses Google Earth and a proprietary tracking system to display your runs through the Google mapping service. It's an excellent way of showing pals the details of your trip, including your statistics at specific points along the route, making it a great tool with which to plan your next outings.

You'll get 6 hours worth of use out of the Zeal Optics Transcend GPS goggles from a single 4-and-a-bit hour charge, which should be enough time for a day's worth of play. The goggle's premium price tag also allows for another luxury to be included; a hard travel case that will protect the lenses when not in use or when packed away in a suitcase.

Verdict:

There is no denying the Zeal Optics Transcend GPS goggles are a niche purchase, not least of all because of the whopping price tag attached to them. Regular skiers may do better to snap up a cheaper pair that allow for a wider range of lenses to be used, as well as being a little lighter on the head. Having said that, the Transcend GPS goggles are comfortable to wear despite the tech inside, and there's an undeniable sci-fi charm to being able to measure your speed and then download your journeys once you get home. Half a grand's worth of charm however takes quite a passion for both the slopes and tech to stomach though, and we're expecting only hardcore geek-skiers to be donning these in Aspen next season.

Christiano Ronaldo has been crowned the most effective social networker in sport, according to Facebook's Head of International Business Development Christian Hernandez.

Speaking at the third annual Global Sports Forum in Barcelona today, Hernandez praised the way the Real Madrid star handled intrusions into his personal life through Twitter and Facebook, but also let fans on more intimate aspects of his life off the pitch too.

"Cristiano Ronaldo is the best athlete at self-marketing on social networks" said Hernandez. "Everyone remembers the shock created by him publishing the first photo of his child on Facebook. Real Madrid, Barcelona and Manchester United are by far the best clubs at using social networking. Their fans are responding very well.

"In contrast, I know there is some tension between Premier League players, clubs and the FA. Players would like to be free to express themselves but recent stories have shown that they can't be."

Hernandez crticisised stars who use a third-party ghost-writer to interact with their fans, isolating Manchester United striker Wayne Rooney in the process.

"Those who use Facebook poorly are those athletes who do not manage their presence themselves - it's as simple as that. For example, Wayne Rooney - it's just not what you would want to hear as a fan," said the Facebook executive.

Sure it's annoying, but I'm not sure I'd really want to know what goes in on the often-seedy mind of Wayne Rooney himself. I'd prefer the censored posts of a publicist than ramblings about ageing call girls any day!

Today's App of the Day is aimed squarely at the fitness freaks. The Nike+ GPS iPhone app is a bit of a jack of all trades when it comes to helping out runners, acting as a route mapping planner, pedometer, coach, calorie counter and motivational aid.

"We are so excited to introduce the true "Runner's App," combining the dynamic power and community of Nike+ with the user-friendly functionality of GPS and accelerometry," said Stefan Olander, VP, Nike Digital Sport. "We will continue to evolve the digital options we provide to runners so that their running experience is always unique and inspired."

According to the press release, the app allows runners to:

Run Anywhere: From indoor to outdoor, track to treadmill, this new app combines the power of GPS technology with an accelerometer to map and track a run from anywhere. Even if the GPS signal is not available, thanks to the accelerometer the Nike+ GPS App continues to track pace, distance, time and calories-burned.
 

Map Your Runs: The GPS technology within the new Nike+ GPS App allows runners to keep track all of their routes including a breakdown of pace and distance at different points during a run. Runners can even tap the screen during a run to see their current location.
 

Challenge Yourself: The "Challenge Me" feature on the Nike+ GPS App allows runners to challenge themselves to run farther, faster, or longer than a previous run already logged. The app will also track run history to be able to personalize challenges.
 

Stay Connected: Runners can wirelessly connect with www.nikeplus.com after each run to instantly save the run and share it with friends via the site, Twitter, or Facebook. In addition, they can view their progress on goals, participate in running challenges and download coaching programs.
 

Stay Motivated: Runners receive motivating messages from top athletes and celebrities when specific customized goals are achieved, challenges are won, or when a personal best is achieved. Runners can also tap the iPhone screen to receive in-run feedback.

The app costs £1.19, and you can pick it up by clicking here. Scroll down for some pics of the app in action.

Well, it was bound to happen really, wasn't it? After having as many mistresses as he has won tournaments, golfing legend Tiger Woods has now officially divorced from his spouse Elin Nordegren.

9 months after the bizarre car crash that kick-started the media frenzy surrounding his infidelity, reports now suggest that the divorce could cost him a whopping $750 million.

But could it all have been prevented? What if Tiger had something to keep his wandering eyes purely on golf and his marriage rather than playing about in the rough looking for birdies?

Here Tech Digest recommend five apps that could have left Tiger playing with his iPhone rather than fumbling for his wood...

Footie fans looking to catch up on any Premier League action they may have missed over the weekend can now head over to Yahoo!'s video highlights page for a round up of all the goals, including Blackpool's shock rise to the top of the table.

Streaming clips up to five minutes in length, the service was officially launched today with the help of two WAGS, Nicola Tappenden (beau of Sheffield United's Simon Walton) and Melisa Johnson, wife of England and Liverpool's Glen Johnson.

Mark Rabe, Managing Director, Yahoo! UK said: "Following on from the success of Yahoo!'s World Cup activity with David Beckham, our ambition for Barclays Premier League coverage is for Yahoo! to become your home for football online.

"For the casual or serious football fan, it's the best bits of the weekend's action - perfect to catch up on games you may have missed, for sharing with friends and for being part of the conversation at work on Monday."

Click here to see what Yahoo! have on offer.