Category: Sport
Top 10 Football apps on the iPhone
With Aston Villa and Manchester United gearing up to duke it out in the League Cup Final this weekend, Tech Digest have pulled together ten of the best football apps available on the iPhone. Everything from World Cup 2010 fixture…
Interview: Betfair TV CEO Simon Miller on online gambling and the future of internet-connected TVs
Fancy a quick flutter on the footie? Thanks to Betfair's recent debut on the Yahoo! TV Widget engine, gamblers can place bets from the comfort of their armchair. But what does this mean for the traditional high-street based bookie? Is…
Microsoft unveil motion sensing controller – Project Natal
Microsoft has unveiled its much rumoured motion controller at E3 along with 1080p video-streaming, facebook and twitter integration, and Premier League football as part of Microsoft’s deal with Sky.
“Project Natal” is not as many were expecting a hand-held controller but rather a motion sensing camera, like the Eye Toy, but hopefully substantially less crappy.
Steven Spielberg lumbered on stage to demo the new technology, with his avatar moving in real time as he controled the UI. Unlike the Eye Toy which wasn’t really developed with any great vigour, Microsoft seem to have gone to town with Natal and look to have created a very immersive and interactive experience.
Maybe too interactive, because in an Orwellian overstep, Microsoft have included face recognition technology which will allow you to use the meat, sinew and cartilage, on the front of your head to as your password to log in to your Live account.
But Natal isn’t just for gaming: As Microsoft start to push the Xbox 360 as the home entertainment mega-hub, you’ll be able to use Natal to flick through your films and songs and use voice recognition to issue commands.
The demo came complete with a very Wii-esque trailer of a family enjoyed the delights of Natal’s motion capture, although all the voices had been dubbed so grimly that the whole thing takes on this sort of uncanny and unnerving ambiance, like they’re trapped. It’s weird – watch it. It’s a far cry from the light-hearted japes of the Rednapp clan.
Microsoft look to have created an amazing and deeply immersive piece of kit here, but they still can’t make adverts. Not for toffees.
Watch this till the end – it’s a good advert and then in the last 10 seconds the way the light on the Natal unit switches off is so creepy!
Has no one at Microsoft seen Space Odyssey 2001? It couldn’t be more menacingly Hal-esque.
Live action replays at Arsenal FC on your PSP – another three points for the prawn sandwich brigade
Fans in the Emirates Stadium could soon able to watch a live stream of football games played at Arsenal on their PSPs should they wish to do so.
The plan is to provide replays and statistics of events on the pitch within 18 months…
HEARTWARMING TALE: Kid takes up Archery after playing Age of Empires
Next time you’re being ranted at that videogames cause violence, point the complainant to this story. A 17-year old guy, Ryan Tyack, is competing in the Australian Youth Olympic Festival in Sydney. He’s the flag-bearer for the ceremony, and is competing as an archer, a sport that he took up in 2001 after playing Age of Empires.
Over to Ryan:
I just sat around playing Age of Empires all the time and my mum wanted me to do a sport and meet some kids. So I chose either fencing or archery as Age Of Empires had swordsmen and archers
Thing is, I sorta know what he means. That game has improved me too – I was a bit of an AoE addict, and I had no idea what a Phalanx, Trireme or Trebuchet was before playing. Now, having played tonnes of AoE and Civilization, I’m considerably more knowledgeable about ancient empires! Perhaps “edutainment” works after all.
(via Kotaku)
Related posts: Playing Halo is as addictive as heroin or crack cocaine, says judge in Halo killer case | WoW fan threatens suicide to Blizzard rep, gets arrested
eBay Nutcase of the Week: Keith Senior "heaps shame" on England by selling Rugby World Cup medal
Leeds Rhinos player Keith Senior has decided he doesn’t want or need a memento of England’s abysmal performance in the recent Rugby League World Cup – so he’s stuck his appearance medal on eBay.
The medal is currently going for £600 on the auction portal, triggering TABLOID OUTRAGE from newspapers who believe Keith’s being a bit of a traitor in flogging off a bit of English sporting history…
GPS for Skiiers is more than just an avalanche tracker
If you’re a skiier, you’ll know the value of not getting trapped under an avalanche, but most decent skiing jackets these days come with GPS in them, for those ‘just in case’ situations. Why do you need a dedicated GPS unit, then? Because Flaik, the company who makes it, has gone all Web 2.0 and tacked on a social network.
Despite Flaik’s website not being properly launched yet, and being epically broken in Chrome, it seems that the GPS unit will let you do all kinds of crazy stuff like running real-time competitions against people you don’t know, tracking the location of individual skiiers, and calculating run-by-run and day-by-day statistics.
Obviously this is for hardcore skiiers only, and there’s no word of price, but it apparently launched last month in Colorado. If anyone’s able to provide any more info, then drop us an email, because this looks like it could be fun.
Flaik (via CrunchGear)
Related posts: Wii Skii: Nintendo to release ‘Family Ski’ – proper use for the balance board | Shiny Video Preview: Satski’s GPS system for skiing trips
Cut your neck open on a barbed wire fence all year round, with the Ice Meister SLICER
If you’re young and still flexible enough to find the idea of (a) being outside in the cold and (b) hurtling down a hill really fast sitting on a piece of plastic enjoyable, here’s the answer to your extreme sports prayers – a sled that works just as well on grass as on snow.
The Ice Meister SLICER is a grass-based sled that’ll keep your bottom aching and your knuckles freshly grazed all year round, thanks to its removable sliders that users take out, freeze, then reattach…
Nitrogen-infused golf club allows you to pretend to be John Daly
This, ladies and gentlemen, is the PowerBilt Air Force One. It’s a golf club, and it’s full of Nitrogen. Why is it full of Nitrogen? I’m glad you asked. It’s full of Nitrogen because Nitrogen improves the ‘trampoline effect’ when the club makes contact with the ball, and allows the makers to produce a club that gives you optimum distance but retains a large sweet spot.
All in all, you’re going to end up with a drive like John Daly’s. The driver’s going to cost US$500, along with US$350 for a fairway wood and US$250 for a hybrid iron. I don’t know much about how much golf clubs cost, but that does seem rather on the expensive side. Still, for the longest drive in Golf, perhaps it’s worth it.
PowerBilt (via CrunchGear)
Splash out on H2O Audio's iSH2 underwater iPod Shuffle case
If you’re a swimmer, then you’ll know what a pain it is when cases that claim to be ‘waterproof’ leak, and your iPod suddenly dies mid-breaststroke. Well, here’s a waterproof case that has won an award for best iPod Shuffle case of the year, and intriguingly, clips to the back of your head.
Makers H2O Audio reckon that it’ll go down to 3.6m deep, and because it’s positioned on the back of your head, it reduces “water drag”. It’ll attach easily to your googles, so it won’t fall off, though what the sound quality is like on the attached headphones when you’re underwater remains to be seen. Oh, and did I mention it costs £60? Pick it up from the H2O Audio website.
Related posts: American Flag iPod case | 45 iPod case – made out of an old 45 record
