EQUIPMENT


The Pope: I’m On A Boat!

Posted by admin in EQUIPMENT on 05-09-11    No Comments


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Pope Benedict XVI In Venice And In A Gondola. First time in 25 Some Odd Years. via Getty Images

Blum managed to see a bit of nautical and technological history yesterday in Venice.

His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI traveled in a gondola from St Mark’s Square — the center of city — across the mouth of the Grand Canal to the Basicalla of Santa Maria Della Salute.  And  Jonathan was there to watch.

The Pope had is own special gondola imported for the trip. Most importantly it is white. Most others, particularly those used in professional service in Venice, are black. And it features a different shape, more furniture and an utterly unique bow feature — a sort of giant ornate cloud of gold. Remarkable.

The cool thing is, the Pope took this gondola trip as part of a meeting with members of commerce.  It looks like Benedict takes getting out and about seriously.




Belt Drive Porn: Some More Photos

Posted by Jonathan in EQUIPMENT on 05-04-11    No Comments


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Note the One Belt. The Teeth And No Gears.

The guts of the drive hub. 8 gears are in that big drum in there. Worked fine. But I missed the 22 gears on a modern chain set

Forward cranks. Can't beat the simplicity




Chainless Belt Drive Bike Rocks City Streets

Posted by Jonathan in EQUIPMENT on 05-04-11    No Comments


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At the starting line

Looks like the age of the bike chain is coming to an end.

I got to ride a way-cool new bike technology called belt drives.  The bike maker Spot Brand, out of Golden, Colo., sent over a demo Ajax belt drive model (about $1,700), and I took it on a 40-some-odd mile ride as part of the 5 Boro Bike Tour here in New York.

Aside from being darn nice to look at, if you look carefully at Spot’s drive train — that is down there by the pedals — you will see there is no chain. Rather, the bike is driven by a belt similar to what you find in on a Harley-Davidson. Not bad.

Overall, after 40 miles on the bike, I found the technology had real merit. It is smooth, fast and very clean. Hey, there is no grease on a chain to get on your pants, although I will say that after eight hours on the bike, I missed having the 20 gears of a chain drive to help my sorry butt climb over the Verrazano-Narrows bridge. Which is really big by the way.

Still, belt drives are pretty darn sweet. A full story will go up on TheStreet.com later this week.

Here is the link for Spot Bikes.




The Sport Science Guy Is On ESPN On Monday

Posted by admin in EQUIPMENT on 04-30-11    No Comments


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via espn.com

 

If we here in sports geekdom have a legit rock star, its John Brenkus host of  Sports Science over on ESPN. Sports Science is the Entertainment Tonight of the  of the sports tech world: A lush, highly produced show the lenses in the all things techish in sports. And it is a fav here in the Blum household.

He is going to be doing his monthly appearance this Monday on Sports Nation at  3:00 ET.

Worth checking out.




Sports Tech Comes To Campus

Posted by Jonathan in EQUIPMENT on 04-26-11    No Comments


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Sports Nerds In Queensland figure out Facebook

Sports Nerds In Queensland figure out Facebook

This sports technology thing is getting serious. Yet another major university announced a sophisticated sports technology program.

The folks at the Sport and Biomedical Engineering program at the Centre for Wireless Monitoring and Applications at the Queensland Academy of Sport have decided to expand a program to develop mass-market wireless devices that can be used to enhance performance.

Too early to really figure out what they are up to. But clearly universities are looking to cash in on the sports technology wave, just like everybody else.




Metal Core Golf Ball Ready To Make Golf Fun Again

Posted by Jonathan in EQUIPMENT on 04-25-11    No Comments


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Via OnCore Golf Technology

Via OnCore Golf Technology

Starting in mid-May, all of us duffers might suddenly think of playing a round or two of golf.

Buffalo-based OnCore Technologies announced that it will be shipping a hollow metal core golf ball. The company claims this new ball is the only one like it on the market — which sounds like of a bit of an overstatement to me. Metal core golf balls have been around since, well, there has been metal.

But the ball  looks to be a decent idea. For sure it will add distance and accuracy to the average golfer’s game — never mind that Mighty Mike Austin’s record 515-yard drive might go 600 yards with one of these. For golf doinks like you and me, the new ball means we will stand a better chance of hitting a reasonable 75-yard tee shot.

Actually, now that I am thinking about it, this would be pretty cool: Unlimited golfing. Any equipment. Any ball. Any performance-enhancing drug. No holds barred: How far can you drive it? That’s golf I would watch.

Here is OnCore’s website and press release.




Carnegie Mellon: No Football Team, But Plenty Of Gridiron Geeks

Posted by Seth in EQUIPMENT on 04-25-11    No Comments


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We may not have a 2011 NFL season, but if the game has a future, a college that doesn’t even have a football team has a bunch of innovations in the works.

Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh has a football engineering program, and they’re developing some pretty cool stuff. They’ve got a smart jersey equipped with sensors on the arm and the side, aimed at helping coaches figure out which players aren’t carrying the ball properly in order to decrease fumbles.

They’ve got a smart helmet equipped with a camera that feeds first-person video to a mobile device, so coaches can see what the players see. This one could be especially useful as a training tool for quarterbacks, helping them get on the same page with the QB coach or offensive coordinator.

Then there’s the smart ball, equipped with a microprocessor that wirelessly relays information about the position of the ball on the field. You know those two guys with sticks linked together by a 10-yard-long chain? Surely in the 21st Century we can do better than that. And how about on those pile-up plays at the goal line? Do you really think any of the seven officials on the field can actually see whether the ball broke the plane with all those bodies in the way? All you need is the smart ball. Problem solved.

We need more of this kind of technological development in sports. Keep an eye out for more innovations coming from CMU.




Getting A Patent On The Chop Block

Posted by Jonathan in EQUIPMENT on 04-22-11    No Comments


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via Sciam.com

via Sciam.com

Looks like the folks over at the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office have finally figured out how to make themselves useful. They granted a neat new patent to an electrical engineer out in San Jose who has developed a vest that accurately senses blows to the body.

The technology uses the usual-suspect wireless transmitters, impact sensors and processing to make it super clear to taekwondo judges when impact has been made during a bout.

The idea is to get the new tool into the 2012 Olympic Games.

I read about this in the — get ready for it — print edition of Scientific American, and then dug it up on here online.




Video For Easton-Bell’s Pitcher’s “Vader Lid” Revealed

Posted by Jonathan in EQUIPMENT on 03-10-11    No Comments


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Earlier this week, helmet maker Easton-Bell released a prototype of a wrap-around helmet that fits over a player’s baseball cap. Pretty cool.

I dug up the corporate video of the news event. The company brought out 17-year-old senior Gunnar Sandberg to demo the thing. Gunnar knows helmets. The kid was beaned with a line drive and spent a couple of weeks in the hospital in a coma. Pretty not cool.

What is interesting about this press conference is that the questions and issues raised show the challenges anybody faces in rolling out a new bit of safety gear. Who’s going to wear it? Will the thing work? Most importantly, does it look stupid?

Innovating in sports is never easy.




Sony Hedges 3D Bet, Purchases Tech Firm Hawk-Eye Innovations

Posted by Jonathan in EQUIPMENT, STADIUM, TELEVISION on 03-08-11    No Comments


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Via Hawk-Eye Innovations

Here’s an interesting piece of sports production news: Sony has gobbled up goal-line analysis firm Hawk-Eye Innovations. According to The Financial Times, Sony did not say how much it paid for the company, but the publication reported that an analyst told them the firm was worth $32 million, which sounds about right.

A couple of interesting things here:

  • It’s amazing how little real companies are worth. Considering that a complete bucket of nuts and bolts, like The Huffington Post fetches something nuts like a $350 million valuation even though it most certainly makes  less than Hawk-Eye, Sony got a hell of a deal here.
  • 3D is turning into a long bet: Sony is investing in a traditional sports infrastructure company at roughly the same time it is rolling out 3D. It was announced today that Wimbledon will be broadcast in 3D using Sony’s gear. Clearly a company of Sony’s size can both buy a small company and roll out 3D at the same time. But it is telling that basic sports technologies will have serious legs.

Either way, sports tech remains the place to be.