GENERAL


2K Sports Unveils Topspin 4

Posted by Dan in GENERAL on 01-26-11    No Comments


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topspin4_360_150Take heart all of you Rafa Nadal fans, Rafa still has a chance to win the Australian Open this year.  Well not exactly, you can guide him to victory Down Under when 2K Sports’s new tennis video game Topspin 4 comes to market March 15.  The last version of this game sold a surprising 1.5 million copies so 2K has put some more cash into development on this iteration.  Federer, Nadal, Roddick, and Serena Williams will be joined by all-time greats like Agassi, Borg, Lendl, and Jim Courier. If you preorder early with GameStop you can even get a code to unlock Agassi’s classic mullet.




3D Shades To Watch — And Wear In — The Game.

Posted by Jonathan in GENERAL on 01-26-11    No Comments


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Marchon-3dYeah, 3D is trendy right now, but as a fashion statement, it’s got a long way to go. As it stands, nobody would dream of wearing those clunky, geeky glasses outside the confines of a darkened theater or living room. Fashion follows function. Tech is nerdy.

But maybe it doesn’t have to be that way.

Enter Marchon Eyewear. A company that actually makes frames to be worn in broad daylight is jumping into the world of 3D glasses. Their Marchon 3D glasses are meant to double up both as your 3D shades AND your sunglasses. It’s a pair of passive 3D lenses that also block UVA and UVB rays and Marchon says they’re meant to be worn both indoors and outdoors.

In other words, they’re meant to be worn outdoors, so you can either watch the game at home in glorious 3D, or go to the game in glorious real life wearing these bad boys.

Not that there was much clamoring for fashionable 3D specs. I think people generally accepted looking like a goofball as part of the 3D experience. Nobody ever looked chic sitting on the couch watching football, or in the multiplex shoving popcorn in their face. Still, it’s nice to know that you can now escape the judgment of your pets, or the pizza delivery guy.




Pros Use Twitter to Bash Cutler

Posted by Dan in GENERAL on 01-25-11    No Comments


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twitter_logoAround the league the reaction to Bears QB Jay Cutler’s injury in the NFC championship has been pretty harsh.  The best part is that the media isn’t the only group challenging his toughness. True, he had an MCL sprain but many of his peers have been all over Twitter condemning Mr. Cutler’s performance. Here are just a few examples:

“HEY there is no medicine for a guy with no guts and heart.” Bucs Linebacker Derrick Brooks
“Cmon cutler u have to come back. This is the NFC championship if u didn’t know!” Cardinals Safety Kerry Rhodes
“As a guy how had 20 knee surgeries you’d have to drag me out on a stretcher to Leave a championship game!”  Former Pro Mark Schlereth.
Will the NFL crack down on this kind of Twitter usage or are they too worried about the coming lockout to care? 



Super Bowl Impulse Buys: Why Not A TV?

Posted by Jonathan in GENERAL on 01-23-11    No Comments


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football televisionIt’s one of those time-honored sales pitches: upgrade your living room for Super Bowl Weekend. Maybe you don’t strictly observe retail’s liturgical calendar, but if you feel so moved this year, I’ve got some suggestions for your television impulse buys. These are big, bad-ass TVs that are a good value and will get the job on many a game day. Best of all, if you don’t want to do a lot of shopping, you can find each of these TVs at one the big box stores. So you you can get in your car today, pick up one of these sets and be set for the big game.

First up: I’m going to go out on a limb here and recommend a Sony TV even though they’re getting their butts KICKED by Vizio and Samsung. You can pick up a 46-inch BRAVIA LED-LCD at Best Buy, online and in stores, for less than $1000. The LED color is excellent. It’s readily available and there is enough discounting going on that you can probably even beat that price. A little more than 900 bucks for 46-inches isn’t a bad deal.

If you’re going to Wal-Mart, I’m going to say go big and pick the 55-inch Vizio LED-LCD. It’s not the best for movies, but at 480Hz it’s refresh rate will keep up with any of the Super Bowl broadcasts and, for sports in general, it’s a great television set that’s Internet connected, app-ready and does a great job for about $2,100.

Finally, Target has a 40-inch Samsung LCD for $709. It’s a good-sized screen, you can use it with your PC and the price is right.

Great buys, all.




Can Landon Donovan Do This?

Posted by Jonathan in GENERAL on 01-22-11    No Comments


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PZS-BRANDIMAGE-2Here’s a way to win Americans over to soccer: Add zombies. Then add zombie killing.

Instant. Ratings.

But until the Japanese win a World Cup bid, broadcast the games via holograms, and then digitally insert brain eating undead, Pro Zombie Soccer Apocalypse for iPad is likely the best we’re going to do for a while on the soccer-zombie front.

But that’s not a bad thing. And you’ve got an iPad, trust me, it’s worth the $1.99 you’ll shell out at the iTunes App Store. Although, be warned, it’s going to cost you a lot more in the time you’ll lose taking out zombies with a soccer ball. And that’s what this game is all about: killing as many zombies as you can with a soccer. Simplicity, that’s what the beautiful game is all about right? Anyway, it’s iTunes game of the week and its pretty damn fun. Added bonus, there’s no offsides rule.

Fans of the iPhone version won’t be disappointed either. This is definitely an upgrade. The game really shines in the iPad medium, making full use of the big screen with giant levels, intuitive controls, slick graphics and, most importantly, hordes of killer zombies. If you’ve got two bucks and some time to kill, check it out.




Cell Ops Sports Ranking Revealed: Verizon = NFL, US Cellular = MLS

Posted by Jonathan in GENERAL on 01-14-11    No Comments


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Via Phandroid

My good friend Tim and I were talking about the battle for 4G pecking order among cellular operators as they roll out service.

And he pointed out, the deployment of new fast networks is as much about the perception of these tools, rather than the tools themselves. In many ways 4G is like the sports leagues. There are the leaders and the also-rans. And he want as far as to rank the carriers against the extant sports leagues

Here is the list:

  • Verizon = NFL
  • AT&T = MLB
  • Sprint = NBA
  • T-Mobile = NHL
  • US Cellular = MLS

If that does not sum up the state of the American cell phone ecosystem, nothing does.  My only questions are, Is Verizon facing a lock out and will T-Mobile let its players go to Olympics?




Jerry Rice has his own videogame! Wait, Oh God No!

Posted by Dan in GENERAL on 01-06-11    No Comments


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Complete_Title_RGB_SmallFootball video game fans have been waiting for years for someone to mount a credible challenge to the EA Sports Madden football dynasty.  Lawrence Taylor attached his name to the Blitz franchise but that didn’t really work out so well.  I seem to remember that John Elway took a shot at the title once and even he couldn’t do it.  So imagine my joy when I heard that Jerry Rice, the greatest wide receiver, of all time was going to bring out his own game. My friends that joy quickly turned to horror, muchlike when my mother combine M&Ms and Skittle in the same bowl one Halloween, when I saw that this was the game he was launching. I am now officially on board for stricter head injury rules in the NFL after seeing the trailer for “Jerry Rice and Nitus’s Dog Football”.




2011 Prediction of the Day: Lockout or Not, Expect NFL 3.0

Posted by Jonathan in GENERAL on 01-03-11    No Comments


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nfl equipmentThe NFL can’t be happy that the playoffs aren’t the only thing football fans are talking about as we head into the new year. Yes, the end of the regular season brings us the obligatory reminder that the status of 2011 is still very much up in the air thanks to the ongoing negotiations over the league’s next collective bargaining agreement.

Nobody needs to tell you that if ANY football games are canceled over this imbroglio that will easily be the year’s number one sports story (think of the Fantasy Football implications, for one thing), but here is my prediction: Whether there is a strike, lockout  or peace-in-our-time, negotiations will lead to significant changes in equipment for the players.

There’s been growing public awareness of the physical toll football takes for some time now, particularly with regard to concussions, and there was plenty of offseason chatter around the subject last summer after the NFL and the player’s union released their joint study on helmet safety and left the door open to testing other types of equipment. Of course, that led to all kinds of stories about whether to add external padding or even the counter-intuitive idea that maybe it’s time to scrap the football helmet altogether (the thinking goes that helmet-less players won’t take the risks that fully-armored players do).

Obviously the helmet isn’t going anywhere (let’s leave Rugby to the English), but there at least seems to be consensus between the owners and union officials that players need to be protected. That’s not say they’re going to encase these guys in bubble wrap. Fussy wide receivers don’t like to be weighed down with a lot of extra padding and the league can’t sell jerseys for guys who look like Stay-Puft Marshmallow Men. Look for the new equipment to keep getting lighter, faster and more shock absorbent as the league tries to negotiate between keeping an entertaining product on the field while trying to keep players off the DL.

Of course, a lockout would also dramatically decrease the number of concussions, so there’s that too.




Look Who’s Jumping into Sports Tech

Posted by Jonathan in GENERAL on 12-30-10    No Comments


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best-buy-415Maybe somebody at corporate headquarters made a New Year’s resolution because Best Buy has announced that it will roll out a new line of fitness and health products at about 600 of its stores this upcoming year.

That’s a pretty bold move seeing as people don’t traditionally lump big screen TVs in with exercise, but hey, times change. Given the popularity of games like Wii Fit (which actually had sales comparable to Grand Theft Auto IV and Halo 3) it’s not surprising that Best Buy sees that our exercise routines, like everything else we do, are increasingly married to our gadgets. Weight loss and fitness tracking apps abound and how many joggers do you see with their iPods?

Now they can buy their pedometers from the same store. And Best Buy promises just that, with special MP3 players and active-wear earbuds and headphones, heart rater monitoring watches, blood pressure monitors and more. Not to mention some low-tech staples like Yoga mats.

Best Buy says you’ll be able to try a lot of this stuff out in a 30-foot-long in-store presentation area, with interactive displays that show how technology (Best Buy Products) can be used to get the most out of your workout routine.

Sounds cool enough, although I think the Geek Squad might want to bulk up a bit before they tell me how I can use my Kinect to do more reps.

I’m not sure whether or not people will go to Best Buy for their fitness needs when there are plenty of big-box retailers already in the exercise industry. But, if Best Buy can brand themselves as Workout 2.0, people should dig it.

Oh, and home gyms surround sound. That ought to help too.




Daytona Gets a Speedier Surface

Posted by Jonathan in GENERAL on 12-27-10    No Comments


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DaytonaSpeedwayNASCAR’s recent struggles with attendance and ratings have been well documented, so it’s no secret that the auto racing giant is under intense pressure to find some success in the upcoming year.

That means there’s a lot riding on NASCAR’s upcoming 2011 Speedweeks which will showcase the newly repaved Daytona International Speedway.

Daytona wrapped up an epic repaving project this month on its track which was completed in 1958 and hadn’t been repaved since 1978. Needless to say, after NASCAR had to delay last year’s Daytona 500 to fix a pothole, the powers-that-be decided it was time for an upgrade.

It took about six months to rip up the entire track down its lime rock base and repave about 1.4 million square feet with 50,000 tons of asphalt, but, by all accounts, if you’re a fan of NASCAR (or a fan of car crashes), this year’s races at Daytona are going to be must-see TV. The first tire tests at the newly repaved raceway wrapped up before the holiday and drivers said the new surface is faster (and more dangerous) than ever and is going to mean closer races, and tighter packs because drivers will have to take fewer pit stops. One driver even speculated that the new track is so smooth and has so much grip it may be possible to finish an entire race on only one set of tires. New tires are coming as well as Goodyear will use the data from the tests to formulate new sets of tires more like the ones used at the super-fast Talladega Superspeedway.

Some of the track’s speed is just a virtue of being fresh out of the box, new tracks are always faster until they’ve seen some wear and tear, but better asphalt technology should keep the track new for years to come. The new track, which is seven-inches thick and made up of several layers of asphalt, is a special asphalt-polymer mix that has some memory to it. A pencil-sized piece of this stuff  can be stretched out to more than three feet and still snap back to its original shape.

No word yet on if Daytona still has that new-racetrack smell.