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New Sports Bra Gives Women Support

Posted by Silissa Kenney in EQUIPMENT on 07-25-11    No Comments


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Technology-driven bras give support

When technology meets skin, women everywhere win. A new sports bra from the lingerie company Panache promises to eliminate the, uh, bounce that large-breasted women experience when exercising or playing sports. Now women can get racy in a whole new way — like running a marathon in comfort. You might not realize it, but the bounce is not all that fun. In fact, it’s downright uncomfortable.

This new sports bra, coming in October, is specifically designed for women with cup sizes D to H and promises to reduce bounce by 83 percent. Sounds pretty scientific, doesn’t it? Well it is. The bra was tested on a 32E model running on a treadmill using 3D motion sensors. Instead of flattening the breasts, the Panache bra is supposed to be like two hands cupping the breasts, providing support. OK, we knew we weren’t going to get through this post without inducing some snickering, so go ahead.

The truth is, a great sports bra is as important as any other piece of sports or excercise equipment. You spend time choosing the best sneakers, or the best protective gear, and women should be able to use a bra that provides the most support. Female athletes play hard and deserve to have sports gear that let’s them play their very breast, I mean best.




Are You Ready For Some Social Media? Keep An Eye On Twitter If You’re A Football Fan

Posted by Seth in INTERNET on 07-25-11    No Comments


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Well, they finally settled the NFL lockout. The season will happen. Disaster has been averted. The sky will not fall. And all we’ve lost was the Hall of Fame game.

You know what else we lost? Week after week of endless droning about football. I think the offseason talk in football is more meaningless than in any other sport — weeks that turn into months of talking heads speculating about what they think is going to happen to a team based on what transpires in practices where not everyone on the team is actually there to begin with.

Practices!

In the immortal words of Allen Iverson, “We talkin’ bout practice, man!”

I think there should be a lockout every year in order to spare us from this mindless drivel. Fortunately the league came to its senses and the new collective bargaining agreement includes a pretty significant cutback in the amount of offseason activity. I always snicker when I hear someone say they “love playing football.” Let’s see, you practice five days a week and play one day a week. Then, up until now, you practiced 14 weeks a year in the offseason. Then you went to training camp for the better part of a month.

Seems to me what you love is practicing football, not playing.

The fun part is now. All those months of evaluating players and working on deals and managing the salary cap will be condensed into a few days. So many players will be coming and going, you just know that reporters on the NFL beat won’t be able to keep up with it.

Word to the wise, keep your eye on social media over the next week or so. The number of roster cuts and free agent signings that find their way onto Twitter and Facebook before they are reported through mainstream sources is likely to be very high.

At this point, unfortunately, all we’re seeing are a bunch of Tweets almost as mindless as a talking head show on NFL Network, full of  “football is back.” Folks, it never went anywhere. And it was never going to go anywhere. Did anybody really think there would be no 2011 NFL season?

There’s no shortage of players Tweeting. And if you want news breaks, that’s where you should look. Even the NFL website is tracking player Tweets. These are the guys I expect to be reporting the news to most of us during the flurry of player moves that’s about to take place.

Mainstream media and offseason football workouts — strolling off into extinction together.

#EverythingYouNeedToKnowAboutTheNFLYou’llLearnOnTwitter




Apple Sets Sights On Controlling The World — Or At Least Mobile Gaming

Posted by Seth in GAMING, MOBILE on 07-21-11    No Comments


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We all know that Apple aspires to world domination, and I say if they’re going to do it they should quit doing it little by little and just rip the Band-Aid off already. Unfortunately, we’re not going to be that lucky, and they have apparently co-oped EA Sports as a co-conspirator.

EA is going to release its soccer game, FIFA 12 for the iPad. Take a guess at what you’re going to have to use as a controller. Here’s a hint: It’s an Apple product.

That’s right, the iPhone and iPod Touch aren’t just for talking on the phone or listening to music anymore. This is me trying to contain my excitement.

Now, speaking strictly from a gaming perspective, this is a pretty cool idea. Your controller, which has been simply a piece of plastic with buttons since the days of Pong and Space Invaders, now has a visual interface that opens up lots of new doors for interacting with the game. In fact, it’s such a good idea that Nintendo has a whole new console coming out next year based on the concept. The Nintendo Wii U will come with a touchscreen controller.

But there’s still something about this that rubs me the wrong way. It’s not enough that you plunked down $500 (or more!) for an iPad, now you need to have another mobile device from Apple so you can play games on it?

To be sure, this trend is going to send Sony and Nintendo scrambling to keep up in the mobile gaming market. Knowing what we all know about how things usually go for Apple, the cool factor of gaming on the iPad will turn Sony’s PSP and the Nintendo DS into items destined for the department store discount bin.




TV In The Palm Of Your Hand, But Why?

Posted by Silissa Kenney in MOBILE, TELEVISION on 07-19-11    No Comments


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Breaking news! With the new $10 Orb Live app, you can stream TV, movies, and sports on your smartphone from sites like Hulu, Netflix, ESPN, and more. The app is available for the iPhone immediately, and will be ready for Android devices in mid-August.

OK, please tell me you are not jumping up and down with excitement right now. I mean, how much TV do you really need to watch?

The answer, apparently, is a lot. At least according to Orb, which cites a Nielsen study that mobile video viewing has increased 41 percent since last year.

“No matter where they are,” said Joe Costello, CEO of Orb Networks, ”people can use their mobile phone to get the same great content that is available on their home PC for watching at the beach, on the soccer field, at the airport or on a commuter train.”

On the soccer field?!? Why would anyone be watching TV on their smartphone at a soccer game?

If you are still jumping up and down, undeterred, with anticipation, you’ll be interested to know about one cool feature with this app. You can type in the show you want to watch and Orb Live will find it, whether it’s on Hulu, Netflix, ABC, or wherever. I like that. Still, I can’t see this app as being anywhere near necessary. Plus, the battery drain will prevent you from doing the things you’re supposed to use your phone for. Like work, or, I don’t know, actually talking to people.




More Streaming Sports News: NHL GameCenter Making Strides — Sort Of

Posted by Seth in GAMING, INTERNET, TELEVISION on 07-18-11    No Comments


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Following up on my fanboy fawning over MLB.TV, there was news that came out a few days ago about the NHL’s online streaming package.

NHL GameCenter Live, which streams more than 1,000 games per season, saw a 31 percent increase in subscribers and an 83 percent increase in renewals during the 2010-11 season. GameCenter Live is available for Apple, Android, Nokia and BlackBerry devices, as well as the PlayStation 3, Roku and Boxee. It provides games in HD. There’s also a big archive of games from the last couple of seasons and classic games of the past, which is something MLB.TV should add.

However, it seems GameCenter Live should add one key element that the MLB.TV package has in abundance: Quality.

The NHL package debuted on the PS3 last year, and predictably there were some bumps in the road, as evidenced by this thread on the PlayStation Community message boards. It seems there were a host of problems with streaming live games via the PS3, and according to folks who posted on the thread, no refunds were available because the NHL said the games were still viewable on the computer. That is a complete crock  for anyone who planned to watch on their TV, and the NHL should be embarrassed to offer that as a response. Even if the problem was on Sony’s end, they’re in this together.

Another issue here is the price point. It cost $159 for the season last year, but actually you can tack on another $10 if you want to watch on the PS3, because that’s what Sony charges you to download the app you need to view live games. It’s free for PlayStation Plus users. Again, the NHL should take a cue from MLB, which offers a free download of the software the PS3 needs to view baseball games. Even at $159, that’s almost as much as it costs to buy NHL Center Ice on DirecTV or cable/satellite providers. MLB.TV is only $120, and the baseball season has more games.

GameCenter Live has gotten some rave reviews for its quality and the depth of its content. But it sounds like it’s a little too expensive, and concerns about the quality are making me hesitate whether to go with it this fall. The question is whether a hit-and-miss experience with games in HD on the PS3 will outweigh the nightmare of watching hockey in standard-def on Verizon Fios.




The Twitter 100: Influential Sports Twitter Accounts

Posted by Anthony Mowl in INTERNET on 07-18-11    No Comments


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It’s Twitter’s fifth anniversary. Although I could have sworn that Twitter was just 5 months old (I joined last month), I guess the cool people have been at the party all this time. Twitter has moved beyond being just a fad, and become a bona fide tool for journalists and information. It’s also penetrated the sports world on every level, which is why Sports Illustrated recently came up with the Twitter 100: A list of the Twitter accounts considered the most essential to reporters’ daily routines in finding news and information.

Here all this time I considered CNNSI to be the most essential source in my daily routine, I should have been checking these Twitter accounts instead. (Full disclosure: @anthonymowl did not make the top 100 for reasons unknown.)

Kevin Durant @KDTrey5. “The Decision” was upstaged by Kevin Durant announcing that he’d signed a new deal to stay with the Thunder on his Twitter account. A great example of Twitter becoming a platform for original sources in news.

Hikaru Nakamura @GMHikaru. Yeah, I thought “Who?” too. Turns out he’s a 23-year-old American chess grandmaster. Bobby Fischer never had Twitter, so here’s the next best thing.

Chad Ochocinco @ochocinco. Tops the Twitter 100 with 2.2 million followers, and leads the Twitter-verse in fines for Tweeting.

Old Hoss Radbourn @OldHossRadbourn.  Old Hoss, not to be confused with Pawn Star’s Big Hoss, was a pitcher from the 1800s. Somehow he manages to Tweet from beyond the grave, sharing his perspective on baseball today.

Jim Irsay @JimIrsay. The eccentric billionaire owner of the Indianapolis Colts is also an eccentric Tweeter. He has yet to lock out his Twitter account.

Steve Wilson @stevewilsonap. I felt bad. This Associated Press European sports editor had the fewest followers on the list with just 1,388 people keeping up with him. CNNSI seems to be helping him out though, saying he’ll be a must-read during the 2012 London Olympics, but it isn’t working. Somehow he actually has one less follower five days after the Twitter 100 was released (1,387). How is that possible?

Sports Law Guy @SportsLawGuy. Gabe Feldman, a professor at Tulane Law School gives legal analysis of issues regarding sports and law. Unfortunately with two lockouts, steroid rage, and athletes seemingly getting in trouble every week, this is probably the most important Twitter account in sports today.

These are just seven of the accounts on the Twitter 100, mostly made up of sports reporters, athletes, and other influential people in sports. The list is definitely worth checking out, as it is extremely diverse, covering a wide variety of sports and perspectives. Major props to CNNSI for adding a “Follow” button alongside every person on the list, making it extremely easy for me to follow the people I found interesting. The only flaw I could think of was that @sportscircuit did not make the list. But then again, considering Steve Wilson lost a follower after making the list, maybe that was a big plus.




Golfers Get Their Virtual Game On

Posted by Silissa Kenney in EQUIPMENT on 07-15-11    No Comments


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The 2011 British Open is going on right now at Royal St. George. The last time the Open was played there was in 2003. The champion was Ben Curtis, who was playing his first Open and whose odds were, like, 300-1. Your odds of winning — or even playing — in an Open may be closer to 3 billion-1, but if you’re serious about improving your game, there is some high-tech help out there.

The P3ProSwing, is a golf simulator and swing analyzer. You can buy the system for in-home use, starting at $599. But the Masters Studio version — which you could also buy if you’re willing to drop a cool $23,000 — is available to try in a few Sports Authority stores. Now you can pick out your clubs and try them out without leaving the store. Actually, you could stay and play a game on one of the simulated golf courses also. You know, do away with all that pesky walking and fresh air.

Kidding aside, this tool uses high-tech graphics and sensors to analyze your swing. Measurements include club-face angle, swing path, angle of attack, hit distance, club-head speed and swing tempo. This means you can find clubs that are customizable to your swing and see precisely where you need improvement.

Expensive golf clubs? Check. Advanced technology as golf-guru? Check. This is the kind of thing that seems to take the fun out of getting out there and just playing. But let’s face it, we all want to be better at whatever game we’re playing. This could be a great way to beef up your skills. Who knows, maybe you will make it one day to play in your first Open. Or, at least, a virtual Open.

 




Who Needs TV When There’s MLB.TV?

Posted by Seth in INTERNET, TELEVISION on 07-14-11    1 Comment


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I’ve always been a little bit skeptical of watching sports on anything over than good old fashioned cable or satellite TV. Within the past decade, we’ve seen the rise of sports broadcasts on the web, but it never seemed like a particularly good option to me.

Until now.

I have seen the future of live sports broadcasts, and it’s called MLB.TV.

MLB Advanced Media is the clear leader in online sports packages. This we know. But you don’t get a full appreciation for it until you check out the MLB.TV package, which I’ve been doing since last weekend. I’ve been an MLB Extra Innings subscriber for several years, and I was disappointed earlier this year when I switched from DirecTV to Verizon Fios TV and discovered that Extra Innings on Fios carries very few games in HD and simply isn’t as good as it is on DirecTV. Well, I’ve made a determination: Starting next spring, it’s MLB.TV for me. Goodbye Extra Innings. Goodbye Extra Innings hefty $180 price tag — which is particularly galling, considering that Verizon charges the same for it as DirecTV does even though it’s a vastly inferior product on Fios.

But I digress. Let’s talk about MLB.TV, which is $119.99 for the full season and is $79 if you sign up now for the rest of the season. Here’s what there is to love:

Portability: First of all, like any good piece of entertainment content, they’ve made the package portable to a whole bunch of different devices. I’m running it to my TV via my PlayStation 3, but you can also watch on a PC, an iPad, Roku, Boxee, or through an app built into some newer Samsung and LG televisions.

Picture: Unlike the woefully fuzzy standard-def picture I get from Extra Innings on Fios TV, I’m getting an HD picture from MLB.TV. Occasionally there are some buffering issues, and my TV is a few years old and not a 1080p display, so I get some artifacts on the screen when there’s a lot of fast motion. I think there might be some compression issues as well that impact the look of the picture. But none of this makes the picture undesirable. Even at its worst, it’s better than the standard-def picture on Fios.

Functionality: This is where MLB.TV blows away Extra Innings like a Roy Halladay fastball. You’ve got full DVR capability and the ability to jump to earlier innings of any game whenever you feel like it. So let’s say you sat down to catch the Yankees-Blue Jays game tonight (July 14), and you were a little late, and were shocked to find out that Toronto scored eight runs in the first inning. How did that happen? Well, the short answer is that Bartolo Colon’s magic is gone. But you can punch up the bottom of the first inning at the touch of a button and watch it for yourself. There’s more. You can get home and road team feeds of each game, with your choice of the TV announcers or the radio crew. So let’s say you want to listen to Jon Miller call the Giants game instead of the TV team of Duane Kuiper and Mike Krukow (who are very good, by the way). Again, touch of a button, and you get Miller’s dulcet tones. You can even choose the ballpark setting, which gives you the noise of the park — the murmur of the crowd, the crack of the bat, the umpire’s strike calls — with no announcer at all.

If you’re watching on a PC, there are a few other options that aren’t available if you stream to your TV. You can view up to four games at once on your PC screen. Streaming to the TV you’re limited to one at a time. That’s something they should fix, especially since a big TV screen is far more conducive to a multi-game view than a small PC screen. There’s also a fantasy player tracker available on the PC, although this isn’t that big a deal, since avid fantasy players probably have the live scoring page of their fantasy league site up and running on another browser tab.

There are a couple of minor quibbles. First, MLB.TV cuts the signal when a game goes to a commercial, and you get a message on the screen saying there’s a commercial break in progress. I sort of like seeing local TV commercials from across the country when I watch on Extra Innings. But I can live without them. Also, MLB.TV blacks out live broadcasts of teams in your home market. For me, living in Maryland, that means no Orioles or Nationals games, but of course they’re available as part of my Fios TV package. Your home team’s games are viewable as part of the season archive, starting 90 minutes after the games end.  But there are some parts of the country that are considered the home market of several teams, so that could be a drawback for some fans.

Simply put, MLB Advanced Media has created a streaming package that is more worthwhile than watching on TV. It’s the future of sports broadcasting. And it’s here now.

 




GoPro While Retaining Amateur Status

Posted by Anthony Mowl in ALL, EQUIPMENT on 07-14-11    No Comments


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Amateur action sport athletes are looking more and more like professional athletes with GoPro’s Hero camera sets. The GoPro Hero is a relatively inexpensive camera that packs a powerful punch. Priced as low as $259, people are getting one of the most versatile video cameras anywhere.

The GoPro Hero is a little bigger than a deck of cards, but produces 1080p HD-quality video, and up to 5 megapixel photographs. Buy the most basic model at $259, and you’ll get a waterproof case that you can scuba dive with up to 180 feet, a helmet mount and a flat-surface mount. Spend $40 extra, and you can get either surf, motor sports or helmet mounts and take the Hero along for a ride on your surfboard or dirt bike, or get amazing footage as you skydive.

While the camera is priced for extreme sports enthusiasts, professional filmmakers are finding the Hero to be just the right solution for their needs. Kayaking documentary maker Five2Nine is producing amazing videos with the Hero, and the maker of the March of the Penguins movie has modified the camera to make a “Critterpak,” putting the camera on animals to get stunning footage. But perhaps the coolest thing is GoPro’s latest addition to the Hero family: a 3D kit that puts 3D production capabilities in the hands of even the most amateur of filmmakers. Simply purchase two Hero cameras at $259 each, and a 3D kit at $99, and you’ll be competing with James Cameron in no time.

The 3D kit is a waterproof case that houses both cameras side-by-side, and with the software that comes in the 3D kit, you’re synchronizing your cameras to make instant 3D footage that looks like this. While you’ll need glasses to view the 3D video, you have the option of outputting the same footage in 2D. YouTube has added the ability to upload and stream videos in 3D, making the potential for 3D to become much more widespread and within reach of anybody with $600.

Skydivers, surfers, kayakers, stunt bikers and scuba divers now all have the ability to produce amazing footage at an extremely affordable price, turning backyard action sports stars into viral celebrities if they happen to capture themselves wiping out and breaking a leg in 3D. While I probably wouldn’t want to see a bone sticking out in 3D, I’d definitely want to have the Hero 3D kit with me the next time I go skydiving or bungee jumping. I’d slap a pair of 3D glasses on my grandpa, and take him along for the ride.




The Sports Tech Nihilist: I Don’t Get Apps!

Posted by Seth in INTERNET, MOBILE on 07-14-11    No Comments


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Is it just me, or does this whole urge for apps not make any sense?

The way people talk about apps for smart phones and the iPad, you’d think these things were complex or were really doing something special. There’s one TV commercial running right now with a woman eyeing a smart phone in a store window and we hear the thoughts in her head: “Hmm, I could use a smart phone with social apps.” Aside from being horrible dialogue, they make it sound like “social apps” are far more important than they are. An icon that takes you to Twitter and another that takes you to Facebook … wow! Give me a minute to catch my breath.

When I got my BlackBerry — which admittedly has a far less extensive app market than the iPhone and iPad — I found a couple hundred sports apps. Two of them are worth having. Sports Illustrated has a nice one, and there’s ScoreMobile, which can be a little cranky at times, but has plenty of information. Both of them are free, and I wouldn’t dream of paying for them.

Apparently some iPad users don’t have the same attitude. I got a kick out of a couple of comments from people complaining about ESPN’s ScoreCenter XL for the iPad, which used to cost $4.99 and is now free. The iPhone version was free, but they had been charging for the iPad version, which made no sense.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great-looking app, jam-packed with information. The problem is it’s pointless. If you’ve got an iPad, you’ve got web access. There’s no reason you can’t just point the iPad’s browser at ESPN.com — or CBSSports.com or SI.com or Yahoo Sports or The Sporting News or FoxSports.com or The Sports Network or the league websites … or any number of other places — to get the scores and info you’re looking for. OK, so it’s a couple extra taps of the touchscreen.

Anybody who felt a need to pay $4.99 to avoid that needs their head examined.