Sports

Nike has awarded 10 startups $20,000 each to build applications for its Nike+ products. The giant sporting goods company is striving to turn its digital gadget success into a technical platform.

In December, Nike announced a program, in partnership with TechStars -- a startup mentoring and investment organization -- to offer money and mentoring to companies interested in creating health- and fitness-related applications that use the Nike+ technology. The idea is to seed app development for products, such as Nike+ FuelBand, to create a platform in much the same way that Apple has created a platform with iTunes and … Read more

So you've got the LED-lit Tron basketball court. Now you need an electronic ball.

94Fifty is a sensor-laden ball that's designed to give you feedback on your court athletics. It has wireless links to your iOS or Android smartphone and a Qi charging pad.

Part of a Kickstarter campaign by InfoMotion Sports Technologies, 94Fifty is a regulation-size ball that gathers data on everything from dribbling to shot arcs, backspin, and speed. … Read more

Portable generators just got a lot more fun with the introduction of the Soccket, an energy-harnessing soccer ball raising funds on Kickstarter. Kick the ball around, play, and have a good time. When you're done, connect an LED lamp into a port built into the ball, and light up your night.

Playing with the Soccket for 30 minutes can power an LED lamp for 3 hours. For those of us fortunate enough to have reliable electrical grids, the Soccket isn't the most necessary object in the world. For people in developing countries without many lighting options, however, it could be a fun and functional option for providing light for working or doing homework in the evening.… Read more

Do you really have enough camera angles when you watch a football game? Come on, you want more.

Feed your desire to be omnipresent with the wacky BallCam. It puts a camera inside the spinning football.

You'd think that would make you toss that mix of pizza, hotdogs, and beer in your stomach, but boffins at Carnegie Mellon University and Japan's University of Electro-Communications have made it a rather pleasant viewing experience.

CMU researcher Kris Kitani and UEM's Kodai Horita co-authored a paper on how algorithms in their prototype football can recognize footage of the ground as … Read more

The first time I saw GoDaddy's geek-smooching supermodel ad during the Super Bowl, I silently cheered for the curly-headed geek in a "Revenge of the Nerds" sort of way. The second time the ad came on, I was reading Super Bowl articles on my iPad and only heard the lascivious slurping sound effects. Ewww.

This got me thinking. We're supposed to root for the geek who gets the hot girl. We know the woman in the ad, Bar Rafaeli, is a real supermodel. Is the actor, Jesse Heiman, a real geek? Let's investigate.… Read more

On Super Bowl Sunday, Domino's Pizza is planning to deliver millions of pizzas (it estimates that a total of 11 million slices will be delivered) and 2.5 million chicken wings. According to Domino's execs, the national game day gorge has become more than just a manner of beefing up on drivers, dough tossers, and yes, beef -- it's also quite an undertaking in the information technology department.

According to the Michigan-based company, a third of Domino's orders come though a digital channel these days, and of course even the analog orders run through the corporate network. In 2007, for the first time, Domino's saw the need to put together a game day "defense" team on Big Game day to sit in a conference room and keep an eye on all the information systems. … Read more

Painting lines on a floor for team sports is so old school. Why not use programmable LED lights under a glass surface?

That's what Germany's ASB Systembau is doing with its ASB GlassFloor. With a frame of aluminum supporting a glass floor, it can be set to display lines for sports like basketball, handball, volleyball, or whatever else you want to play.

Ceramic dots on the glass re-create the feel of a wooden surface, while special etchings diffuse the LED light and prevent glare from bothering athletes.

That means you can also have all manner of ads, scoreboards, and graphics on the floor. … Read more

As a skier, I've often wondered how fast I'm skiing when I'm skiing really fast.

Turns out it's 44.7 miles per hour.

I got my answer from Zeal Optics's Z3 goggles during a December trip to Whistler Blackcomb mountain in British Columbia. The Z3s are a new, and very expensive, breed of goggles that capture data using GPS technology and flash it on a tiny heads-up display unit at the bottom of the field of vision on the right side of lens. Zipping down Springboard, a wide-open, groomed intermediate run, the tiny display ticked off my speed as the slope steepened and the wind whistled past me.

Zeal is one of a handful of ski goggle makers selling devices that include the heads-up display technology from Recon Instruments, a Vancouver, B.C., company that's trying to bring hands-free, real-time performance statistics to skiers. The devices include tiny GPS receivers and a set of sensors to provide speed, distance, vertical descent data, and more. I also brought along goggles from Oakley and Smith Optics that use Recon's heads-up displays to test during my ski trip as well.… Read more

Nike is ripping a page from the titans of tech, taking the first steps to building a platform on which developers can create applications for its Nike+ products.

The sports shoe and apparel giant has partnered with TechStars, a startup mentoring and investment organization, to launch Nike+ Accelerator. Through the program, Nike and TechStars will give 10 groups $20,000 to build health and fitness applications that use the Nike+ technology.

"The program aims to leverage the success of the Nike+ platform to support digital innovation by connecting with companies that share Nike's commitment to help people live … Read more