Sports imPULSE

Technology Sets New Dallas Cowboys Stadium Apart

The Dallas Cowboys opened their sleek new stadium this week. The $1.15 billion stadium features retractable roofs, a massive scoreboard and flat-screen monitors. The stadium's technology is featured prominently to set it apart from other sports venues.   Notes Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, "We wanted to offer a real experience that you can't have at home, but to see it with the technology that you do have at home".  Yes, but my fantasy team at home wins....

From Plastics To Soccer?

"One word, plastics" - from the movie "The Graduate" 

Interesting concept, Acerbis, a world leader in plastics manufacturing, is venturing into sports, in particular soccer. Their website is still in its infancy but we will be keeping track of their progress.  Their tagline is: 

"Since 35 years, Acerbis is developing, testing, producing plastics and technical gear for the motorcycle world. With the same passion, Acerbis enter now into the Football world. With many experience, Acerbis wants to develop new and high technical products, to fill in the dreams and enquiries from great champions".

GET THE ATHLETE LOOK......

Wimbledon's Centre Court Roof

The Wimbledon Tennis Championship will have a very different look this year.  The Centre Court, where all the finals are played, now has a retractable roof, which was tested for the first time this past weekend at an exhibition event.  Here are a few interesting factoids:

• The roof is made of a lightweight, flexible fabric called Tenara that can fold up on huge trusses.
• It takes 10 minutes for the roof to close.
• The roof is 16 meters above the court surface, so only the highest lobs are in danger of hitting it.
• The air management system removes condensation from within the bowl and stops the grass sweating. Play can resume 30 minutes after the roof is closed.
• The fabric is 40 percent translucent but the roof will feature 120 lights so that play can continue after dark.
• The new-look Center Court has 15,000 seats, an increase of 1,200, all wider than the previous ones, and padded.
• Matches interrupted by bad light late in the day will be able to finish once the roof is closed and the lights switched on, meaning night tennis at Wimbledon is likely this year.

Smell Ya Later, Sweaty Sports Gear

Any mom assigned to carpool duty for youth sports practice has an appreciation for the pungent power of damp athletic gear. While the shirts and shorts get immediately cleaned in the washing machine, other equipment like bags, helmets, gloves, shoes are normally relegated to the garage whey they continue to stink and collect potentially dangerous bacteria. But fear not, sensitive noses, a fancy dryer from Shock Doctor promises to freshen the most foul.

The Power Dry Blower ($99.99) has options to direct ionized, ozonated and heated air into a full line of Shock Doctor deodorizing bags. The technology claims to kill 99.9% of microbes contributing to staph infections—now a major concern in team sports. Optional attachments allow the dryer to be used with gloves, shoes or boots. The helmet dryer ($129.99), launching this year, provides the same functionality in keeping snowboard, football or motorsports helmets dry and clean. The dryer is quiet enough to be kept in the house while watching television and small enough to fit easily in the broom closet.

As a longtime athlete and coach, I can say, this is a very good thing.

Wear This Underwear And Burn Body Fat

Imagine burning body fat by just wearing your underwear. Japan-based chemistry company Teijin announced the development of underwear that can burn away body fat.  As the fabric hugs the skin, it generates friction resistance that accelerates the fat burning process.

The fabric is based on a polyester nanofiber, which is supposedly very soft and was first made public by Teijin last year. Usually, the so-called Nanofront fibers are used for industrial polishing cloths and are just 700 nanometers in diameter (a strand of hair is 7,500 times thicker). Nanofront is said to be 200,000 times more flexible than conventional polyester fibers (15μm in diameter).

Teijin claims that people who have worn the Nanofront underwear in experiments for 40 consecutive days lowered their body fat by “several percent” and consequently reduced waist size by several centimeters. The company is already in talks with a number of apparel makers and hopes to commercialize its technology as early as in next year’s spring or summer fashion season.

Now this will be interesting...

Winning Time

Have you ever wondered about the technologies that support all those timed events, such as marathons, triathlons, cycling and skiing?  Meet Winning Time, the world leader in chip timing since 1985.  They support over 2,000 events per year in over 20 countries and they are still growing!

They are the timer of some of the world's largest events, including the Lilac Bloomsday Run and the Cape Argus Cycle Tour, each with over 45,000 timed participants. Continually chosen as official partner of Seiko since 1999, Winning Time has timed over 100 IAAF World Championships in Race Walking, Marathons, Cross Country and Road Races.

Timing solutions include both active and passive chip technology and are accurate to one hundredth of a second, even when high density is coupled with top speeds.  If only that was my problem in my race events....

MLB Switch Hits From Silverlight to Flash

Microsoft will no longer play under the bright lights of Major League Baseball, which has decided to throw out the vendor's Silverlight browser add-on in favor of Adobe's Flash.

Major League Baseball's MLB.com Web site had been a marquee account for Microsoft, which shipped the 2.0 version of Silverlight last month and is planning the 3.0 version for delivery next year. MLB.com was a featured presenter at Microsoft's MIX conference in April 2007.

Microsoft did not do themselves any favors with the multi-day video problems that plagued MLB.com's online broadcasting at the opening of the 2008 season in April that had fans fuming.

While the snub from MLB, which will shift to Flash in 2009, is bad press for Microsoft, the company still has the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a customer.  However, with MLB's experience, it sounds like even this is no slam dunk.