badminton
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BBC to stream 1,000 extra hours of live sport each year
The BBC continues to reduce the amount of public money it spends, it's led to some notable sporting events being cut from its programming. It's already been forced to drop the rights to big-name British golfing tournaments, Formula 1 and perhaps the most prestigious global sporting event of all: the Olympics (although it has since agreed a sub-licencing deal with Discovery-owned Eurosport). Instead, the corporation has focused on sports that it believes are most valuable to licence fee payers, including Wimbledon tennis and Six Nations rugby. Expanding that commitment, the BBC today announced "its biggest increase of live sport in a generation," confirming that will add 1,000 extra hours of live sport to the BBC Sport and iPlayer websites each year.
ICYMI: 3D-printed, autonomous bus starts shuttling people
try{document.getElementById("aol-cms-player-1").style.display="none";}catch(e){}Today on In Case You Missed It: Local Motors is testing a self-driving, electric mini-bus that lets passengers communicate with the bus about the weather and where they're located as they are shuttled from one part of town to another. The bus was conceived just a few months ago but is already running in Maryland. The company plans to bring more buses to other cities, like Copenhagen and Las Vegas, soon. Meanwhile bone conduction headphones are being reimagined to be more wearable, with both a sunglasses option and helmet version up for grabs online. We also wanted to show you video of the robot badminton player because it's pretty amazing. As always, please share any interesting tech or science videos you find by using the #ICYMI hashtag on Twitter for @mskerryd.
Badminton Player's Diary: more than a backyard game
Badminton became an Olympic sport in 1992 and is extremely popular in most of Asia. Here in the United States the game is viewed as more of a recreational activity for a summer's afternoon in the backyard or at a picnic. However thousands of people across America do participate in badminton as a competitive sport and this new app is intended for them. Badminton Player's Diary Coaching App is free and made for just your iPad. It requires iOS 6.1 or later. The app is intended to be used by a third party viewing a match and tracking one or both of the players involved. The person using the app charts each shot during the match and is able at any time to check out the statistics of each player. All strokes are recorded in real time and are separated into attacking strokes or non-attacking strokes. They each receive a different designation in the app so it is easy to tell at the end of a rally or match which player was the aggressor. The app user just taps on the screen showing where the shot ended up. When a rally ends, the user can designate whether the stroke that ended the ended it was a forced or unforced error resulting in the shuttlecock going over the line or into the net. At any time the user can look at the game and match statistics and see just where all the shots were placed, whether they were attacking or defensive, and the result, part of a rally, a winner, out of bounds, or into the net. Badminton Player's Diary also makes recommendations on how each player can improve his or her strategy during the game in terms of attacking or location of the strokes. However to get this information you need to make a $0.99 in-app purchase. It appears you would need to make this purchase for each match. If you do buy the recommendations, you will receive three actions supposed to help that player improve his game. If you tap on each recommendation you get a graphic visualization of how to implement the suggestion. The app is simple to operate. You use a drop down menu to add players and to start new matches. You can then save both the matches and players so the players can be used again and the matches for review. I have only played badminton as a diversion but I can see how Badminton Player's Diary Coaching App could assist competitive players. It would be helpful to see if all your shots were to one side or the other of the court or if all your misses were to your backhand. Since the app is free it is worth trying and maybe you can end up in the Olympics some day.
Wii Fanboy hands-on: Deca Sports
Imagine our delight when we had a brown envelope from Hudson sitting on our doorstep Friday afternoon. As we opened the parcel up, we found the above items: a preview copy of Deca Sports and this sweet little wristband. Huzzah!But, woe was us for we would not be able to just play and selfishly enjoy the four available sports on the demo disc by our lonesome (or with some friends). Oh no, we have a job and have to let our readers know what we think. So that's what we did. But, we didn't just settle for playing the included sports and writing up a preview. No, instead we decided that we'd do a nice little video for you. And for all of you who enjoy reading things, we wrote up our opinions as well.So head on past the break for our hands-on look at Deca Sports for the Wii!%Gallery-7109%
Summer Sports on the Wii > summer sports in the winter
Destineer's bold new ad campaign says what we're all afraid to: playing croquet in the snow is pretty terrible. The latest trailers for Summer Sports: Paradise Island use a bleak, desolate winter environment (sorry if you live wherever that was filmed!) to draw a contrast between the real world, where it is sometimes cold, and the game world, where it's always a lovely time to play some badminton. We must admit, we're a lot more enthused about fake croquet after seeing it next to real snow croquet. Two more trailers follow after the break! Let them out into the light (by watching them!)
Summer Sports reminds us how weird sports are
Badminton: it's like tennis, except the racquet is smaller and the ball doesn't work. What is the deal with badminton? Who decided that a racquetball would be better with a tail?Horseshoes is an equally bizarre game. At some point in history, someone saw a pile of metal things made to nailed to horses' hooves and thought "Hey, I bet it would be fun to throw those at a pole!" Now, specialized horseshoes are made specifically for being thrown at a pole.Summer Sports includes both of these freaky pastimes. A video of the horseshoes game in action follows.
A Wii remote strapped onto a badminton racket
As far as ghetto mods go, this one certainly takes the cake. So if you loaded up Wii Fanboy today with the intention of procuring a slice of cake, you're out of luck.Acidmods forumer Gene0514 escaped the plastic tyranny of cheaply-made remote attachments from dubious Chinese manufacturers by creating his own Wii-Sports-Tennis-compatible racket. There's nothing hi-tech about its construction; he basically just "secured" a controller onto a badminton racket with rubber bands. Even with the wrist strap fastened onto the handle, we can't imagine Nintendo ever condoning anything as precariously-fashioned as this for its games.Swing past the post break for more photos of the setup and its v2 model, a remote belted onto an actual tennis racket.
