Cricket
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Cricket rolls out unlimited messaging on all plans
Leap Wireless' Cricket regional carrier is the latest carrier to add unlimited goodies to its plans -- and with Sprint getting into the game on multiple fronts, the timing seems impeccable. The deal seems pretty solid, too, with plans ranging from $35 for unlimited SMS, MMS, and local anytime minutes all the way up to $60 for home calling across all Cricket markets, 200 roaming minutes, and some other goodies like voicemail. Yeah, we said it, voicemail; in other words, Cricket's going to nickel and dime you a little bit, but still -- just $35 for unlimited texting and picture messaging is a steal in our books.[Via Yakety Mobility Blog]
Cricket team preps for World Cup with iPods
We've seen iPods used to help major league baseball players improve their swings, and medical students enhance their stethoscope skills. Now, England's Cricket team has adopted the little players as well.Players have been reviewing bowling actions - both their own as well as their competitors' - on video iPods in preparation for big matches. Rueters describes player Liam Plunkett as being "...glued to the tiny iPod screen..." as he watches the training videos. I imagine the practice of watching film is much more pleasant when you can do it whenever and where ever you wish.
UEFA Champions League demo and cricket
Up on the XBLM today is a demo for UEFA Champions League 2006-2007. This (for those of you who don't know) is the sport that the US calls soccer, but we're certain the Union of European Football Associations calls it ... football. Not a big deal, other than the demo's actual size which Major Nelson lists at 1.32MB. We're thinking it's more around the 1.32GB size, otherwise we'd be getting a demo flashing the UEFA logo on the screen. Also up for download for our Australian and New Zealand readers is some Ricky Cricket, and our UK and Ireland friends can download their Brian Cricket. See, everyone gets a demo today, whether its cricket, football, or soccer.
Cricket bowling machine masters spin and swing, but not spitballs
With America almost done fielding its entire robotic baseball team (so far we've got a hitter, shortstop, and a catcher), researchers over in Britain knew that they'd better "get on the ball" and start working on some improved cricketbots in order to keep up in this roboathlete arms race. After two years of hard work and many frail scientists getting pegged by errant cricket balls, professors and students at Loughborough University have finally perfected the latest automated bowler (that's cricket's version of the pitcher) which is able to put any combination of spin and swing on the ball. The machine achieves this human-like feat through a two-part system composed of spinning wheels and corkscrew rifling down the barrel, and is so adept at mimicking professional bowlers that it can recreate the so-called "ball of the century," a 1993 delivery by Shane Warne that made nearly a 90-degree turn between the leg stump and the batter's off-stump (we don't really understand it either, but apparently it was quite an achievement). Up next for the Loughborough team is adding a visual element to their bot, wherein the projection of a human bowler would appear in front of the machine in order to make training sessions that much more realistic. When asked what it thought it about the latest and greatest in automated English projectile hurling, the robotic welly-wanger we recently featured paused for a second, took a sip from its pint of Guinness Boddington's, and slurred, "Bollocks to that bloody twit -- I'll load up a welly and kick its arse."
