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Microsoft extends NFL deal for Surface on the sidelines
About five years ago, Microsoft scored a $400 million deal to supply the NFL with Surface tablets. With the deal about to expire, the football league just renewed its partnership for the sideline tech with Microsoft for another year, according to a report at SportsPro.
Refs will wear GoPros for Fox's Big Ten championship broadcast
During this weekend's Big Ten football championship game, Fox Sports will offer fans a different kind of on-field views during its coverage of the match-up. When Wisconsin and Penn State take the field Saturday, December 3rd, referees will be wearing hats equipped with GoPros to give fans another perspective of the action on the gridiron. The network says it worked alongside GoPro and Big Ten officials on a hat that would capture footage it could use immediately during its broadcast.
Spanish researchers to train FIFA referees on calling plays with stereoscopic 3D, won't help catch dives
Spain might be on Cloud Nine after clinching victory in UEFA's Euro 2012, but a team at the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid isn't resting easy. To help referees know when they should blow the whistle, researchers have recorded 500 simulated offside soccer (yes, football) plays in stereoscopic 3D to give refs a more immersive sense of what it's like to make the call on the pitch. The hope is to have FIFA more quickly and accurately stopping play without having to spend too much actual time on the grass. We don't yet know how many referees if any will be trained on the system by the 2014 World Cup, or if it will spread to other leagues -- what we do know is that no amount of extra immersion is needed to catch a theatrically fake injury.
Baseball umps cite HDTV, SportsCenter for changing the way games are called
While we were just getting used to the football, hockey and basketball offseason, baseball umpires have piqued or interest with a statement that HDTV has changed the game. Now that viewers at home (& in the stands) have high res screens and feeds, not to mention DVRs to go frame by frame as many times it pleases them and constant replays on SportsCenter it's changed the way they call close plays on the base paths. Of course, we don't think that calling the game more accurately within the rules is a bad thing, but as this week's dustup involving Derek Jeter showed, not everyone has gotten the message, we're thinking a HD replay booth may be in order. Any longtime baseball fans noticed games getting called tighter over the last decade or so?
