News
Technology to the service of athletes
Written by administrator on Sunday, 06 November 2011 23:12
Records in sporting events are being broken on a regular basis. Even if the conditions of the athletes is improving, technology is playing its fair share when it comes to breaking those records. From the improved rubber like material for the 100m track, to the swimsuit mimicking the body of a fish to reduce the drag to shoes giving a little bit more "spring" when needed, technology is taking more and more space in professional (and even amateur) sports. A company called Carré Technologies is specializing itself in that field, offering an "intelligent shirt", which monitors the athlete conditions. This allows the coach and the training team to monitor the athlete's performance and to improve the training based on those details. Another company is offering a bluetooth like headset for swimmers, monitoring body temperature and heart rate, transmitting it by wireless to the coach.
If you compare this to F1 cars, which have been using wireless monitoring technology for many years (transmitting 30meg/sec of data back to the pit during the race), we can see why sporting teams are trying to get an edge by applying this technology to their athletes.
Netflix - UX and Convenience predicted 20 years ago but now a reality
Written by Rejean Bourgault on Wednesday, 09 March 2011 22:24
Dear reader, I am a new member of Netflix. Normally, 5Deka tries to stay away from the day to day technologies; however I can't resist on this one. I have to admit that I have been very impressed by the overall quality of the experience from getting the membership and the speed to access to watching my first streamline video with Netflix. Now I understand why Fortune Magazine, in their December 6th 2010 edition called Netflix CEO, Reed Hastings, as the top 2010 Business person of the year.
A few things really amaze me. Getting access to the library took at most 5 minutes from the second I decided to join (no possible comparison to the number of days/weeks required to get Cable or Satellite TV for the first time). The second thing that surprised me was the different options of devices available to access Netflix. We first used our home PC to access it and create our user ID. Then we decided to use our Wii console to access it through our large HDTV (we could also have used our XBox360 or a PS3). Once we were done, my daughter used her MacBook to log into it too. Bottom line in 15 minutes, we had 1 PC, 1 laptop and 1 HDTV connected and ready to watch videos in the comfort of our home.
We started to watch the movie Date Night on our PC that we had seen on the airplane the previous week. We stopped the movie, in the middle of the generic. Once we connected with our Wii later on, we got the option to resume the movie or start it from the beginning. We selected the first option and the movie resumed to the middle of the generic where we stopped it.
5Deka, sees Netflix as a breakthrough in business model, which demonstrates the convergence of multiple technologies that were predicted 20 years ago. This is not surprising that large brick and mortar video rental stores have been going bankrupt for the past few years when you consider the convenience of this solution.
Note: Samsung just introduced a new plasma television which will have a direct Netflix connection, bypassing the need for internet access device, such as a PC, an XBox360, a Wii or a PS3.
The Future is Exciting!
Esquire magazine - Augmented Reality
Written by Olivier Adam on Wednesday, 02 December 2009 20:45
I hope you've had a chance to read our article about Augmented Reality, if not, click here first and then come back after to read this news! Esquire published their last magazine with tons of Augmented Reality features integrated in the magazine. You have markers all over the magazine that pop up a different scene on the screen whenever you put it in front of your computer. You can also have some type of interaction with what happens by moving the magazine in different ways. This is a "cool" use of AR and will definitely make the subject more known toward the masses.. But at the same time, it just reinforces the point that there is little value coming from AR in this type of setting. Yes, it makes the magazine come to life, but nothing that could not be replaced by simple YouTube videos.. Once the novelty value goes away, there will sadly be little benefits left for Esquire, except maybe a small boost in sale for the current issue.
Check it out [here].
Upcoming Trends: Gesture and Full Body Remote Control
Written by Rejean Bourgault on Saturday, 20 June 2009 11:47
For the past year, we have been predicting that Gesture Remote Control will become a big innovation in both gaming and everybody’s life. Earlier in 2009, at the Electronic show in Asia, Gesture Based remote control started to get some attention; with as an example of an application being a remote control for your television set. Where your open hands mean, “turn on the TV”, your closed hands mean “turn off the TV”, thumbs up means change the channel, etc.
In Video Games, the Wii from Nintendo is a form of Gesture remote control, but it is still in its infancy state. A few weeks ago, Microsoft announced its Project Natal for the Xbox 360 video game console; using cameras and full skeletal mapping to track user movements. You could imagine playing tennis in a Virtual world, without any remote control, just by doing the movement of playing tennis, same for any sports or even driving a car. There isn’t a need anymore for having a device in your hands.
We strongly believe, that after the era of gesture and skeletal mapping, the next move in the industry will be full immersion, where in addition to the movement track, bio sensor will monitor your body, including temperature, heart rate, etc. One way to reach full immersion will be to wear a full body immersion suit.
Gesture remote control, Skeletal mapping, Full immersion are all kind of tools used to augment the reality; basically the zone where pure reality as we know today and Virtual Reality overlap.
As we describe in “a year in 2050”, you could imagine, in the future, doing a Walt Disney Monster ride sitting in your living room in a full body immersion suit, and where at the other end, another person or a Robot transmit over the network all the sensations you would be getting if you were physically there. Transmitting the view, the heart rate, sensations, etc. Think about people who are sitting in a wheel chair or in an hospital who might never have the chance to visit a Walt Disney Theme Park in person. The Walt Disney experience will come to them instead...
How will you play tennis in 2083?
Written by Olivier Adam on Monday, 01 June 2009 08:28
Lacoste released, for their 75th anniversary, a very interesting video showcasing how they foresee the future of sport, in this case tennis, 75 years from now. The video shows a player, equipped with a full suit that enhances his strength and give him faster reflexes. His "goggles" give him real time information about the game and enhanced clarity. How much of this we will see in the future? I'm convinced quite a few of these enhancement will appear at one point in the future, the question will be how long it will take before they allow any type of body enhancement in sports. But as soon as one allows it, all the other professional sports will have to allow them as well as they would loose too much of their spectators otherwise.
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