Sports Technology?

An anonymous reader writes "With the 90th Tour de France starting today, it is fun to marvel at the improvement of road bike technology over the years. Like others, I have traded up from heavy steel to aluminum, and now carbon fiber, ending up with a bike far better than its rider. How have advances in sports technology enhanced your own performance and enjoyment of sport?"

Comments

Technology can go too far... Or not far enough.

[caferace]

F1 cars are made out of Unobtanium. Is that cool? Sure.

Using a bunch of SGI boxes to make a hockey puck look like a comet? Uncool.

It all depends on how it's meted out. I mean, we're talking about the melding of man and machine here, for the most part. I doubt anyone on Slashdot is going to complain about that, unless you are one of those people that are freaked out about genetically modified corn seed. But I digress.

I've got a garage full of Kevlar and Carbon fiber, and all sorts of trick chemicals to do some pretty cool things with it. However, I'm most amazed at the *design* behind technology in sports. It's not enough to have the materials to make something that can outperform a lesser material like wood, metal or even bone. It's the *way* in which it is applied.

My experience is mostly around Motor Sports, and that background is 80 years deep in my family. Hell, my Mom used to race. My last *name* is Race.

All that, and I race in basically a production class. I make the trick bits for other people.

Technology in sport...

[WIAKywbfatw]

From a fan's perspective:

MLB: K-Zone - see the balls and strikes clearly.
MLB: dead-straight camera - judge the strike zone with the naked eye more clearly.
NFL: overlayed first down marker - see where the ball needs to go clearly.
Football (soccer if you must): more cameras - a multitude of viewing angles including in goal cameras.
Cricket: stumpcam - see the ball coming from inside the middle stump.
Cricket: overlayed stump lines - judge LBW decisions more clearly.
Cricket: super magnified replays - see and hear close nicks more clearly.
Formula One: in car cameras - see what the driver sees in real-time.

But the best sporting technical innovation: scores displayed permanently in the top left corner of your TV picture. We take it for granted nowadays but there was a time that you had to wait for the commentator to tell you what the scoreline was - how annoying was that?

There are others but these are the ones that most improve my enjoyment of sports.