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iCard Provides Real-Time Racing Info On GBA

Posted by simoniker on from the better-than-sewing-machine dept.

garfnodie writes "A company has started offering for rent or purchase a device, called iCard, which, when hooked up the Nintendo Game Boy Advance can give you real-time information about your favorite racers at popular car racing events, such as National Hot Rod Association(NHRA) or Le Mans. The official iCard site has more information." Although this interesting idea debuted a couple of months back, press coverage on it seems to have been light.

4 of 21 comments (clear)

  1. Racing? by Senator+Bozo · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Personally I don't think the target democraphic of the Gameboy Advance are avid fans of the 2004 NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series. I'd be very surprised if they sold more than 5000 of these things.

    1. Re:Racing? by ripler · · Score: 2, Interesting


      Rental Prices from the linked article:

      "The iCard will be available to rent or purchase at the remaining 2004 NHRA national events. The rental cost will be $10 on Thursday and Friday, and $5 for the Nintendo GameBoy unit to run the iCard System. On Saturday and Sunday the iCard System is available to rent for $20 with the GameBoy costing $10. Thursday and Friday iCard rentals will be free if a customer brings their own GameBoy unit to the event. The iCard System can be purchased for $129.99 for the Standard iCard, or $199.95 for the iCard Pro model. "

      Sounds pretty reasonable to me. As an SCCA member, I was pretty excited to see my region on the list. I'll have to see how this is going, but I may need to buy me a GBA.

  2. Linux Client for USB Version - Help Wanted by computersareevil · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I've had personal contact with the principals at iCard in the last month, and they sounded open to the idea of helping the Open Source community build a Linux application for their USB version.

    The USB version connects to a laptop for broader information display and the ability to archive lap times. This is really useful for club racers and pro racing teams. (I'm a club racer, and this information is invaluable for getting faster.)

    There is currently only a Winders version, with no plans for Linux. They may be willing to share the protocol if we can present a serious development team.

    Anybody interested? slashdot.org :at; stuart5 ;dit: com

  3. You're smoking crack, dude by nick_danger · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I saw one of these in action at Summit Point Racew^h^h^h^h^h Motorsports Park this past weekend. This gizmo provides live T&S just like you get on-line for the pro races. It's really sweet. The club racers (there's a lot of us out there) are buying this up like crazy. It's already being used in FranAm and I'm sure once it proves itself there, it will be adopted for NASCAR and other series. 5000 units? They'll do that the first NASCAR weekend it's used.