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iCard Provides Real-Time Racing Info On GBA
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.
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.
For me, this is the kind of stuff that bluetooth was made for.
For instance: folks that wanted this information could whip out their phone, PDA, laptop, GBA, battery-powered toaster or whatever, look for local data streams, pick "Current Race Info" and have at it. The issue of range could be easily solved by having repeaters and amplified signals. Stuff like this- event or building/region-specific info- could be put on a specific channel for this kind of use.
In addition to live racing info, you could have stats on the racers, the car, their sponsors, etc. This could be something you had in every sport. When I'm in a movie theater, the signal could carry information on when the movie started and ended, so that the morons in the theater that don't turn off their ring have it done for them. When I'm in a building with which I am not familiar, I couuld get maps. All of these things are doable with current hardware- we just need the software. And while a dozen companies create these kind of solutions, each with their own proprietary protocol, hardware and software, we could have it all with one standard.
Other folks bring up a good point: how many folks want to buy a GBA and the card to use this way? Even renting just the card (for GBA owners) or the whole unit seems like a stretch, unless the price was very reasonable. But then again, maybe I'm under estimating racing fans, it's not something I am interested in.
I really wish more phones supported bluetooth. Specifically, the cheap phones, the ones most folks have, the ones that you get free with a plan. That kind of support is needed for it to really take off, IMHO.
Working toward a usable PDA environment in the spirit of Newton OS: Dynapad
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.
:at; stuart5 ;dit: com
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
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.