Slashdot Mirror
Smart Racquets Could Transform Tennis
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "L. J. Rick reports at BBC that Babolat has released a tennis racket with gyroscopes, accelerometers, and a piezoelectric sensor in the handle that can assess your every shot, sensing where the ball strikes the racquet and the quality of the contact. ... The sensor can gather data such as ball speed, accuracy, and angle, and will pair the info with devices over Bluetooth or USB. 'We integrated sensors inside the handle of the racquet, but it does not change the specification. And these sensors will analyze your tennis game, so your swing — your motion — and all this information will be collected by the racquet,' says Gael Moureaux. The International Tennis Federation, aware of the growing influx of hi-tech equipment into the sport, has set up a program called Player Analysis Technology (PAT) to regulate such 'virtual coaches' as the Babolat racquet. The governing body wants to be calling the shots on where and how innovation can be used, as in the past it has found itself having to ban some products like the so-called 'spaghetti-strung' racquets (with double stringing that are already on the market and in use. In conjunction with its PAT approval program, the ITF has also brought in a new rule — Rule 31 — to reflect the growing use of connected equipment, and its possible role in tournament play. Approved devices need to be secure and protected against unauthorized access, to prevent 'sporting espionage' whereby data could be stolen. Knowing when an opponent's right hand gets tired during the second set would be a huge advantage. Despite the innovations, one trainer does not think he is in danger of being upstaged by a smart racquet. 'I think that it's great for feedback but you still need someone to analyze it,' says tennis coach says Nik Snapes. 'At the end of the day it's the practice and the ability of someone that makes the player, not necessarily the equipment in their hand.'"
Just put a robot on either side of the fence and let them hit shots backwards and forwards with 100% accuracy. Then try and work out where the audience disappears to.
Why not? Tennis has always been about sending stuff over the net.
Thankyouverymuch!
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Get rid of ALL electronic aids. Any technology should be purely materials though I'd be tempted to limit those too. I know money talks but it would be nice if just occasionally the people running various sporting bodies remembered that its supposed to be about man (or woman) against man.
This is great news for amateur players who can't afford to hire a personal coach.
Min-Maxing like this is destroying our society. Sure, you can spend time straining data to improve your tennis game. But you will either do one of two things:
1) Develop a significant improvement, whihc then forces all other players to jump on the bandwagon of diminishing returns technological statistics to stay competative, driving up the costs and time involved in playing the game or
2) Fail to develop any significant improvement, in which case everyone will still chase these developments but the time and money spent will simply be a complete waste of everyone's time verses mostly being a waste.
In either case, you will certainly have:
A) Ruined the game of tennis for pretty much everyone who plays it.
This is what happens when you Min-Max games, work, life, anything. Sure, you might win. Sure your might improve play. But you will ruin whatever it is you are min-maxing. Somehow, someway, the costs you have added to the activity will end up being bourne by someone.
Min-maxing isn't actually concrete progress. Nothing new or significant is being created here. It's just a reallocation of exisiting finite resources to "win" at a game, or job, or activity of any kind which is still the same. Everyone thinks so much inside the box that they end up breaking it without ever dreaming what life would be like outside the box, or without the box entirely. The quintessential example of this is the computerisation arms races in modern finance.
If you invent a new chemical polymer, or a new aerospace rocket, a new software algorithm, or hell a new kind of sports game, you are actually making progress, advancing humanity however slightly. If you spend all day trying to gain a technological edge in tennis, or shave off a few microcents in the stock market, then you are part of the growing legion of hamster-wheelers, running the world ragged by optimising within constraints instead of finding ways to break out of those constraints entirely.
May the Maths Be with you!
Will it stop the ridiculous screaming? It really makes it comical and unbearable to watch.
So... not unlike Rule 34, then...
Koans and fables for the software engineer
I'm an avid cyclist and ride lots of miles per year. No computer. No electronics. No power meter. No GPS. No nothing.
I don't bother with "group rides" anymore because, well for starters I'm sick and tired of the "I'm Lance" crowd always biking off and riding like dicks - but they all have one thing in common - they're quite figuratively buried in electronic gadgets and spend 90% of their time on the ride staring down at a computer display and shouting out numbers at each other in some sort of ersatz dick-measuring contest to see who's is "putting out more watts!"
This obsession with electronics in sport is ruining sport. It's no longer sport. It's my computer versus your computer.