I’m sure at some point everyone with a pool table has played a game with their hands. You know, by manually rolling the cue ball at your target instead of using a cue stick? Well that’s the only way that Knokkers is designed to be played. But instead of billiard balls it uses bowling balls. And the table? It’s been scaled up 4X its original size, allowing, and requiring, players to stand on it.
The game is the brainchild of Steve Wienecke, a former semi-pro football player and cage fighter, and the first playable version was built in his backyard in Fredericktown, Missouri using loads of railway ties, gravel and of course concrete. The game is played pretty much exactly like standard 8-ball pool, the only real difference is that before your shot you’re allowed to pick up and move the cue ball, though you can’t move your feet once you’ve touched it. Steve is currently working with investors as they design a portable version of the game that doesn’t require a permanent backyard investment, including more durable 6-pound balls that can stand up to the constant collisions experienced during a regular game.
Pioneer’s skunk works is apparently looking to raise the bar when it comes to cyclocomputers. Typically they’re nothing more than a glorified stopwatch you attach to your handlebars which calculates your speed, time and distance traveled. But Pioneer’s developed one that runs on Android paving the way for a cyclocomputer that’s not only way more intelligent, but also displays your details in a far more graphically-enhanced manner.
But what I think will appeal to most cyclists, who spend their time with their eyes on the road anyways, is the wireless sensors Pioneer have also developed which attach to the crank and measure the force of the rider’s pedaling, displaying the results as graphical vectors for each foot. Probably more information than the average rider needs, but I’m sure serious athletes in training will relish all the extra info about their performance.
It seems like golf swing analysis is an industry unto itself with more contraptions available for improving your swing than there are iPhone cases on the CES show floor. But the PocketPro is an incredibly compact alternative that works in conjunction with an iPhone app to provide detailed analysis of your swing, including speed, tempo and the angle at which the club face hits the ball.
All you need to do is attach a small nylon clip to your club, just below the grip, that has a 3-axis digital gyroscope and accelerometer sensors built-in for measuring acceleration and rotation. After a round of golf you transfer the data for all of your swings to your iPhone via Bluetooth, and the PocketPro app recreates the motions using 3D characters so you can see how it looked from a third-person perspective. Now it seems that determining what exactly might be wrong with your swing is up to your own analysis, but the hardware and software seem to provide more data than any golfer could ever need. Coming soon with pricing TBA.
I’m not saying there’s anything particularly wrong with a snowboard you can sit on, in fact it looks like a lot of fun. I just don’t think you’ll be getting recruitment letters from Olympic snowboarding teams, even if you manage to pull off a Tomahawk while never getting off your can. So I suggest letting your dreams of corporate endorsements and gold medal glory go, and just literally sit back and enjoy the ride, particularly if you suck at the real thing. You see the fact that you’re sitting means your body’s center of gravity is lower, so you’re less prone to wipeouts or falls. And since your boots aren’t locked in to bindings, you can easily and safely control your speed by digging your feet into the snow. $49.95 from Hammacher Schlemmer.
Ever dreamed of going through all the training and workouts of an NFL player without the glory of ever actually playing in an NFL game? EA SPORT’s new Active NFL Training Camp game for the Nintendo Wii was developed with the assistance of genuine NFL strength and conditioning coaches so that the 70+ drills designed to improve your strength, balance and agility are as realistic as possible. The game includes a heart rate monitor and a wireless motion tracker that can be strapped to your person to track your progress and your technique, and you can either compete with friends, virtual representations of real NFL stars or other players around the world via EA’s Active online hub where you can post your stats. $99.95 available from EA.
There’s not a whole heck of a lot to get super excited over with these new ActionFit Bluetooth headphones from Philips, unless you intend to use them while building up a sweat. Tech-wise they’re A2DP, AVRCP and Handsfree Headset compatible so you can use them as headphones or for answering/making calls. And a set of mics allows for noise cancelling technologies to do their thing so you can be heard no matter the conditions.
Its built-in lithium-polymer rechargeable battery is good for about 4 1/2 hours of music playback or talk time, with 200 hours of standby time. But the real reason most people will opt for this particular set of Bluetooth headphones is the fact that they’re waterproof and can be rinsed under the tap if you happened to work up a real sweat while wearing them. Headphones, particularly the in-ear variety, can get kind of gross at times, so being able to just dunk the whole kit and caboodle instead of having to carefully remove and clean the silicon caps separately is a real convenience. $129.95, available from Apple or your favorite headphone retailer.
So this one’s a little hard to wrap your head around, but you can think of the Golf Mobile Boomerang as a kind of cross between golf and tether ball. It’s designed to be a portable aid that lets golfers practice and improve their swing without requiring access to an entire course. You won’t be able to use it in your home or office, but in a relatively spacious backyard you should be able to swing away without worrying about your balls rocketing their way through your neighbor’s windows.
The Golf Mobile Boomerang device includes a set of special balls which are all actually tethered to the main unit via a thin filament. So you can not only program the device to limit how far the ball travels, no matter how hard you swing, but they’re also automatically retrieved when the filament is wound back in. And based on how quickly the filament is unraveled when the ball is hit, the GMB can also calculate how far and fast the ball would have traveled were it not tethered, providing golfers with some quantitative data as to how they’re improving their game. Of course golf is most enjoyable when you have a healthy budget because the Golf Mobile Boomerang will set you back $1,242!
I don’t spend a lot of time on the sides of snow-covered mountains with frictionless sticks strapped to my feet, so forgive me if this idea isn’t that new. But I still think it’s rather clever. The Magnestick system is designed to prevent young winter sport enthusiasts from falling off of ski lifts, using a pretty simple idea.
Each child wears a light (just 200g) back protector while on the slopes, which not only protects them from collision injuries, but also features an exposed metal plate on the back. On the ski lift seats you’ll find a set of electromagnets which automatically activate once they make contact with the metal plate, ensuring the rider can’t accidentally fall off even if the safety bar hasn’t been lowered. And the electromagnets don’t deactivate until the rider’s skis touch the ground again at the top of the hill, even if the safety bar has been lifted. According to their website the Magnestick system is already in use in several ski resorts around Europe, but so far in the U.S. only the Alpine Meadows resort in Lake Tahoe has installed one.
Towering over 121 feet in the air (37 meters) and with an overhang of 36 feet (11 meters) the Excalibur at the Klimcentrum Bjoeks(Bjoeks Climb Center) in the town of Groningen, The Netherlands, is considered to be the tallest climbing wall in the world. As long as you don’t take into consideration mountains, cliffs or other man-made structures not specifically designed for climbing. The curved design results in sections that are easy for beginners to tackle, as well as some extremely difficult parts where experienced climbers will literally find themselves hanging.
And the photos of the Excalibur I’ve included were all taken by Flickr user Eric Kieboom who actually used a Canon IXUS 850IS suspended from a kite to grab these most impressive aerial images of the wall.
Related Tags: 
Permalink
