New Florence. New Renaissance.

More exciting hockey broadcasts

Using a chip-based system, the league tracks the puck and players on the ice in a more seamless and comprehensive way than ever before. Marrying the new tracking information with its existing in-house Hockey Information Tracking System (HITS), which tallies all the essentials to properly log and score a hockey game (time-on-ice, face-offs won/lost, shots on goal, missed shots, shot types, penalties, etc.), the league and stats and broadcast-graphics partner SMT are simplifying the packaging and visualization of data in producing on-screen visuals that are both compelling to the viewer and easy to integrate for the producer.

Broadcasters dropped in IDs (or pointers) that followed players, trails of players or the puck, and advanced performance analytics at or close to real time. Even NBC Sports Digital streamed out an alternative version of its broadcast dedicated to showcasing this rich data.

SMT

 

 

Skin based sensors

A new breakthrough out of Tufts University, just published in ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces, could fast-forward us into a new era of wearable electronics that are woven like clothing, and even might be sewn into our skin and organs to track our health.

The scientists developed a transistor out of linen thread. That means the thread can transfer electricity like an insulated wire, be turned on and off instantaneously like a processor, and connect a network of sensors on or inside your body.

Fast Company

Image credit

 

 

Big Data for Farmers

But to help farmers better prepare for the risks of the dramatic climate swings this year, Ford says Land O'Lakes is working with technology and farmer data to provide predictive models that may help farmers understand what to plant, when, and how. To Ford, the advantages of using compilations of predictive models, satellite imagery, and drone information has never been more important in the U.S. than it's been this year.

But it isn't only farmers in need of this data. Menker says that everyone from companies to banks to even commodity traders need this data to better prepare for the inevitable "extreme shifts" created by climate changes.

Fortune

 

 

Tracking the hotel shuttle

For anyone who frequents airport hotels, one of your biggest frustrations may be locating (or waiting for) the complimentary shuttle to a given property. You may frantically rush outside only to stand outside for 20 minutes — sweating or shivering — when you could’ve casually grabbed a snack or cup of coffee en route to your designated pick-up location. In some cases, travelers may forgo the free ride entirely and order an Uber or Lyft instead of attempting to deal with the headache.

Sensing these woes, one major program is moving in a direction to remove this confusion. As first reported by the Wall Street Journal, Marriott is now offering shuttle tracking at 15 of its hotels, with plans to roll out the availability to 200 total by year end. The new feature — which can be accessed via the Marriott app — offers patrons the ability to see exactly where a shuttle is located as well as its estimated arrival time and distance.

The Points Guy

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5G - the rural advantage?

People living in six major cities are now able to access the UK's first 5G network for the first time.

But the latest superfast technology has already been available for months - to islanders in Orkney, farmers in Shropshire, and some cows in Somerset.

They have been taking part in a trial, part funded by the UK government, which is designed to make the case for investment in areas without lots of customers.

5G Rural First is being delivered by a consortium of more than 30 partners, including tech companies, universities and the BBC.

In Shropshire, researchers have been running what's known as a hands-free hectare, with a drone and a tractor operating autonomously using data sent over 5G to farm a field.

BBC.com

 

 

 

Are shipwreck discoveries becoming easier?

Coupled with other underwater survey systems and GPS, this allows explorers to quickly and accurately map the scene below. Mapping data can then be run through software to detect anomalous undersea structures, like ship hulls, superstructures, and gun turrets, identifying possible wrecks. If the software finds something interesting, the crew can send an AUV equipped with a camera down to investigate up close.

Armed with these tools, explorers can close the book on mysteries decades long, writing a final chapter in the history of a ship, its crew, or sea battle. They can also bring closure to families of lost sailors, particularly those of the San Juan, who now have a location for their loved ones’ final resting place.

Popular Mechanics

The wreck of the Japanese battleship Hiei, sunk on November 14, 1942, was located in the Iron Bottom Sound by R/V Petrel. Watch video from more than 1000 meters below the sea.

 

 

AR for Walking Directions

Augmented reality is coming to Google Maps.

The point of the new feature is to help you orient yourself when you're following a walking map. It also helps to solve a common annoyance in many big cities: You get out of a subway and you have no idea which way you're facing, so you wait for the little blue dot on the Maps app to point you in the right direction.

CNET

Smart Cricket Ball

The chip inside the core transmits information from the ball back to a smartwatch, phone or tablet app. So a bowler will be able to derive a lot of information about the delivery as soon as the ball is bowled. It promises to give not only fundamental information like the speed or degree of turn but minute details like the revvs the bowler has imparted (in case he is a spinner), besides speed at the time of release, when it’s pitching and after it has pitched. As of now, the speed-guns can only measure the speed at which the ball lands and not the momentum it gains or losses after it has bounced. The smart-ball would, according to the makers, give the exact degree of bounce, drift, swing, and dip. Currently, there is one speed and revolution figure that is used when a ball is bowled — and that comes from a fixed stationary radar that sees a speed reading recorded at the same point regardless of the height of the bowler or their delivery plane. Such details would considerably help data analytics and coaching, besides enhancing the viewer experience.

The manufacturers believe that it could benefit the umpires as it could register even the faintest of nicks. Though Snicko and Hotspot are commonly used, there have been instances of the Snicko not registering any spike despite apparent deviation and vice versa. Another contentious issue pertains to low catches, where even the ultra-magnifier can’t definitively clarify whether the catcher had his fingers wrapped under the balls or has grassed it.

Indian Express

 

 

 

Self-healing Maps

Keeping maps updated in over 200 countries is hard—so the team had to pivot from just making maps to something more meta. “We needed to start making the machine that makes the map,” Lookingbill explains.

The way this is happening is through machine learning algorithms that are good enough to take imagery—like the pictures produced by those street view cars, or from satellites—extract the information they need from them, and then update the map. That information is likely data such as the name of a road, a house number, or the shape of a building seen from above. Google has boasted about this topic before: a 2017 blog post describes their efforts creating an algorithm that can read street names in France and mentions that algorithms like that could update addresses on the map.

Popular Science

another version of self-healing from Here HD for autonomous cars

 

 

The mesmerizing world of optical sorting

Optical sorters, using digital cameras, lasers, sensors and AI are increasingly used in the food, farming, pharma and increasingly waste management sectors to automate the tedious tasks of sorting, anomaly detection and quality assurance.

While the tasks are tedious, when you watch them at high speed, the motions and colors become, well - works of art

Here's a tomato color sorting machine from Weco

Here is anomaly detection in a variety of use cases using equipment from Tomra