I was contemplating the next technological advance in sports when it dawned on me that RFID is absolutely the next obvious step. As a result I started doing some research and came across a few interesting articles:
RTFA: http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2008/12/aussie_diy_poker…
It may not look it, but the poker table you see in the image above is a high-tech marvel of DIY electronics. Built over the course of about three months and costing about seven grand to make, Andrew Milner’s poker table includes wireless RFID technology inside, RFID tags on a deck of cards, some HD cameras and some self-coded software to output a professional, automated HD video stream of a Texas Hold’em game that can be broadcast either to a TV in his house or over the internet…
AM:I have worked on numerous hi tech projects – I hold a patent on a system that uses RFID to track liquor usage for the hospitality industry…
I’m definitely curious about the RFID tracking of liquor usage. I’m assuming it has something to do with pinpointing the alcoholics at your bar, but I’m not sure. I’ll probably dig through the patent system in the next week or so to find the specific information. On a side note, I recently met an American bartender that was telling me they weigh the liquor at the end of the night to determine if anyone was stealing and how much money the bar should have made for the night… very interesting!
…a Mexican politicianlinks was caught cheating by the technology at a marathon held recently. The initial results showed that Roberto Madrazo who is a former Mexican presidential candidate finished the marathon within an impressive time limit but I think he forgot that RFID time keeping system had an eye on all the runners like a hawk. When the final results were compiled it was found out that he had failed to register at the thirty and thirty five km checkpoints. The initial results had shown that he was even quicker than Haile Gebreselassi who clinched on to the world record title.
As a result he was disqualified from the race and he had to admit that he cheated by taking the shortest route to finish the race. His reputation as a politician was already dented and he experienced the same fate in the field of sports too.
Kudos to RFID for busting a corrupt politician / runner. This is the type of RFID use I want to see in sports. Imagine a tennis game where the ball is tagged with an RFID Chip and the out-of-bounds areas are connected with the ball. There’d be no need for an official review. However, I don’t see much demand for this, as I was watching tennis earlier tonight, the official review was sponsored! What’s the incentive for making the game better? In (American) football, I could imagine having the football, the players’ feet & hands all tagged. That way you could know if the hands were below the football and it was a successful catch, if the players’ feet were out of bounds, and of course where the ball should be placed on every down. The amount of time saved would be significant but again, I see no incentive for this to happen because of the monetary value in delays of the game through advertising. What are your thoughts?
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