Thursday, June 18. 2009

LBS Apps for Wimbledon, U.S. Open

IBM is a partner in Wimbledon, so it makes sense it's offering mobile apps to support the event. One is not that interesting (tweet aggregator) but another is: an Android "augmented reality" app that provides information based on where you are (point phone at court, what court it is, who is playing there now and in future, etc.). The best feature: live data from the scoring center and IBM scouts at the venue. Video after the jump.

- Stuff.tv

A free version of Golfshot for Bethpage State Park Golf Course BLACK, home of this year's U.S. Open feature imagery and GPS-based distance to the hole for those live on the course and in preview mode for those at home. If this is meant for tracking the event, it really has to include real time coverage.

- press release

In running the best you typically can do is track runner's progress via text. That's only vaguely helpful for say, someone looking to "find" their runner at mile 18.6 of a marathon. Each year a dedicated team from my club attempts to support our teammates by providing them fluids/nutrition and the best we can do is expect them based on who passed before them. Ideally, I'd want an estimate based on their pace, of when they'll pass where I am. I'd also like a regularly updated leader board. It took quite some time at Boston for word to filter back to us that Ryan and Kara each took third. During my first Boston Marathon my brother and family went home because they thought I'd dropped out based on SMS from the automated system. I hadn't.

Posted by Adena Schutzberg in LBS at 06:29 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) |