Amazing Tech in America's Cup

As a lover of amazing tech, I have been quite smitten by the America's Cup coverage.  There is of course lots of great new tech used in the boats like carbon-fibre hydrofoils and faster-than-the-wind speeds that I'll elaborate on in a future post,  but first I want to highlight the tech I've noticed in the video coverage, onboard the boats, and the interactive spectator apps.

Like so many things - it's best to start with a picture:

The lines on the water aren't there in the real world of course, but in the video feed they are overlaid & updated live.   This makes watching so much more interactive - for instance the speed of each boat is shown, and if you look closely there is a faint track that shows where the Italian boat has just been.

The significant lines for the course are shown to make it easy to understand where the course is - details like the circles around the marks/buoys, the distance lines, and faintly to the right of the screen is a wide line that indicates the course boundary.  Obtaining all this information in real time and then plotting it on the screen in a way that is unobtrusive, informative, and tasteful is amazing to see so well done.

Dirty Wind

The green lines are implemented with GPS transponders on the boats that relay the exact position, boat speed, and many other parameters back to the central race-control and television computers.

An example of an additional parameter the race-control & television computers have at their disposal is the wind speed and direction.  Combined with computer models of how the wind flows around the sails results in the amazing visualization of 'dirty-wind' shown below.  Dirty wind is air flow that is disturbed by the upwind sail and as a result will transfer less power to a boat downwind of the disturbances.   Here is how it looks in the video coverage with the blue enhancements from the Italian boat that are close to disturbing the Swedish boat.

Live On-board Cameras

Not content to watch from the many helicopters that are circling the boats, there are several onboard cameras (with windshield wipers) to give great shots of the action up close.  Audio from the crew communication systems (essential at the 80km/h speeds they are travelling) is patched in to the coverage, which brings us even closer to the action. Here is a great shot of the Italian team flying on their foils on a downwind leg:

Companion iPad App

I mentioned spectator apps.  As you might expect from San Francisco & the Silicon Valley Tech Titan - Larry Ellison - who deserves credit for the vision and funding of so much of this year's America's Cup, there are companion iPhone & iPad apps for spectators.  They are useful as aggregators of news, video footage, schedules, and results.

Not content with just those functions, the telemetry of each race is used to create a video-game like representation of the actual race that you can follow along with live, or once the races have been uploaded to youtube.  They call it 'Virtual Eye', and you can see how much it looks like exactly like the overlays in the television coverage.  The side bar at left allows you to add additional information that they don't normally complicate the television coverage with.

It's amazing, a real, usable example of interactive, second-screen television that adds to the experience of watching the event.

If you haven't seen one of the races yet - download the iPad app & follow along, or watch this recent race between Italy & Sweden I'm not regularly a sports-fan, but I've sure been enjoying the America's Cup this year.

My First Ride in a Tesla Model S

Had my first ride in a Tesla a few days ago, and as you might expect - I was pretty thrilled.  So much so that I thought I would capture a few of the aspects that impressed me most.

Amazing Screens & Software

You might expect from my post about the cons of dashboard screens in cars that this wouldn't be at the top of my list.  I maintain that these screens will be obsolete before the car has served it's useful life of 10 years or so, but I was definitely marvelled by these beauties.

The centre screen is a 17" glass covered touch screen that looks, feels, and responds iPad like (in my brief experience)  The resolution is excellent, and the software finely crafted.    The most quintessential wow moment?  Opening the sunroof by swiping a picture of it in the desired opening direction, and having it animate along with the physical roof.   Intuitive, effective, and well executed.

Swappable Batteries

This is my favourite new fact about the Model S.  Announced last week, the battery can be swapped out by an automated system in 90 seconds - faster than it takes to fill a gas tank.    The video below shows it in action.




I think this is exciting because without swappable batteries, electric cars will only be suitable as a second car for around town for the foreseeable future.

Gasoline is very energy dense, much more so than batteries. For example:

Smallish Gas Tank = 50 Litres of gasoline = 1.7 GigaJoules = 472 kWh
This is about how much your clothes dryer uses in a year.

For comparison - a small Tesla S battery = 60 kWh.

To charge the small Tesla S battery in 1 hour would take 100 Amps at 600 Volts.  This is quite a draw - a significant industrial machine with big throw switches uses this sort of power.

To charge it in 5 minutes would require:
100 Amps at 7200 Volts = 720 kW
This is the kind of wallop you get when a lightning strike hits, or is drawn daily by a pretty large office building.

There are plenty of chemical reasons why current battery technologies don't charge that fast, but you can imagine it will be quite a while before the electrical grid is able to deliver this type of capacity.

Smooth & Quiet

I'm sure it has been written more eloquently elsewhere just how smooth and quiet the ride is in the Tesla S, but it's one of those experience-it-to-understand it things.  No gears to switch through, no electric whine, just a smooth, solid ride.

Trunk and Bonnet Space Galore

The electric motor is compactly positioned in the rear of the car.  That leaves all the space the engine used to take up under the hood and plenty of space in the rear as well.  You might have imagined this would be the case, but it really is amazing to see.

The engine, the radiator & cooling system, exhaust system, and especially the transmission take up a lot of room in a combustion-engined car.  With these systems gone, there is all the room in the front of the car for storage, and inside the car where the hump from the transmission is usually - is eerily, but pleasantly empty.

Great Tech at Vancouver Nighthawks First Game

The Nighthawks - Vancouver's new professional ultimate frisbee team - had their first game this past Saturday at UBC's Thunderbird Stadium.   It was a great night - beer in the stands, an energetic crowd of a thousand or so, good friends, and of course an exciting game to watch.  I am looking forward to going again soon!

What was also fun was the great tech the Nighthawks and the Major League Ultimate organization have employed to put on the show.   I thought I would itemize some of the tech I noticed:

Slick ticketing from TicketLeap 

This is the first time I've seen or heard of Ticketleap and it worked really well for me.  Online ticket purchase, with a discount code an hour prior to the game.  The tickets were really one-time use QRCodes - one of them is at right.   I took a screen-shot on my iPad, and sent it to my iPhone for easier use later.   Their digital nature came in very handy when our party was split up enroute - I was able to just email the other people their tickets.  The future has finally arrived!

Ticket Entry System: An App from Ticketleap

I wasn't totally sure how it was going to work out when we got there, but sure enough the admission system worked well.  They had an iPhone at the entry gate running the Ticketleap app.  The camera on the phone recognized the QR code and confirmed our tickets.  Smooth, efficient, and you have to admit - pretty cool.

Square - For Souvenir Purchases

True to the technology-on-parade spirit, when it came to buying a few souvenirs later, out came the iPhone as soon as I produced my credit card.   Square is a neat system from the founder of Twitter, that was released in Canada 6 months or so ago, but this is the first time I've actually bought something with it. Your credit card is scanned by a little attachment to the phone, you do your signature on the touchscreen, and voila - your money is spent.

Live Streaming

For the away games, Major League Ultimate is streaming games live - for laptops and iPads alike.  It has been a bit glitchy so far, but the promise is exciting. 

Quadricopter with HD Camera

By far the most fun piece of tech was the quadricopter flying around the field, working on getting some close-in  aerial footage of the game.   They were playing it fairly cautious for this first game, but you can see it in the top left of this photo: 

What's so cool about quadricopters?  Check out this video of two autonomous quadricopters juggling.

Those were the coolest pieces of tech I noticed, but feel free to mention others in the comments if you are so inclined.  Also a quick shout-out to star player #45 - Allan Cowan - who is the main reason I made it to the game.  He had some pivotal plays on Saturday night, and his wife & kids were a cheering up a storm!

Update 1-May-2013: It was a hexa-copter (6 propellers) not a quadricopter, and here is footage from it with #45 Allan Cowan hucking for the goal.