Smart Racquets Could Transform Tennis 64
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "L. J. Rick reports at BBC that Babolat has released a tennis racket with gyroscopes, accelerometers, and a piezoelectric sensor in the handle that can assess your every shot, sensing where the ball strikes the racquet and the quality of the contact. ... The sensor can gather data such as ball speed, accuracy, and angle, and will pair the info with devices over Bluetooth or USB. 'We integrated sensors inside the handle of the racquet, but it does not change the specification. And these sensors will analyze your tennis game, so your swing — your motion — and all this information will be collected by the racquet,' says Gael Moureaux. The International Tennis Federation, aware of the growing influx of hi-tech equipment into the sport, has set up a program called Player Analysis Technology (PAT) to regulate such 'virtual coaches' as the Babolat racquet. The governing body wants to be calling the shots on where and how innovation can be used, as in the past it has found itself having to ban some products like the so-called 'spaghetti-strung' racquets (with double stringing that are already on the market and in use. In conjunction with its PAT approval program, the ITF has also brought in a new rule — Rule 31 — to reflect the growing use of connected equipment, and its possible role in tournament play. Approved devices need to be secure and protected against unauthorized access, to prevent 'sporting espionage' whereby data could be stolen. Knowing when an opponent's right hand gets tired during the second set would be a huge advantage. Despite the innovations, one trainer does not think he is in danger of being upstaged by a smart racquet. 'I think that it's great for feedback but you still need someone to analyze it,' says tennis coach says Nik Snapes. 'At the end of the day it's the practice and the ability of someone that makes the player, not necessarily the equipment in their hand.'"
Min-Maxing is Killing Us (Score:4, Interesting)
Min-Maxing like this is destroying our society. Sure, you can spend time straining data to improve your tennis game. But you will either do one of two things:
1) Develop a significant improvement, whihc then forces all other players to jump on the bandwagon of diminishing returns technological statistics to stay competative, driving up the costs and time involved in playing the game or
2) Fail to develop any significant improvement, in which case everyone will still chase these developments but the time and money spent will simply be a complete waste of everyone's time verses mostly being a waste.
In either case, you will certainly have:
A) Ruined the game of tennis for pretty much everyone who plays it.
This is what happens when you Min-Max games, work, life, anything. Sure, you might win. Sure your might improve play. But you will ruin whatever it is you are min-maxing. Somehow, someway, the costs you have added to the activity will end up being bourne by someone.
Min-maxing isn't actually concrete progress. Nothing new or significant is being created here. It's just a reallocation of exisiting finite resources to "win" at a game, or job, or activity of any kind which is still the same. Everyone thinks so much inside the box that they end up breaking it without ever dreaming what life would be like outside the box, or without the box entirely. The quintessential example of this is the computerisation arms races in modern finance.
If you invent a new chemical polymer, or a new aerospace rocket, a new software algorithm, or hell a new kind of sports game, you are actually making progress, advancing humanity however slightly. If you spend all day trying to gain a technological edge in tennis, or shave off a few microcents in the stock market, then you are part of the growing legion of hamster-wheelers, running the world ragged by optimising within constraints instead of finding ways to break out of those constraints entirely.