sport

Some companies you can trust, and some you can't

All companies have computer problems, how they deal with them separates the men from the boys.

Netflix

When I was away from home recently for an extended period of time, I tried to change the shipping address on my Netflix account. What should have been trivial became a problem because the Netflix web site made assumptions about the format of the address that didn't apply in my case. Every time I entered the address, their system reformatted it. I could not, for the life of me, figure out how to enter the correct address, so I contacted someone at … Read more

Winklevoss twins advance to Olympic finals

There's been another victory on the water for ConnectU founders Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss--even as their court case against Facebook continues to peter out unfavorably.

The identical twins, representing the United States in the men's pair (M2-) event of the Olympic rowing races in Beijing, placed second in their Wednesday semifinal to advance to the grand final.

At the 500-meter mark, a quarter of the way through the race, the Winklevosses were in fifth place out of the six boats. But they powered through crews from Germany, Serbia, and Italy to cross the finish line just less than … Read more

Winklevoss twins get another Olympic shot

ConnectU founders Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss pulled through in a repechage (second-chance heat) on Monday on the Olympic rowing course in Beijing, where they're representing the United States in the men's pair event.

The identical twins, best-known in the tech world for being two-thirds of the Harvard-founded start-up that foisted an intellectual-property suit upon Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, had failed to immediately qualify for the semifinals in their Saturday heat. They'd placed fifth and needed a third-place finish to qualify. But the repechage offered another chance for them to earn a shot at the semifinals, which take … Read more

ConnectU founders falter in Olympic rowing heat

Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, the identical twins who went from a legal spat with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg to a berth on the Olympic rowing team, didn't do so well in Beijing on Saturday. In the preliminary heat for their event, the men's pair (M2-), they placed fifth out of five boats.

In the 2000-meter course, the twins came in with a time of 7:13.64, behind the fourth-place Polish team with a time of 7:01.90. The top three places were taken by the French, Italian, and Canadian teams respectively.

They were in a tough … Read more

Google brings Olympics updates to mobile phones

Google is making it easier to check up on the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing from your mobile phone.

Searching for any Olympic sport on Google's mobile Web site will bring up, in addition to the regular search results that Google would normally offer, a timetable of Olympic schedules and results for that event. The search also works in 35 other languages, and Google has created an additional mobile Web site as a general repository of Olympic information.

When results start to come in, mobile searches for things like "swimming medals" and "French medal count" … Read more

How to watch the ConnectU founders row in the Olympics

Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss have been in the press a lot recently for being "those guys who sued Facebook." As two of the three founders of ConnectU, they had accused Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg of intellectual property theft long before he was Silicon Valley's youngest billionaire. Unfortunately, courts didn't tend to side with the brothers Winklevoss, largely because the dorm-room start-up didn't have formal paperwork to prove a breach of contract.

That case has been settled (though ConnectU has contested it), and the Winklevosses--a pair of six-foot, five-inch identical twins with a penchant for wearing … Read more

Jeter, Manning join $8.6 million Weplay round

Big-name professional athletes are known for throwing money around almost as much as they throw balls, but it's not every day you hear about them investing in a social-networking site. Youth sports network Weplay, however, is an exception: Derek Jeter, Peyton Manning, and LeBron James have joined its $8.6 million Series B funding round, announced Tuesday.

The round was led by Deep Fork Capital, which has invested recently in mobile networking start-up Moblyng and visual search site SearchMe. In addition to the well-moneyed jocks, existing investor FirstMark Capital contributed.

Weplay's Series A round, announced earlier this year, … Read more

ScoreMobile's iPhone app is a sports fan's savior

Have you ever been forced away from watching your favorite sports team because of some prior obligation, only to find yourself sneaking away to the nearest TV to check on the score? Well, then ScoreMobile's new iPhone app is for you. Essentially, ScoreMobile has taken its already killer iPhone web app and translated it over to a nice downloadable package. Right now, ScoreMobile offers real-time scores and stats for MLB, NBA, NFL, NHL, NCAAF, NCAAB, and even CFL for our Canadian readers.

Even though I have dropped a lot of jaws by showing off the instantaneous video highlights that … Read more

Virtual reality treadmill: Run with a view

With games like Wii Sports and Wii Fit, the concept of combining workout and play is nothing new. But the University of Tsukuba in Japan is pushing the envelope by throwing in a 270-degree wraparound projection screen for an added sense of realism.

Conceived as a physiotherapy waking tool for stroke and related aliment patients, the system comprises three overhead projectors and companion dome mirrors to stitch together an awesome panoramic visual.

The virtual reality treadmill is still in development stage, but we can foresee many more tangible applications once it's materialized--say, military training, home entertainment, and even extreme … Read more