Tech geeks turned jocks are teaming up for the second season of co-ed softball in the IT Sports League. Organizer Steve Mayeda said league popularity has taken off, and after having four teams compete in the inaugural season, he already has sign-ups and interest from several companies in the Seattle area, including WhitePages, TINYPulse/Avvo, WTIA, SimplyMeasured, DomainTools and Quantum. Simply Measured, the Seattle-based social analytics company, beat TINYPulse/Avvo 15-9 in the championship game last summer. TINYPulse/Avvo managed to grab a title in the league’s dodgeball competition. Softball starts June 5 and teams play every week for nine weeks, with a year-end playoff and party on… Read More
Caddies are trying to make a comeback — albeit in a virtual way. Arccos, a Stamford, Conn.-based startup that builds golf-shot tracking technology, today announced a new product in partnership with Microsoft that aims to help golfers score better on the course. Called Arccos Caddie, the new software is built into Arccos 360, the company’s mobile app that pairs with sensors attached to the butt of a club grip and tracks each shot during a round while providing GPS-powered yardage information. Arccos Caddie takes the app up another level with artificial intelligence and machine learning from Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform and Azure Machine Learning. The… Read More
Humans have still yet to break the 2-hour marathon mark, but they’re getting close with the help of sports science and technology innovation. Nike’s attempt to break the record fell just short on Saturday, as world-class Kenyan marathoner Eliud Kipchoge ran 26 miles in 2 hours and 25 seconds as part of a laboratory test of sorts that doubled as a marketing play by Nike. Called Breaking2, Nike worked for two years to prepare for Saturday’s race, investing time and money into research related to shoes, training, nutrition, recovery, and other elements of long-distance running. Nike, headquartered just outside Portland, Ore., streamed the race… Read More
NEW ORLEANS — Terrell Owens, the former NFL wide receiver known to many fans as T.O., dropped by the Collision media and technology conference this week to offer advice on how professional football players should conduct themselves online and provide his perspective on fitness technology and business. Tackling social media Owens caused a stir on Twitter in February when he tweeted about the Pro Football Hall of Fame being “a joke” when he wasn’t voted into it. When you align expectations with reality you will never be disappointed. To my family,fans & friends I'm a Hall Of Famer. #FlawedProcess —… Read More
LaLiga wants to learn more about its fans and expand its footprint around the globe — and it’s getting help from Microsoft to make that happen. Spain’s premier soccer league is one year into its partnership with Microsoft, which is providing tools like Azure and Power BI to LaLiga that helps it connect with more than 1.7 billion fans on social media around the world. “Fan behavior is changing dramatically nowadays and we have to change with them,” LaLiga Director of Technology Services Silvestre Jos told GeekWire in a phone interview. Jos joined Microsoft executives at the company’s Digital Difference event last… Read More
