The D300s was mounted to the front of the hang glider and fitted with a 10.5mm fisheye lens. A custom hardwired trigger and release mechanism was used to fire both video and stills.

Of course, the $US1800 D300s now has some serious semi-pro competition from the $US1900 Canon 7D. And the 7D is an 18-megapixel, 1080p video beast. Click through the links above for our in-depth primers. [YouTube via CrunchGear]

1. Segway Polo

The king of geek sports. Wealthy nerds ride around a field on Segways hitting a ball with a mallet in a high-tech perversion of the sport of Kings. Considering the Segways can hit speeds of up to 20km/h, and each team has five players on the field at any time, there’s the potential for some fairly major Segway pileups. It’s also one of the few sports where Apple founder Steve Wozniak could be a poster boy, which makes us admire the man all the more. [Segway Polo]

2. Powerbocking

Strap yourself into a pair of spring-loaded stilts, and you’re suddenly transformed from mortal man to mortal man with a pogo stick on each foot. But you’ll feel like a superhero. With the ability to jump up to 1.5 metres into the air and run up to 20km/h with 2.7-metre strides, it’s not a sport for the uncoordinated or lazy. But then again, sport in general isn’t for the uncoordinated or lazy, is it? [Powerbocking]

3. Chessboxing

It’s like chess—the original nerd sport—but with added punching to spice things up a bit. With 11 rounds, alternating between four minutes of speed chess and three minutes of belting the living shit out of each other (with a minute between each round to change gear). To win, you must either KO your opponent in the ring or checkmate him on the chessboard. It actually has a governing body—the World Chess Boxing Organisation—whose motto is “Fighting is done in the ring and wars are waged on the board.” Kinda makes you want to take up the sport, doesn’t it? [Chess Boxing]

4. Zorbing

Imagine you were a hamster. In a hamster ball. Rolling down a hill. In New Zealand. That’s essentially what Zorbing (or ‘sphereing’) is all about. You hop inside a big plastic ball, generally around two metres in diameter, which sits inside another ball about three metres wide. Between the two is a layer of air, which acts as a cushion for bumps and jolts, and hundreds of small ropes. Then you roll down a hill, or around a flat surface, or even on water, while all the people around you look and laugh at you for being stuck in a bubble voluntarily. [Zorbing]

5. Extreme Ironing

This one’s fairly self-explanatory. It’s ironing clothes, but it’s Extreme. Competitors take their ironing boards and creased business shirts on the road to crazy places, like on the back of a bicycle, freefalling from an aeroplane or diving underwater. Not too sure how you’re meant to use an iron underwater, but that’s the crazy thinking needed if you’re going to be an extreme ironer… [Extreme Ironing]

6. Dirtsurfing

When the waves are too small or you just don’t feel like peeing in your wetsuit to keep warm in winter, there’s the Dirtsurfer. A cross between a bike and a skateboard, the Dirtsurfer lets you carve it up on solid ground any time of the year on any type of terrain, so long as it’s sloped. And you’ve got a deathwish — don’t forget the deathwish. [Dirtsurfing]

7. Train surfing

If you’re stupid, have no fear of death and like trains, you’ve probably thought about Trainsurfing. Apparently popular in South Africa and Germany, it involves riding on the top of moving trains or subways. As you can imagine, it’s generally illegal, although that hasn’t stopped it from becoming a bit of an online phenomenon thanks to the rise of video sharing sites. There’s also a rather good chance you’ll end up dead, so don’t do it. [Train surfing]

8. Disc Golf

Why play boring old golf when you could be throwing a frisbee? With pretty much the exact same rules as golf, except without the need for clubs, balls and checkered pants, Disc golf has you trying to get a frisbee into a basket with the fewest number of throws. Because even the laziest of us can throw a frisbee, it has a really low barrier to entry, which makes it perfect for the geekier among us. [Disc Golf]

9. Professional gaming

There’s a very, very small percentage of gamers who are good enough to make a career out of it, especially in Australia. Even if you constantly destroy your friends in COD4 on Xbox Live, you’re probably not good enough to turn professional. But if you are skilled in the way of the joystick beyond mortal men, then there is the potential to make millions in corporate sponsorships and gaming competitions. Overseas, that is. Here in Australia, pro gaming is a second rate—albeit totally nerdtastic—sport.
[Professional Sports]

10. Geocaching

Like a super high-tech treasure hunt, Geocaching involves a geocacher hiding a small waterproof container at particular GPS coordinates, which other geocachers then try to find using a GPS receiver. In each container is a logbook and pen, as well as a piece or two of low-value treasure which you can trade with if you discover the bounty. There are a heap of variations to make it a more exciting sport, although it’s mostly just a geeky way of playing with GPS receivers… [Geocaching]

Playing with balls is Gizmodo AU’s week-long look at the technology behind the sports we love, from the jerseys to the balls and everything in between. Go the Wallabies!

I mean, look at this features list:

* Full-function, hands-free, digital recording
* Enables in-action video and digital still photo capture – skateboarding, mountain biking, snowboarding, surfing, skydiving
* Camera and wireless remote control – both waterproof up to 3m
* Shock-resistant for extreme conditions
* Multiple mounting designs – includes mounting grips and straps of different lengths for helmets, handlebars, and other sports equipment
* 1.5 inch color LCD screen
* Video capture at 640 x 480 VGA resolution at 30 frames per second
* 53 degree capture field of view
* Less than 230 grams with batteries
* Use as a webcam when connected to a PC and as a viewfinder when connected with TV/PMP
* Built-in memory (32MB) and SD card slot for memory expansion (up to 4GB)
* Internal real time clock
* Built-in mic
* Compatible with operating systems: WIN2000/XP/Vista and Mac OS X 10.3 or later
* Dimensions: 118 x 70 x 65 (mm).
* Operated by 2 x AA batteries. Lithium batteries recommended for use in cold weather.
* Low battery detection
* Power-saving management feature
* USB and RCA cables included for easy playback on PC or TV (PAL & NTSC)

Doesn’t that just scream EXTREME? You can pick them up for $350, and find stockists at Oregon Scientific’s website.

[Oregon Scientific]

Leave it to the nation who contrived Russian Roulette to come up with rope jumping. It looks totally simple and straight forward, until you just think for a second about the physics involved. If you jump straight down, you could dislocate some important part of your body, or worse, you could snap the rope and keep on falling. The key is to jump so that you swing across the underside of the bridge, and to trust that your rope is attached to something that ain’t going nowhere.

And you’d better be coordinated when doing it in groups of, say, 54—like above—lest someone on their backswing hits you as you’re heading down.

Still not dangerous enough? Well, according to English Russia, rope jumpers like to up the ante by jumping…

…when there is no water under the bridge but raw firm ice, also they use to jump at that same moment when the train is going thru the bridge.

None for me, thanks, but good luck to you. [English Russia; Russos]

The SkiGym hooks up to a PC to use the included game Alpine Ski Racing, or it can be used as a standalone gym. The game includes 32 different courses from 18 real-world mountains, just to add to the realism. It’s available for a bank account-crushing $US2300, which if I’m not mistaken could purchase a pretty sweet ski trip, but if you’re loaded and scared of crashing, give it a look. [Random Good Stuff]

Riding the new Peak2Peak Gondola that connects Whistler’s Blackcomb and Whistler Mountain summits, over 4.3km, must be exhilarating. But jumping off it is just insane.

Shortly after opening, these Two Red Bull sponsored lunatics rode a car to the mid point of the ride and jumped. That makes for a good preview of the fall, should one of these boxes full of 28 people ever fall out of the sky. (I couldn’t help thinking of this, I have a decent fear of heights.)

The Gondola itself holds records for its unsupported span of 3km between the two furthest towers, and for its rise, measuring over 400m above the ground at its highest point.

At 25 km per hour, it makes the traverse between the mountain tops, in 11 minutes. Contrast that with the usual ski down one peak, plus a drive to the base of the other, plus a number of gondola, chair and tow rides upward, which easily could take over an hour or three.

I’ve been to Whistler once before, and remember two things: a 45 minute run down blackcomb’s glacier to the village, and a Nintendo sponsored park. I guess I have yet another reason to go back.

The website is a bit vague on the camera’s resolution – claiming 470 “TV lines”, which I guess we’ll take to mean it’s slightly less than 480i. But let’s face it – if you’re recording your wild water exploits on film with one of these things, you’re only going to share your incredible stacks, and you’re going to do it on YouTube, so the lack of resolution doesn’t matter. Of course, $1200 for a YouTube camera, even if it is waterproof, is a bit pricey.

[Predator World]

Oh, wow. Apparently, in May, a Brit and a Frenchman snuck on to the under-construction Burj Dubai and BASE jumped from it at 650 metres up. Now, there’s video available of their infiltration, jump and subsequent escape. The footage from up top and the jump is just incredible stuff. I wish I had the cajones to do something like this. Although my favourite part of the video may be the footnote at the end; wait for it, it’s worth it. [Current via Neatorama]