soccer
Games
10:20PM Rosa Golijan | Definitely one for the things-I-wish-I-were-talented-enough-to-do category. These five guys are playing a way-bigger-than-life-size game of Guitar Hero by shooting soccer balls at sensors made from torn-apart Guitar Hero controllers. Oh and they’re scoring some pretty decent accuracy too. More »
DIY Soccer Ball-Controlled Guitar Hero Game
10:20PM Rosa Golijan | Definitely one for the things-I-wish-I-were-talented-enough-to-do category. These five guys are playing a way-bigger-than-life-size game of Guitar Hero by shooting soccer balls at sensors made from torn-apart Guitar Hero controllers. Oh and they’re scoring some pretty decent accuracy too. More » 
Sports
1:00PM Nick Broughall | Before the 2006 World Cup in Germany, the boffins at Adidas designed the ‘world’s roundest ball’ for the world’s second biggest sporting event. It was the result of years of research, some complicated science and the hard work of a robotic kicking machine. More »
The Science Of The Soccer Ball
1:00PM Nick Broughall | Before the 2006 World Cup in Germany, the boffins at Adidas designed the ‘world’s roundest ball’ for the world’s second biggest sporting event. It was the result of years of research, some complicated science and the hard work of a robotic kicking machine. More »
Gadgets
Nike’s T90 Ascente Football Ball Has More Engineering Than Most Cars
3:10AM Sean Fallon | I would have thought that there is a finite amount of engineering that could go into a football / soccer ball, but the Nike T90 has proven me wrong. More »
Entertainment
Zidane: A 21st-Century Portrait, and What You Want On Your HDTV
5:00AM John Mahoney | On April 23, 2005, some of the best cameramen in all of film converged on a Spanish La Liga match between Real Madrid and Villarreal with 17 high-end cameras–film, and modified HD cameras from Panavision with special zoom capabilities, previously available only to the U.S. military–and trained them all on Zinedine Zidane, the legendary French/Algerian midfielder and he of crazy World Cup headbutt fame. All 93 minutes of the match are captured in real time with the focus never straying from the monk-like Zidane. And it’s one of the most beautiful things I’ve seen on film recently. More »
Design
Doha’s ‘Wall’: The World’s First Underground Stadium
2:00AM Sean Fallon | When the new “Wall” Stadium set to be built in Doha, Qatar is completed in 2010, it will be the first underground stadium ever constructed. Nicknamed “The Laptop” for obvious reasons, the stadium will have no traditional floodlights. Instead, the lights will be embedded into the architecture, which adds to the clean futuristic look. Apparently, the unique underground design will serve as a natural air conditioning system of sorts, which saves money that could have been spent on a traditional domed, temperature controlled facility. galleryPost('wallstadium2', 3, ''); More »
Robots
Robocup 2008 Droids Cooperate Like Real Soccer Team, With Fewer Hissy Fits
7:22PM Kit Eaton | Miniature humanoid robots are getting more impressive by the day: this video shows the Darmstadt Dribblers team in action in the recent 2008 Robocup. And if you notice, they’re really playing like proper autonomous soccer teams. It’s the first year that three on three playing action has happened, and thus required some nifty role negotiation and info exchange over wi-fi. That’s in addition to avoiding obstacles, finding the ball visually and trying to score goals. Ok, so that opposing team needs a better goalie, but at least watching this robotic version of the beautiful game means you get to see less diving and hissy fits at the referee. Impressive stuff, no? [YouTube.—Thanks Stefan] More »
Toys
Soccer Fan Recreates His Team’s Journey to FA Cup Final in LEGO
9:30PM Addy Dugdale | Fans of the English soccer league will know that today is the F.A. Cup Final at Wembley Stadium, where Premier League mid-tablers Portsmouth F.C. take on relative minnows Cardiff City. To mark the day, Cardiff City fan Ashley Weaver has made a stop-motion LEGO video of his team’s amazing journey to the finals, complete with BBC commentary and black-and-white replays. The two videos took Weaver, who will be cheering on the underdogs at Wembley today, around 40 hours to do, and he shot around 1,000 still photos—that’s around five or six every second. Part two is after the jump. More »
Games
World’s Largest Foosball Table: You Don’t Have This Much Game
8:30AM Sean Fallon | Think you are a foosball champion? How about stepping your game up to the Table Football XXL? There is no information about how long this table actually is, but sufficed to say— you are going to need to bring some friends. In fact, two full soccer teams (22 players) could go head to head on this thing in what would undoubtedly be an epic foosballing showdown. Unfortunately, you may never get a chance to try your skill—the Table Football XXL is a one-of-a-kind item built as an advertising stunt for Amstel beer. [Airworks via DVICE] More »
Gadgets
David Beckham Gets a Gold iPod Touch
5:20AM Jason Chen | We thought Beckham had been officially exiled from his home country, but apparently he’s back and captaining their squad. His teammates were sooooo thrilled at his return that they all chipped in and purchased a gold iPod Touch (probably from these people) and engraved his name on the back. Not only that, they engraved what it was for—his 100th captain-ship—so Becks wouldn’t think that it was for being the most handsome guy on the squad. In comparison, I expect something along these lines when I reach my 10,000 blog post. Maybe a solid gold keyboard. Or some money. [Telegraph] More »
Phones
