This modern house in Spain has a complex and industrial-looking mini golf course on its roof. [Archdaily]

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Track and Field athletes will probably roll their eyes at me for this one, but still I have to say I was amazed to see this little four-wheeled RC car scurrying across the field last night during the men's 5,000 metre race carrying javelins, and dammit, I wanted to write about it. After a little digging, I discovered a photographer who had documented the little cars (there are two at the Beijing games), and how they're a first for the Olympic summer games.

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There's something about the simplicity of a skateboard that keeps designers coming back to revisit it... but the SoulArc board certainly seems a worthy reinvention. It's designed to make skateboarding feel more like surfing, with a huge leaf-spring mounted between its long deck and the wheels: And it's less unwieldy-looking than this previous effort. As you dig your heel in, the spring relaxes into corners, giving you more of a surfing-through-waves feeling. There's a video of the board in action after the gallery.

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One of the more popular theories behind Michael Phelps zooming past records with every stroke--besides his US$500 LZR super suit and daily regimen of 12,000 calories composed mostly of mermaid babies--is that the Olympic pool itself is turning swimmers into Aquamen, but you know, not totally lame. But the pool's designer, John Bilmon says, it's really just because the Water Cube is really pretty and inspiring. They actually left out the two changes that would've granted swimmers superhuman speed.

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Forget Beijing—the future of sports is appearing at Siggraph 2008 in LA. This softball-sized Bouncing Star rubber ball has a cluster of full-colour LEDS, an infrared transceiver and an accelerometer under its impact-friendly shell. By combining these components, the ball can create bright interactive games that you play by themselves, or with an interactive display. Here, the floor itself is a screen with the form of a court projected onto it, that responds to the ball's movement.

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If you and your DVR are having trouble keeping up with all of the Olympics coverage, Microsoft is offering Media Centre users the opportunity to catch up with on-demand content. All you need to do is launch Windows Media Centre on a PC or laptop running Windows Vista Home Premium or Windows Vista Ultimate and scroll down to Online Media. There you will find a link to activate "NBC Olympics On The Go." (Can also be activated via the NBC site). The content is said to be "up-to-HD quality," whatever that means, so you should get a decent look at your favourite events.

AU: Needless, to say, this won't be working for Australians.

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Yesterday we saw in action the Large and Medium models of the Segway-killer Toyota Winglet. Here you have the Type S, which stands for small but, according to Toyota, could also mean Sports. Looking at the video, it makes sense: basically, this thing seems to allow for faster, more aggressive driving, achieving a behaviour similar to inline skates. Someone should boost their engines speed as soon as they arrive. [Toyota]

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In the world of USB gizmos there's the useful, the strange and now the totally and utterly useless. Brando's "Fidget" toys are designed to replace doodling as a time-wasting activity in the office, or something like that anyway. They're mini USB devices in the shape of different sports balls, that come with a desktop mini-game that you control simply by tapping on the ball. The game's bleeping and repetitiveness may either de-stress you, or distress you: but you'll have to find that out for yourself. There's soccer, golf and basketball to choose from, they play with Windows, and will cost just US$14 when on sale at the end of July. [Brando]

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Where will we be going to enjoy our sporting events in the future? What kind of amenities and features will the stadiums have to cater to our needs as fans? PopSci has investigated some of the up-and-coming technologies that we can expect to find in the stadium of tomorrow and compiled all of these innovations into a composite that includes the best design and technology features from a dozen cutting-edge stadium plans.

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If you suffer from a debilitating case of hand sweat while playing tennis, the folks at Control Freek are offering up a solution with their new air circulating tennis racquets. Using the latest is wiffle technology, Control Freek has cut some high tech holes in their handle and added scoops to trap and circulate air to your palms while you play.

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