Tools of the Trade
A couple of rather cool things popped up on my radar today. Admittedly, I'm a little behind the times with both, but I'll blame that on a month offline on the Greenland icecap.
The first is the dinky Panasonic SDRS100 camcorder, a three-chip (ie broadcast quality) camcorder that uses SD cards (removable, solid-state memory chips, about the size of a postage stamp) rather than tape. I'm amazed I haven't spotted this before now – this looks absolutely perfect for filming in expedition conditions, and I suspect Tony and I will be packing one each when we head to Antarctica in October. It's tiny, it weighs way less than similarly-specced Mini-DV camcorders, and it has next to no moving parts. Brilliant! I'll try to get my hands on one soon…
The second (and, being a Nike athlete, you'd have thought I'd be at least testing a prototype by now – sheesh!) is the Nike/Apple collaboration known as Nike+. The first product they'll be wheeling out is the 'Nike+ iPod Sport Kit' that, via a dinky sensor, connects your running shoes to your iPod(!)
Apparently the iPod Nano is then able to track data during your workout – pace, time, and distance show up on the Nano's screen, along with vocal cues on your pace etc played through the headphones at the touch of a button. Get home, have a shower and sync the iPod with your computer, and not only can you download and analyse workout data; you can share it with other runners around the world via the Nike+ website. Sweat, sync, social networking…
After getting over my initial 'Whoah! Must get one!', I'm now only partially jumping up and down with excitement about this. Hopefully I can persuade Nike to bring out the Ben Saunders Signature Edition later this year, with some kind of heart rate monitoring, and GPS-based tracking (rather than the perhaps-not-so-accurate accelerometer that the device currently relies on). Still, it's a very funky piece of kit.
— Filed under Training