As we approach the Fourth of July, we find ourselves in a world that our nation’s Founding Fathers could have scarcely imagined: a world that is increasingly connected from the Digital Home to the cloud to the overall Internet of Things. All this is made possible by the wide range of embedded technology that is continuously being deployed.
I just got done reading an interesting article about the San Francisco Giants deploying touch screens with AMD processors on eweek.com. You can read the article here. There was an interesting point in the article about the number of fans that are using Wi-Fi in the stadium increasing over the last few years. Fans apparently are increasingly trying to share their experience of the game.
That got me to thinking about what the potential is for all this sharing. Basically, every fan in the ballpark is taking pictures or short video clips with his phone. He is sharing this with his friends, either directly through his phone or through social media groups like Facebook, Google+, etc. Meanwhile, the television networks are capturing the game in a syndicated format for the broader audience watching the game from home. What is exciting about the fans ability to capture the game is that they are showing the game from their own unique perspective. Imagine the hitter smacks a line drive. Everyone watching from home gets essentially the same view. But each individual fan is recording that moment from a unique position. So what? While, now let’s imagine that through some social media group combined with a Big Data resource that all those disparate clips could be combined. Now, you the viewer at home are controlling your digital entertainment system through your tablet. You can choose to potentially watch the game from any perspective. Maybe you like the view from Joe Bloggs sitting out in left field. So, you continue to watch the game from his perspective. Or perhaps you prefer Sarah Jones’ view from behind home plate. Or maybe even all these various views can be utilized to generate a 3D view of the game. Imagine that, live 3D baseball. Ok, so it might be difficult to replicate the smell of the hotdogs, but it would really bring the game right into your living room.
Obviously, this creates some issues over licensing and viewership of the game. But I’m sure there are any number of creative entrepreneurs who could work these issues out with the tv networks. One thing is for sure, embedded technology will make it all possible.
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