NBA Teams Using GPS Tracking Devices on Players

As reported by Slam Online: Data-tracking cameras are so last week. GPS is now where it’s at in the League. The Dallas Mavericks are one of eight teams that are beginning to experiment with wearable GPS tracking devices on players, as a tool to help them better understand and train their athletes. 

Per the Dallas Morning News: “The devices track player movements and body vitals and are designed to optimize training efficiency and mitigate injury risks. ‘We just want to be able to get smarter about our players and how to train them and how to put them in a position to succeed,’ said Mavs owner Mark Cuban. ‘So that’s just one component of a lot of different things that we’re doing.’ 

Athletes wear a cell-phone sized device on the inside of their jerseys between their shoulders, and it records their every movement in all directions as well as their heart rate. This gives coaches what Catapult’s Gary McCoy describes as a ‘dashboard’ for players’ bodies. 

While the devices have only been used in practices, Cuban said that he is considering using them during the preseason and that the league has not yet prevented him from doing so. (The Spurs have used the devices in Summer League games, becoming the first team to use them in game situations. The NBA prohibits the use of the devices during regular season games.) 

For the Mavs, the technology seems to be only one part of a much larger sports science technology plan. Cuban recently fired his 10-year strength and conditioning coach and said his replacement will be ‘more of an expert in performance technology science.’

The Mavs were also one of the first four NBA teams–along with the Spurs, Rockets, and Thunder–to install SportVU cameras in the rafters of its arena in 2011 to track player and ball movements throughout games.”

The devices are similar to those being used by the NFL to evaluate performance and speed for players.

Use of GPS and other sensors to evaluate professional and amateur athletes is a growing trend ("Athletic telematics"), and may also be utilized in the other sports or venues such as the Olympics in the future.

New Clean Tech Refrigerated Trucks using Fuel Cell Technology for Cooling

As reported by Science World Report: Grocery merchants in Texas, California and New York will soon have ice cream, frozen foods and fresh produce delivered by tractor trailers whose refrigeration units are powered by fuel cells, a clean technology that makes energy silently and with dramatically reduced emissions.

The fuel cells will do the work normally done by a small diesel engine, which keeps the cargo at the proper temperature while the trucks are making deliveries. Each of the four trucks will still be equipped with a main diesel engine that actually powers the truck.

Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, which is overseeing the project, believe this will be the first time that refrigerated trucks making deliveries have been equipped with a fuel cell -- a device that creates electricity by driving chemical reactions using hydrogen and air. The only byproducts are heat and water.

"This is a great application for a fuel cell," said Kriston Brooks, the PNNL researcher leading the project. "A trailer refrigeration unit traditionally is powered by a small diesel engine or electric motor that drives compressors to provide cooling to the cargo. A fuel cell can potentially provide a clean, quiet and efficient alternative by powering the electric motor."

Two leading fuel cell manufacturers, Massachusetts-based Nuvera and Albany, N.Y.-based Plug Power Inc., will each receive $650,000 from DOE's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. The companies will provide matching funds and labor of their own. A PNNL team led by Brooks will oversee and evaluate the two-year program.

Industry officials estimate that approximately 300,000 refrigerated trucks with auxiliary power units are on the road in the United States. By replacing the small diesel engines with the more efficient fuel cell, users will see fuel savings of approximately 10 gallons a day per unit, in addition to reduced emission of pollutants and significantly quieter operation.

"Accelerated fuel cell use in this application is also expected to create jobs in the energy sector, increase fuel cell manufacturing volume, decrease costs, and catalyze a stronger domestic supplier base," said Jamie Holladay, PNNL's sector manager for fuel cell technologies.

Fuel cells are becoming more common as energy sources in buildings and in vehicles such as buses. While the devices are generally more expensive than traditional forms of energy generation, many scientists and product developers expect that as they become more widely adopted and production levels increase, their cost will come down, similar to what has happened to products like cell phones.

"One of the goals is to accelerate fuel cell use in industry," said Brooks. "In spite of their higher costs now, the higher efficiency and zero emissions from fuel cells are enough to convince many companies not to wait to implement this technology. Fuel cell products are already used widely in warehouses, and this project broadens their reach."

In one project, Nuvera will work with Thermo King to develop the refrigeration unit to keep the truck cool using Nuvera's Orion^TM fuel cell stack. That truck will make deliveries for a Sysco Corp. food distribution facility in Riverside, Calif., and for a San Antonio, Texas, food distribution center for the H-E-B grocery store chain.

In the other project, Plug Power will work with Carrier Transicold and Air Products to equip trucks making deliveries for a Sysco Corp. food distribution facility on Long Island. The trucks will be equipped with Plug Power's GenDrive fuel cell product.

Both the Sysco and the H-E-B facilities already use forklifts powered by hydrogen fuel cells, part of a trend fostered by DOE to increase the use of the technology in industry. At both companies, the infrastructure to provide hydrogen for the fuel cells is already in place; the hydrogen is generated on site from natural gas and water using Nuvera's PowerTap^TM hydrogen generator and refueling system. For the site using the Plug Power technology, the hydrogen will be supplied by Air Products using an outdoor hydrogen dispenser.

Each fuel-cell powered refrigerated trailer will run for at least 400 hours at each demonstration site, delivering goods from the distribution centers to stores or other outlets. 

Majority of Small Fleets in the EU don't bother monitoring driver speed

53% of all fleets in the EU don't bother to monitor driver speed;
a key factor in reducing collisions and liability, as well as potential
driver related deaths and injuries.

A new report from road safety charity Brake suggests that a significant proportion of fleet managers still don’t remotely monitor driver speed.

The second part of the group’s fleet survey report 2013 claims that speeding or driving too fast in wet or slippery conditions increases the risk of crashing and that a 1km/h reduction in average speed would save 2,200 lives every year in Europe.

Of the 220 fleet managers included in the research, one in four respondents (26%) didn't know how many of their cars were exceeding the speed limit when involved in a collision.

Six in ten (61%) managers of fleets with 50+ vehicles said they monitor driver speed while only 32% of smaller fleet managers could say the same.

This indicates that 53% of all fleets don’t bother to monitor driver speed.

Managers can do more
Roz Cumming, Professional Engagement Manager at Brake, said fleet managers have a duty to ensure the safety of their drivers and protect vulnerable road users.

She commented: “Monitoring driver speed and reminding drivers to keep well within speed limits, and to slow down even further around vulnerable road users can help.

This report shows that some fleets are already addressing this risk, but there is still more that managers can do.”

A spokesman from licence checker service Licence Bureau, which sponsored the research, says: “To reduce risks, organisations should: have a clear policy that all employees adhere to speed limits; use realistic route planning, taking account of congestion etc.; monitor compliance, for example through [GPS and wireless] telematics; and challenge or address unsafe behavior at both an individual and organisational level.”

Wi-Fi on planes, trains to start picking up speed in early 2014

As reported by Death and Taxes: Starting in early 2014 when you pay for Wi-Fi access on a plane or train, the service you buy may be able to actually get you online - at a speed conducive to doing actual work.

New satellite technology called Earth Stations on Mobile Platforms (ESOMPs) can deliver Wi-Fi to moving vehicles at speeds 10 times faster than current technology. It’s kind of a misleading name because the new technology is actually satellite based. Unlike the GoGo in-flight internet you’re used to buying that takes ground-based cellular data and converts it to Wi-Fi, the ESOMPs beam high-speed Wi-Fi signals to satellite level. And unlike the the GoGo in-flight internet, it has some actual kick.

BBC reports that British communications regulator Ofcom is in the process of considering ESOMPs for approval and that the FCC has already approved them in the U.S. Starting in early 2014 the internet on flights should be fast enough for you to stream Netflix movies, and make calls and video conferences over Skype.

Since around the time the first iPhone came out I've been saying the biggest innovation we need now isn't in new gadgets but in the infrastructure to make the gadgets we already have actually work. I’m sitting in the middle of Los Angeles, right under the Hollywood sign, and I have absolutely zero cell reception. It’s completely crazy that our infrastructure isn't better than it is.

With that in mind, a new kind of Wi-Fi called “802.11ac” is on the horizon (using high-density 256 QAM) and should start making its way into our daily lives soon. At a speed of 1.3 Gigabits per second, it’s more than double the current top speed of standard high-speed Wi-Fi, enough to “transfer an entire high-definition movie to a tablet in under 4 minutes, share photo albums with friends in a matter of seconds or stream three HD videos at the same time,” reports CNN.

Up until now my attitude toward Apple’s lackluster product releases has been, “So what if the most exciting thing about the new iPhone is that it’s gold—I won’t be able to do anything with more futuristic services anyway.” But with infrastructure catching up, it may be time for the front-end innovators to get in gear again.

Wireless Bots to Comb Illicit Tucson Tunnels for Drugs

As reported by Nextgov: The Homeland Security Department is ordering wireless robots to probe underground passageways along the Southwest border for drug trafficking activity, according to contracting documents.

The Defense Department for several years has sent robots in place of troops to identify land mines throughout Middle East battle zones, but the technology is relatively new for DHS.

“A robotic solution is always being looked at to replace a Border Patrol agent from having to make initial entry into an illicit tunnel," stated an Aug. 7 report justifying the need for a specific automaton brand, the Pointman. "This has always been a challenge since there is not one single robot solution for various types of illicit tunnels discovered.”

Operators will be able to remotely shrink the rovers to a height of less than 7 inches tall for scouring beneath vehicles and entering confined spaces, such as under beds, according to contract requirements published Aug. 15. The bots also have an “arm” for climbing stairs, they added.

Measuring at most 18 inches tall and 15 inches long, the discreet system will only roam about three miles per hour. It is designed to travel without human intervention for about 200 meters.

Officials claim the Pointman Robot is the only commercial, wireless robot capable of investigating and clearing illegal underground tunnels in Arizona. The “Pointman Robot significantly outperforms all wireless robots evaluated and tested” in the Tucson, Ariz., region, while all the other systems assessed could travel no more than 15 feet before losing control, the justification stated.

Operators can remotely upright a disabled bot “to make corrections after a fall or tip over,” according to the contract requirements.

For trekking along challenging terrain, cluttered with, for example, “clothing, debris/rubble, household items, rocks, stairs, sidewalk curbs, etc.,” the robots can deploy a “traversing” capability, DHS officials said. On flat surfaces, the robots will switch to a wheel mode.

Some passageways are seemingly engineered to block authorities. In 2012, U.S. officials discovered a 755-foot channel descending 57 feet, and located under a 2,000-gallon water tank, according to the Los Angeles Times. It could be moved only by a forklift.

A yet-to-be hired contractor will be responsible for assembling the 17.5 pound autonomous creatures from various commercial parts, including the Pointman and a mini DVR.

Local police in Oklahoma City and Austin have relied on Pointman bots for situations such as standoffs, according to Applied Research Associates, the robot manufacturer.

After the Hours-of-Service Ruling: Research on 34-Hour Restart

As reported by Truckinginfo: Even as a federal court was recently upholding most of the hours of service rules, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has been working on a field study of the 34-hour restart as mandated in the new Hours-of-Service (HOS) rules; that could influence that provision in the future, and there's a move on Capitol Hill to force the agency to return to the old rules.

Congress ordered the study in last year’s highway bill, at the encouragement of the American Trucking Associations (AMA), which said the agency should confirm in the field the finding from a laboratory study that daytime sleep is not as restorative as nighttime sleep.

That finding is the scientific basis for the requirement that a driver take two periods off between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m. during his 34-hour restart, and it figured prominently in the court’s decision to uphold the provision.

It remains to be seen if the data from the field study will be persuasive enough for the agency to reconsider its approach to the restart.

Data collection for the study was finished in July and the final report is expected later this year, said agency spokesperson Marissa Padilla.

Meanwhile, there is a move in the House of Representatives to cut off funding for implementation or enforcement of the new hours and return to the old rule.

An attempt by Rep. Richard Hanna, R-N.Y., and several others to attach the amendment to transportation funding legislation failed when House leaders withdrew the bill.

But Hanna will pursue the amendment, said Renee Gamela, his communications director.

“He’s been discussing the amendment with colleagues and we’re confident it would have strong, bipartisan support when it comes up,” Gamela said.

The amendment is supported by 16 trucking and shipping interests, including ATA, OOIDA and UPS, as well as the Transportation Intermediaries Association, the National Retail Federation and the National Grocers Association.

Hanna, joined by Reps. Tom Rice, R-S.C., Trey Radel, R-Fla., and Todd Rokita, R-Ind., said in a Dear Colleague letter that the new rule decreases driver flexibility and raises costs – complaints that have been aired by all of the industry interests.

Interactive Map Displays Traffic Fatality Rates Around The World

As reported by the Car Connection: We've already thrown a wet blanket on your day with a warning about traffic fatalities over the Labor Day weekend. Unfortunately, we have one more downer to share: an interactive map of traffic fatality rates around the globe, courtesy of the Pulitzer Center.

According to the Pulitzer Center, 1.2 million people die on Planet Earth's roadways every year -- and that figure is likely to get worse as the number of cars in service climbs. The problem is particularly bad for emerging nations. As the authors of the article explain:

The toll is highest in the developing world. Poor countries account for 50 percent of the world’s road traffic, but 90 percent of the traffic fatalities. Road accidents will soon become the fifth leading cause of death in these countries, leapfrogging past HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis and other familiar killers, according to the World Health Organization’s (WHO) most recent Global Burden of Disease study.

Grim as that sounds, the assertion makes sense. As we saw yesterday, developing nations lack the infrastructure (e.g protective barriers, well-lit roads) and safety regulations found in the developing world. Such things have reduced the number of traffic fatalities elsewhere on the planet.

What's more, in parts of the developed world, road traffic appears to have peaked. People in the U.S. and other countries are relying more on mass transit and other means to get around -- if they need to get around at all. (Thanks, whoever invented telecommuting.) In developing countries, those options are less available, forcing both motorists and pedestrians onto dangerous roads.  

Worst of all, traffic fatalities are part of a vicious circle, preventing poor nations from growing more rapidly. According to Jose Luis Irigoyen, a highway safety expert at the World Bank, in low- and middle-income countries, traffic fatalities reduce GDP by 1 to 3 percent. That's money that could otherwise be funneled back into developing countries. 

As you'll see from the map embedded below (click "view fullscreen" to review the most data), the Pulitzer Center has compiled fatality stats for most countries on the planet. Compare the U.S. fatality rate of 11.4 per 100,000 to that of other nations, like the Dominican Republic, Iran, and Thailand. Pay particular attention to the way in which people were traveling when killed: in a car, on a motorcycle, on a bike, or while walking.

The map is missing a good bit of information, but even so, it raises plenty of intriguing questions.