While there is no shortage of simulators for individual sports, the E Ball stands apart because it simulates a whole range. It comes in both outdoor and indoor varieties and comes in a range of sporting flavors including: golf, soccer and Australian Rules football.

An indoor version of the E Ball is available, but there is no substitute for the bouncy castle outdoor version. Presumably there is some setup involved in changing between the sports, as the ball sensors are all appropriately shaped, but that is a small price to pay for enjoying sports out of the sun.

E Ball’s Sports Simulator Brings All of Your Sporting Needs Indoors [Uber-Review]

Pulchra is the first beauty contest devoted exclusively to objects. The contest is open to everyone, free of charge, and the winner will receive a prize of 10,000 Euros. The Pulchra catwalk is a parade of one hundred objects that are part of our everyday life and history. Of these one hundred objects, Pulchra will invite participants to vote for the ten most beautiful items to be sent into the future as messengers of the culture of our time.

The public can vote from January 30th 2008 through December 31st 2008. At the closing of the voting, the hundred objects chosen for the contest will be ranked on a scale of one to one hundred, according to the number of votes received by each of the items. The top ten items on these rankings will be the winners of the contest. The winner of the voting competition will be the person whose votes matched most closely the rankings of the most-voted-for objects.

http://www.pulchra.org

Banging away on a musical table might just be the way to enhance your social life. The Rumba Series created by 'Musical Furnishings' allows you to design your own drum table with "interchangeable and rearrangeable percussion inserts" so that you can have a musical bash with a bunch of people sitting around a table.

Musical Furnishings is definitely on to something-perhaps an innovative type of group therapy or simply a spicy new way to connect with your family and friends. A refreshing alternative to petty chatter and small-talk, it can also help you develop some rythm skills. Which is why I can clearly see drum-table jam sessions becoming the next social trend. Bye Bye Scrabble?

Video link: http://youtube.com/watch?v=3wA_nLJD-UE

TrendsSpotting.com is a trends agency focused on developing exciting tools for Trend Spotting. We follow current trends and are constantly looking for new ones. We specialize in trends research and the social media. Dr. Taly Weiss, TrendsSpotting CEO, is a Social Psychologist, with extensive experience in branding strategy and marketing research. Feel free to explore our trend spotting tools on www.trendoScope.com.

Guardian: Six-foot swells are set to break on the Thames at an attraction aiming to tempt the growing ranks of urban surfers to taste the "quintessential California surf lifestyle" in the unlikely surroundings of a disused dock in east London.

From 2011, the world's first outdoor artificial surfing machine will try to rival the Atlantic breakers of Devon and Cornwall using cleaned river water. The plan is to persuade surfers to take to their boards in Newham rather than make the long drive to the West Country, where the surf is sometimes more millpond than Maui.

Coming soon: 'chlorine surfers' keen to wave goodbye to packed beaches [Guardian]

dallas news.com: Celia Beron, 13, invented Ref for the Deaf, a special bracelet that vibrates for deaf players who can't hear the sound of a referee's whistle or starter gun.

With some help from Celia's father and two graduate students from the University of Texas at Dallas, a good idea from a skinny girl with braces has the makings of a great product.

Supporters see a demand from elementary school gymnasiums to the Special Olympics and beyond.

Her concept pairs up a transmitter with a referee's whistle or starter gun. When either of them goes off, the transmitter sends a signal to the receiver: a vibrating bracelet worn by a deaf athlete.

Richardson 13-year-old's invention allows deaf athletes to feel signals from referees [dallas news.com]

TrendHunter: If you’ve always wanted to get a bit more bounce in your step, here’s your chance! The Kangoo Jumps rebound exercise shoes are loaded with springs to help hop higher than ever on your own two feet.

They reduce impact by 80% so they’re really easy on your joints, hips and spine. Vital Juice Daily said, "Thanks to Kangoo’s technically modified boots with springs on the bottom, you too can bounce (with low impact) like Tigger! Check urban gyms near you for classes, or buy your own boots and DVDs to jump on your own."

Spring-Soled Bouncing Shoes - Kangoo Jumps [TrendHunter]

PSFK: Urban Dare is a new competition that takes teams of two and sends them out into the city to complete various challenges in what is essentially a modern scavenger hunt. Part photo hunt, part trivia, part dares, teams solve clues to reach checkpoints where they must complete challenges and document it with a digital camera before receiving a ‘passport stamp’ and moving onto the next checkpoint. To solve the clues and get around town, competitors are encouraged to utilize any wireless technology they have at their disposal - this includes calling a buddy with Wikipedia and Google maps already open and expecting their call. Typically, the races last between 3 and 4 hours and teams cover around 6 miles. Transportation is limited to walking, running, and public transportation - no bikes, cars, or taxis.

I Dare You To Explore Our City [PSFK]

New Scientist: A Californian company called Outland Research hopes to put high-tech intelligence into sports shoes. This is because feet often need different kinds of support, depending on whether they are walking, running or playing sport. Conventional shoes that are ideal for some activities are unsuited to others.

Inventor and company founder Louis Rosenberg hopes to change all this with reconfigurable footwear. The soles of his new shoes have several hollow bladders, connected via narrow tubes, and filled with a deformable and electrically-activated liquid – such as an ester or amide of a phosphorous-based acid.

Normally, the liquid flows freely through the tubes, letting the bladders self-adjust as the foot rocks from heel to toe and rolls from side to side. But, when current from a battery or a piezo-electric generator is fed through the tubes, the liquid hardens restricting flow and making the bladders firmer.

Smart Soles Invention [New Scientist]

Daytona Beach area upstart Slingboard Sports introduces "Ridewire". The Ridewire system is an innovative new ride and training system that is capable of performing the manuevers and thrills found in surfing, snowboarding, wakeboarding, and other action sports. It is a standalone unit that can be ridden anytime, anywhere on engineered indoor, outdoor and mobile mount systems. Ridewire is generating a buzz due to its unique, innovative design, lack of restriction and if all safety systems are used it can be a safe and thrilling zero-impact activity for both adrenaline junkie and individuals looking for a fun new thrill ride.

Slingboard Sports

PR Web Release: The PUMGO, one of the hottest toys at the 2006 New York Toy Fair, was built for non-stop fun. But does all that fun mask a greater good?

The PUMGO is all about the core. "Just balancing alone on the PUMGO works your core strength, in addition to the pumping back and forth, because you have to distribute weight from one foot to the other while staying centered with your upper body which means your abs have to fire every time to stabilize your torso", said Rick Mayo. Recently, Rick Mayo, who 15 years ago founded the first personal training center in Atlanta, North Point Personal Training, evaluated the PUMGO.

Not surprisingly, the legs benefit the most from the PUMGO workout. "It will work your gluts because your knees have to bend to balance yourself, the four quadriceps muscles, your hamstrings because you have to lean forward, and even a little bit of calf work as you shift your body weight between your heels and toes in order turn," said Mayo.

The fun factor makes another appearance when it comes to calorie burning. While the PUMGO won't fire the heart up like running it will keep it beating in the aerobic, or prime fat burning, zone. To reap the benefits of that zone, however, you need to stay on the board for about 30 minutes.

Mayo believes fun is a key factor in exercise saying "the most positive thing about the PUMGO is that it is interesting and fun so it keeps people on it for a longer amount of time because it is something they enjoy."

PUMGO - The Latest Sports Toy For Kids And Good Christmas Gift [PR Web Release]

Josh Spear: We have to admit that our adolescent desire for the inflatable "Moon Walk" has never really left us. A friend of ours told us about a sport, Bossaball that seems to be embracing this desire for the birthday party apparatus of yesteryear and combining it with sports. Originating somewhere between the rock of Gibraltar and the Port of Antwerp, Bossaball combines many sports – soccer, beach volleyball, capoeira, and gymnastics into one giant pitch that consists of trampolines and inflatable cushions. Bossaball has become somewhat of a "phenomenon" in Spain with players using all parts of their bodies to pass the ball over a net volleyball style. Bossaball also embraces the crowd with the referees entertaining fans and bands playing live percussion combined with whistles and a DJ.

Bossaball [Josh Spear]

Engadget: One day in the future, we're sure that everyone will be strong, good-looking and above-average. But today, given that 16 percent of American children aged 12-19 are overweight according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there have to be ways to get kids into more healthful habits. As we all know, everyone's supposed to be exercising regularly in order to stay well and fit -- thankfully, kids have a new type of fitness center in Mountain View, California (home of Google!) which aims to appeal to the children of Silicon Valley reared on a steady diet of gadgets. Overtime Fitness, which opens tomorrow (and restricts membership to kids 13-18) includes a regular workout equipment area, a "study center" with PCs, Macs and free WiFi (for the Linux laptop-toting set?), a DDR-clone called "In The Groove 2" and the Cybex Trazer, a virtual reality-type game that maps physical movements to the on-screen action.

Overtime Fitness gym for teens includes video games [Engadget]

Iconoculture: The Bodypad fighting simulator turns Xboxers' and PlayStation playas' bodies into gaming pads. Gamers with get-up-and-go don the goofy apparatus, then flail their way to gaming glory. Bodypad's system of straps wraps around gamers' fists, elbows and knees. Instead of mashing buttons, players then kick, punch and choke at nothing in efforts to defeat their virtual opponents. The 'pad doesn't require special software and works with many existing games, including dance and sports games.

Bodypad fighting simulators add physical kick to videogames [Iconoculture]

BornRich: If you love to play soccer then now you dont need to content yourself with just soccer games meant for desktop table! You can actually play in your own soccer pitch anytime anywhere with Subbuteo Giant Inflatable Pitch! The football pitch is ideal for four-adults, so if you were thinking its meant only for teenagers or kids then you need a reality check!! All you need to do is, simply plug in its uber-powerful pump and the pitch will inflate in just 30 seconds. So, what if you are not gonna play in the FIFA World Cup, you still can fancy kickabouts in your own football pitch.

Subbuteo Giant Inflatable Pitch For Adults! [BornRich]

Iconoculture: Despite widespread acceptance, Harry Potter and Yu-Gi-Oh! trading cards still aren’t welcome in some Christian homes. The Bible Trading Card Game offers an alternative, replete with 240 cards bearing biblical figures, locations and verses that kids memorize to score points. The edutainment game tutors kids in the scriptures and faith (play begins with prayer) and encourages Sunday school attendance: That’s where rarer cards are distributed. Kids and parents already have taken a liking to the card game: The first printing sold out, and a tournament is under way.

Like secular parents, faith-filled parents aim to protect their offspring from corrupting forces. Keeping kids at play in accordance with faith principles can prevent tykes from coming under the spell of bad influences.

Bible Trading Card Game [Iconoculture]

Engadet: Besides learning to use the toilet properly, the ability to ride a bicycle is one of the most important early-childhood accomplishments, but unfortunately, the current use of training wheels for practice does little to prepare kids for life on two wheels. Well a start-up using technology developed at Dartmouth College is aiming to eliminate the rolling crutches that are training wheels, and replace them with a gyroscopic flywheel that attaches to the front wheel and helps a bike steady itself whenever the rider loses his/her balance by using natural physical properties to turn the handlebars towards the direction of an impending fall. Soon be able to buy a model with this technology built-in instead of retrofitting one you already own.

GyroBike flywheel helps bicycles self-steady [Engadet]

Entrepreneur: Beasley is the creator of table golf, a new game that combines golf and billiards into one. Beasley dreamed up the game in 1999 while serving a sentence. As he watched a golf tournament get rained out on TV, he wondered what golfers did on rainy days. Armed with his idea and some crude blueprints he had drawn, Beasley left prison three years later, in November 2002.

After inviting a few of the neighborhood kids to test out his new game, Beasley hit the road, showing his creation to local pool halls and sporting goods stores. Beasley were his game caught the eye of a representative from The Price Is Right, as well as his current manufacturer, Eagle Industries Ltd. Beasley expects 2006 sales of more than $5 million.

Tee for Two [Entrepreneur]

SFGate.com: For an attempted assassination, there sure was a lot of giggling going on.

"I'm going to feel pretty good about shooting someone, if I don't die first,'' said would-be assassin Nicole Califano, who was drinking a beer, which was not helping to steady her trigger finger any.

Califano is one of 130 contestants armed with water pistols who are stalking each other this month throughout San Francisco, waiting to ambush and squirt total strangers.

It's called Street Wars, and its creator bills it as a "water gun assassination tournament.'' It was a big hit last year in New York and Vancouver, British Columbia, where many people have even odder ideas about pastimes than they do here.

"Think you've got what it takes to be an assassin?'' says the game's Web site.

The idea is to squirt your assigned victim before you get squirted by the player who has been assigned to squirt you. Entering the game costs $35. Whoever gets squirted is out of the game, and the last person left dry gets $500.

Have gun, will squirt [SFGate.com]

we make money not art: Online gamers who lack the time and patience to work their way up to the higher levels of gamedom are willing to pay the young Chinese to play the early rounds for them. These "gold farmers" work every day, in 12-hour shifts, playing computer games to harvest gold coins and other virtual goods that can be transformed into real cash.

Players around the world can trade the virtual currency to other players, who can use it to buy better armor, amulets, magic spells and other accoutrements to climb to higher levels or create more powerful characters.

The Internet is now filled with classified advertisements from small companies auctioning for real money their powerful avatars.

By some estimates, there are well over 100,000 young people working in China as full-time gamers. They have strict quotas and are supervised by bosses who equip them with computers, software and Internet connections.

Farming for virtual gold [we make money not art]

U.S. Newswire: The sports medicine experts at ArmorSports believe there's plenty of truth to the old adage, "The best defense is a good offense." Their product, AirArmor is the first on the market designed for players to wear before they are injured to prevent damage to the knee and leg.

The FDA has classified AirArmor as a Class 1 medical device. A study published in the American Journal of Sports Medicine found that NCAA players who wore AirArmor saw a 95 percent decrease in the amount of knee and leg injuries occurring on the field.

AirArmor weighs only 22 ounces and is supported from the waist ensuring it is the least restrictive to the players' movement and agility while remaining securely in place with no migration. AirArmor was designed by an orthopedist with the most common knee injuries in mind: damage to the MCL and ACL.

New Product Prevents Football Injuries; AirArmor is First of its Kind Worn Before Knee Injuries Occur; Photo Available [U.S. Newswire]

we make money not art: Through the looking glass is a system that allows a person to play a game with her/himself in a mirror. A full-body-action pong game can be played with the current installation, which provides the excitement of wining and losing at the same time, against oneself.

Lumisty Film, which is used as the material for the table surface, is a key to enabling this unique gaming experience. Lumisty Film selectively diffuses light based on projection angles, which can be used to implement an LCD projection screen that can only be viewed from a person who is looking straight into an LCD projector. (This technology is used for an interactive table system called Lumisight Table, which was developed by the same group at the University of Tokyo.)

So, using two projectors and a mirror as shown in the following illustration, images from one projector can only be seen in the mirror while images form the other projector cannot be seen in the mirror. The camera tracks the location of the disk that the player manipulates on the table.

Through the looking glass [we make money not art]

NYTimes.com: Far from the bloody streets of "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas," and light years from the deep space, run-and-gun menace of "Halo 2," lives Flo.

She is the cartoon-cute stockbroker who chucked it all to operate a modest diner that is the centerpiece of a highly successful yet relatively low-budget video game called "Diner Dash."

The staff of GameLab develops pared-down video games in an office carved from an industrial building.

The game is not found on the shelves of video game or consumer electronic stores. Nor is it sold on the DVD's that deliver interactive 3-D fantasies to millions of PlayStation 2 and Xbox game consoles.

This game, sold exclusively on the Internet and downloaded onto players' personal computers, is challenging many of the conventions of video gaming. Such simple games - often called casual games - are growing more prominent in the ever-broadening game marketplace, becoming big sellers on a small budget.

On Screens, but Not Store Shelves: Casual Games [NYTimes.com]

Entrepreneur.com: Playing games is an important part of every childhood--but for sisters Callie and Pam Weiant, the homemade game their mother created for them as children inspired them to become entrepreneurs.

The game had been popular in the Weiant family for years, and the sisters always thought it would make a great keepsake for other families as well. In 2003, they finally decided to go for it with a loosely based imitation called Gamesake. Players write their favorite memories on playing cards and then use them to move around the traditional board-game structure. Players add new memories year after year, and a keepsake is made. Says Callie, "We want people to create memories in a fun way."

Callie, 36, a former lawyer, and Pam, 35, a marine scientist, didn't know much about creating and marketing a game, so the biggest challenge, says Callie, "[was] that every day we were doing something new." They used savings and seed money from family to cover the $60,000 in startup costs--most of which went to manufacturing.

Be A Boardgame Boss [Entrepreneur.com]

New Scientist: The classic arcade game PacMan has resurfaced on the streets of Singapore using “augmented reality” technology developed by military-backed scientists at the University of Singapore.

While virtual reality immerses a user completely inside a computer-generated environment, augmented reality combines both real and virtual sensory information to produce a digitally-altered version of the real world.

The original arcade game, released in 1980, involves using a joystick to move a tiny yellow character - PacMan - around a two dimensional mazelike grid on a video screen. Cookies are scattered throughout the grid and PacMan’s aim is to munch as many as possible while avoiding being caught by the Ghosts chasing him.

The new game, called Human PacMan, superimposes a 3D PacMan world on top of the city's streets and architecture. Players enter the game by donning a wearable computer, headset and goggles before choosing to play the role of PacMan or one of the Ghosts. Players' movements are tracked using GPS receivers and motion sensors and they are linked back to a central computer system by wireless Local Area Network.

Human PacMan hits real city streets [New Scientist]

We Make Money Not Art: Gametrak is a game controller in the form of a pair of fingerless gloves to strap on your arms. It captures your movements forwards and backwards as well as up, down, left and right. You can punch opponents with your hands, pick up and play using real golf clubs or tennis racquets or bounce virtual basketballs.

Developed last year, Soren Pors's Fight Suit monitors the players' movements and adds audio and visual effects to physical kicks and punches, creating an illusion of real immersive combat.
Based upon accelerometers and movement tracking technologies, the system consists of two gloves that detect the players arm movements, the speed and power of each punch but also advance punching combination.

Vent It On Machines [We Make Money Not Art]

Entrepreneur.com: Victoria Gatling, 36, started to notice a disturbing trend in her family's funeral-home business: "They were burying more and more young people, [victims] of so many violent, senseless crimes." Believing there was a connection between those violent crimes and today's video games, this mother of game-loving children decided to take matters into her own hands.

Starting with $50,000 from friends, family and personal savings, Gatling, a former marketing representative, developed software without high-octane explosions, vulgarity or murder. Her pioneer game, Obstacles of Life, features David, a character facing moral stumbling blocks. The deceptive characters wear street clothes "because I want the kids to know that the devil is not a man in a red suit with horns," says Gatling, who's since authored more than 35 games.

Gatling persuaded pastors to let her present the games to their congregations. Many parents, unaware of the violent content of games prior to her presentations, jumped to try the $14.99 alternatives, which are currently sold nationwide via phone and online orders, as well as regionally at church conventions. Year-end 2005 sales are expected to range between $500,000 and $600,000--Gatling is in talks with Wal-Mart stores and plans to pitch electronics boutiques and game shops later this year.

Game of Life [Entrepreneur.com]

we make money not art: Blowhard is a game, created by Ryan Schoelerman and Sky Frostenson, in which two players compete by breathing into a CPR mask, where a breath sensor translates cumulative respiration into the player's current level of anxiety, shown on a screen in the same color-coded system used by the Department of Homeland Security's Threat Advisory System.

Players must increase their anxiety gradually, moving up one stage at a time. Upon completion of a level the display provides feedback via audio-video USA fear culture propaganda from the 1950s to the present. The first player to reach the top, wins.

The respiration game controller masks are designed using a CPR resuscitation mask, TGS-822 organic vapor sensor and connect via ethernet cables to a game console. The console consists of programmed PIC micro-controllers, on-board LED display graphs, an audio sample processor, and speaker amplifier system. All hardware is housed inside a Playstation2 case.

The software screen display of BLOWHARD is designed using Max/MSP/Jitter.

The game is part of the Hybrid Vigor exhibition, at the Beall Center for Art + Technology on April 6 - 16, 2005.

A Game Investigating The Rhetoric Of Fear Culture [we make money not art]