Technabob » tennis

NetMix Player Takes the Grunts Out of Wimbledon

Shane McGlaun — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 17:52:01 +0000

I happen to think watching tennis is right up there with watching golf and watching paint dry. The sports might be fun to play, but watching them on TV leaves me in a bored stupor. I also don’t care for watching soccer on TV, but I do recall when the World Cup was going on all those fans who brought out those noisy Vuvuzela horns. There were some apps out there that would cut the sound of those horns from the game for you.

I guess the tennis-playing version of those annoying horns are the grunts and groans of the players as they bash that little ball around. If you like to watch Wimbledon, but you don’t like to listen to the grunts over the top of the commentary, an experimental video player has landed just for you that will only work while the Wimbledon tournament is going.

The NetMix player is cool because it has a slider that will let you choose how much of the court sounds and grunting you hear and how much of the commentary you hear. Unfortunately, the app will only stream the big matches from Center Court at the stadium, but at least it works for both Windows and Mac users.

Wii Tennis Gets Rackets From Prince

Technabob — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 04:17:41 +0000

For those of you who’d rather play some Wii Sports tennis instead of hitting a real court, check out these new racket add-ons from tennis equipment maker Prince.

The mini rackets are a little smaller than the real deal, but the design looks much nicer than the cheapie white accessories you usually see for the Wii.

Now the thought of flailing around my living room with a tennis racket has me fearful that I’ll break a couple of lamps, my big screen TV and maybe the cat. For those of you with better coordination than me, you’ll be able to pick one up in time for the holidays for about $15.

[via Kotaku]

Electric Tennis Racket Serves Up Pesky Mosquitos

Technabob — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 11:25:01 +0000

Summer is just around the corner, and with that comes one of life’s greatest annoyances, the mosquito bite. Thankfully, the fine folks over at Brando have the solution for swatting those little buggers right off the map.

The $10 Electric Mosquito Trap Racket is designed to fry any unsuspecting pests who happen to land in the racket’s wire netting. Operated by a couple of AA batteries, the swatter should deliver enough of a jolt to kill bugs dead, but hopefully not the one swinging the racket.

It goes without saying, but don’t let your kids try to play tennis with this thing or stick their tongues on the racket surface.

Animated Pong T-Shirt for the Retro Gamer

Technabob — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 20:38:06 +0000

The gadget mavens over at Think Geek have revealed this new t-shirt that features an animation based on Atari’s gaming classic, Pong (although the t-shirt simply refers to it as “Table Tennis”, for obvious legal reasons.)

The animation is pretty rudimentary, with the paddles hitting the ball back and forth between the same two spots, and the score permanently fixed at 4 to 2. If only they could work out a way for you to actually play a game on one of these, then that would be truly novel.

The $25 t-shirt uses electroluminescent technology to work its magic, and is powered by a set of AAA batteries which come in a separate concealed battery pack.

[via The Uber-Review]