Friday News Roundup: 9/5/2014

Each Friday, we here at TechGraphs like to point out some of the sports-tech stories that may have slipped through the cracks. It’s the Friday News Roundup. I have a busy schedule of getting my butt kicked in Madden, so let’s get right to it.

• It’s football season! To celebrate, the temperature in the American Middle West dropped twenty degrees within 24 hours. As of this writing, we are one game into the NFL season. Hopefully you didn’t blow your entire nest egg on Seahawks/Packers, because betting on games just got easier. Thanks to the Windows Phone feature Cortana, all you have to do is ask who is going to win. Cortana will use a “combination of stats, previous match-ups, and subtler criteria like stadium conditions” to pick a winner for you. If you program your bookie in your phone, your gambling problem can be 100% voice-activated.

• Speaking of the NFL, Fox announced that you should be able to use its Fox Sports To Go app to stream 101 games to which they have the rights for the 2014 season. One will need a cable or satellite subscription to access the feature on their computers, phones, and laptops, and the game will have to be available in their local area. This means that fans of out-of-town teams are still stuck with needing Sunday Ticket or sketchy streaming web sites.

• Verizon is also offering up a similar service, but with the added bonus of RedZone.

• Also on the streaming front, ESPN announced that customers of MediaCom, Suddenlink, NCTC and NTTC should now have access to the WatchESPN service on computers and mobile devices. There’s a joke here about watching First Take while sitting on the toilet, but I can’t nail it down yet. I’ll get back to you.

• ESPN also updated their SportsCenter app for the iPhone, allowing quicker access to favorite teams and shows. It seems as if my request to add curling to the scores section went unnoticed yet again.

• GOLF! The Ryder Cup said it would ban social media posting by fans on the grounds, but then they changed their minds. Or succumbed to scrutiny. Either way. Limiting ways fans can interact with a game everyone says is dying was probably a dumb move, so it’s nice to see the Ryder Cup rectify it.

• Not a Madden person? Don’t have $60 to spend on something that pretty much only makes you angry? You’re in luck! Tecmo Super Bowl 2015 has been released! With just a little emulator magic, you can get that virtual football experience without all those buttons and joysticks to get in your way. Now you can get angry for free, though that was already pretty easy.

• In baseball, MLB said that they have crossed the point of no return — more people are watching MLB.tv on devices than on computers. I’m guessing this guy had a lot to do with it.

• We may be closer to removing the first down markers and chains from football, thanks to some research being done with magnetic fields. While I’m all for getting the calls right, I will miss that part when the ball is short by a good foot and a half, but the quarterback runs to the coach signaling that they ONLY NEED TWO MORE INCHES. I grew up watching Brett Favre, so I remember this happening a lot.

• And finally, EA Sports launched their Madden GIFERATOR this week. This tool is supposedly for taunting your Madden opponents on Twitter or something. I’m not really sure what the practical use is. Anyway, the Internet did what the Internet always does, and ruined it. Actually, they took a dumb, gimmicky thing and made it pretty funny. I even tried my hand at it today:

That’s all for this week. Remember to ice those thumbs periodically, and try not to curse too much at pre-teens.

(Header photo via John S)