thoughts on nikeplus.com (Nike + iPod Sports Kit)

What's the site I keep hitting the refresh button all day long? Ironically, it's the one place that's helped me spend more time off-line.

Nikeplus.com (and the hardware you need to enjoy it, Nike + iPod Sports Kit) is - in a nutshell - a pedometer that tracks your running speed and distance and a site to upload that data. But the site is so much more. It's shining feature is the part that uses your running data and lets you compete virtually with others who also own the sports kit. It's become a great motivational tool for my runs and upped my mileage over the last few months. Here's their site to explain how it works (link).

These virtual races you have with others are really addictive. It's a quickly growing community and I've managed to organize a few monthly challenges myself. With each challenge, you get instant updates on how you're doing against others (here I am in the first few days of a new race and already no. 6!)

Click on the link to see all the growing features nike and apple are adding (google maps to share your running routes, running events, discussion boards) After some runs I can rise a few notches up, then if I can't run for a few days, I'll find myself falling behind to the bottom. It becomes a good motivational tool to tell myself on the run "just 1/2 a mile more and I can be in the top 5!) Running has always been a solitary affair for me as I've never quite found friends who would run at the same pace or at the same time. With the virtual race with runners all around the country it doesn't matter where and what time you run. And they're a good bunch of folks on the site, too (you can write quick text messages where the site tells us to "talk trash" but it's been nothing but nice words in my running group). And the biggest motivation of all? The sense that the running steps I am taking are part of the grand new direction in melding sports and virtual social networking (!!)... well, maybe not (one small step for me, one giant step for internet history!) Anyway, as you might be able to tell, running has taken on a whole new level of excitement for me.

I sure hope other products will follow the lead of Nike and Apple's success and come up with socially networkable bikes, tennis rackets, basketballs and even dance shoes (with of course, social networking sites of equal elegance and simplicity). I understand there's a closed networked driving range with RIFD tagged golf balls and scoring systems near Washington DC. It's a great step but being able to compete with anyone in the world will be its true potential.

Technorati Tags:
nike, iPod, nike+, running, pedometer, social networking, sports technology

World's longest tunnel to make a permanent connection between 2 continents

They just need a tunnel between the Russian mainland, Sakhalin (Saharin) Island and Hokkaido and I can drive home to Tokyo!

[from Spluch]
World's longest tunnel to make a permanent connection between 2 continents: "Russia plans to build the world's longest tunnel, a transport and pipeline link under the Bering Strait to Alaska, as part of a $65 billion project to supply the U.S. with oil, natural gas and electricity from Siberia.

A 6,000-kilometer (3,700-mile) transport corridor from Siberia into the U.S. will feed into the tunnel, which at 64 miles (103 km) will be more than twice as long as the underwater section of the Channel Tunnel between the U.K. and France, according to the plan. The tunnel would run in three sections to link the two islands in the Bering Strait between Russia and the U.S.

The planned undersea tunnel would contain a high-speed railway, highway and pipelines, as well as power and fiber-optic cables, according to TKM-World Link.

The project, which Russia is coordinating with the U.S. and Canada, would take 10 to 15 years to complete.

Source: Bloomberg
Tags: Tunnel | Berling Strait | Longest"

(Via Spluch.)