The Week in Review is a collection of both all the goodness I’ve written during the past week around the internet, as well as a small pile of links I found interesting – generally endurance sports related. I’ve often wondered what to do with all of the coolness that people write, and while I share a lot of it on Twitter and Facebook, this is a better forum for sending it on to y’all. Most times these different streams don’t overlap, so be on the lookout at all these places for good stuff!
So with that, let’s get into the action!
DCRainmaker.com posts in the past week:
Here’s all the goodness that ended up on the main page of DCRainmaker.com this past week.
Monday: Hands-on: Team Zwatt launches subscription based power meter
Wednesday: Hands-on: Polar’s new Android Wear based M600 GPS Sport Watch (with music!)
Wednesday: Wahoo Fitness rolls out Strava Live Segments to ELEMNT GPS
Thursday: Tech Tidbits: Basis closes up shop, Strava announces live tracking platform
Friday: Friday DCR Facebook Live Q&A: Aug 5th!
Facebook Live Recording!
In case you didn’t catch the live event above, you can watch it below in all its recorded glory (including all the comments/questions below the video). Obviously there are some tweaks I can make around audio (once the Mevo Boost accessory arrives), as well as camera angles. But not too shabby the first time around. Also, in the last 3-5 minutes I talk about ideas for future live videos. So give that a listen and drop your feedback below in the comments!
YouTube videos of note:
Woah! I got into the swing of making YouTube videos this week each afternoon. So lots of stuff here to share! I’ve got a pile of interesting YouTube ideas for the next few weeks. I’m trying to find the balance for videos like these that don’t take me at max more than 45-60mins to produce (including shooting/editing/etc…). Once I get beyond that, my video skills just take me too long.
In any case – enjoy! Oh, and you can subscribe on YouTube here, so you get notifications instantly when I publish new stuff.
Stuff that I found interesting around the interwebs:
Here’s a not-so-small smattering of all the random things that I stumbled on while doing my civic duty to find the end of the Internet:
1) Olympic Rule 40 Explained: This post explains the Rule 40 fairly well, and why this crazy-ass rule matters to athletes right now (in a big way). And the below video doubles down on it.
2) Calgary Triathlon gets transition area in satellite maps: My coach (Alan Melvin) was putting together some race plan details for an athlete competing today in a triathlon in Calgary and noticed that the transition area from last year was captured on the satellite imagery now used for that area (if you zoom in far enough). Talk about perfect race prep book!
3) Tour de France behind the scenes logistics video: GoPro put together this piece, called ‘Beyond the race’, and it’s pretty cool. All about what goes on every day to make a single Tour de France stage. Really nuts.
4) GoPro Hero5 stuffs: Speaking of GoPro. Noted.
5) Washington Post using robotic writers (computers) for published Olympic updates: Reminds me a bit of the baseball box score writing that started a while back via computers.
6) SmashRun app is raising money to pay Garmin’s $5K fee: Or…you know, Garmin could just waive the fee and increase innovation on their platform and thus increase attachment of users to their platform.
7) Olympics add 5 new sports for 2020: They are karate, skateboard, climbing, surfing, and baseball/softball. You’ll note that baseball was an Olympic sport from 1904 until 2008, but skipped 2012/2016. Softball was an Olympic sport from 1996 to 2008.
8) Nat Geo creates topo map at-home printing platform (for free): While many readers here might be using topo maps on electronic devices, sometimes it just makes sense to have a paper printed map.
Sports Technology Software/Firmware Updates This Week:
Each week I quickly highlight some of the new firmware, app, software and website service updates that I see go out. If you’re a sports technology company and release an update – shoot me a quick note (just one liners are perfect, or Tweet it at me is even better) and I’ll make mention of it here. If I don’t know about it, I won’t be able to post about it. Sound good? Oh – and if you want to get a head start on things, this page is a great resource for watching Garmin firmware updates.
Wahoo ELEMNT firmware update: Added Strava Live segments, discussed in detail in Wednesday’s post mentioned above.
Garmin Fenix3 HR/Fenix3/Tactix Bravo/Quatix 3 BETA firmware: Minor improvement tweaks.
Garmin Vivosmart HR+ firmware update: Added Walk support, other minor improvement tweaks.
—
Thanks for reading all!
FOUND THIS POST USEFUL? SUPPORT THE SITE!
Hopefully, you found this post useful. The website is really a labor of love, so please consider becoming a DC RAINMAKER Supporter. This gets you an ad-free experience, and access to our (mostly) bi-monthly behind-the-scenes video series of “Shed Talkin’”.
Support DCRainMaker - Shop on Amazon
Otherwise, perhaps consider using the below link if shopping on Amazon. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. It doesn’t cost you anything extra, but your purchases help support this website a lot. It could simply be buying toilet paper, or this pizza oven we use and love.
Robotic reporting? But let’s not get ahead of ourselves and move on to the unboxing….
Well, there are probably patterns in writing styles and subject areas. But you wonder if AI can capture the spontaneousness of references to rainbow color unicorns in passages. Quirks are what people are made of, and provide the hooks of interest. Probably why so many visit DCR over other athletic news outlets.
With that said, what’s cook in’ in the Parisian food department this week 😉
On “5) Washington Post using robotic writers (computers) for published Olympic updates” – that’s nothing. On Wall Street, they use automated software to analyze the newspaper articles and decide what transactions to do at the Stock Exchange. The problem is that those newspaper articles are themselves written by automated software programs which analyze the Stock Exchange transactions and try to influence the traders with new and biased newspaper articles.
The video on Rule 40 was hilarious!
I did the Chaparral Triathlon today! Great event, I recommend it!
I can hardly see the watch in the M600 android video. It’s way too far away – it could be any watch. Please can you zoom in so that the watch fills at least 50% of the screen?
SmashRun doesn’t have to pay the fee. They could just submit their proposal and Garmin would hook them up.
I have done it before!
Potentially, though, not always.
If that’s true about the GoPro 5 I am not impressed. Sure it’s a little easier to have touch screen controls on the camera rather than pulling out my phone, but not nearly enough to buy a new one for that feature.
The ‘fact’ that there might no longer be support for the add-on battery BacPac as a trade-off for a waterproof case is a negative. I’ve never found it to be too big in the case.
I’ve started switching over to Garmin Virbs; in fact the only reason I still have GoPro’s is that I can’t find a holder for my Feiyu gimbal. IMO, they NEED to come out with GPS in the 5 as the existing Garmin’s already have more features.
But the battery BacPac works with the Hero4 Silver (which has a touchscreen), so I wouldn’t expect that to be a deal-killer going forward.
The Hero4 Silver’s main appeal of the screen isn’t so much touch, but being able to line-up/see your shot, without the phone.
Wait, how do they add surfing to the Olympics? Can you surf in Tokyo? Are they going to send the athletes to the local water park with a wave pool? I need these details!
Garmin really needs to get its act on their platform. GC is such a pain to use, and near unusable in some areas like training calendar creation and sync. It’s even more laughable when you compare it against sites like Smashrun or Tapiirik or Veloviewer with their 1-2 person teams!
Interesting read about rule 40. I haven’t paid close attention, but this likely explains why google has the “google fruit games” on their homepage.