Although I don't play cricket, or watch or enjoy cricket, or know anything about it, I have noticed that catching the ball is often a large part of it. And this catching does not always work.
So, MaxCo. is launching its range of Predictive Cricket Glasses. They consist (for each eye) of a camera with a decent frame-rate, a small VR- style screen, and some gubbins. The gubbins take the last three images from the camera, and perform a quick comparison between them. From this, the apparent motion of any object (such as a cricket ball, for instance) can be predicted with decent accuracy, and displayed on the VR screens.
Because there are two camera/gubbins/screens (one for each eye - much better), the predicted monocular images will of course equate to stereoscopic prediction. A small dial on the left-hand stem can be turned, but does nothing and was put there by Marketing. However, a similar dial on the right-hand stem can be used to select the degree of prediction; you can choose to see the ball where it will be in 0.2 seconds, 0.5 seconds, all the way up to 2 seconds into the future. Naturally, the error in the prediction (due to factors such as wind) becomes greater for the longest predictions.
(Please note: the beta-test versions currently in circulation have a processing delay of approximately 2.5 seconds, but we are working to resolve this issue.)-- MaxwellBuchanan, Jan 13 2019 Of course, for matches between <placeholder until I can find out something about cricket> and <placeholder until I can find out something about cricket>, the predictions can be extended out to about a week.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Jan 13 2019 You attempted to be halfbaked, but, oh no! I think it will certainly work. It's very patentable and could be used for athletic training even if it were cumbersome or prohibited at actual contests.-- beanangel, Jan 13 2019 2.5 seconds? Are you using a Vic-20 to run the math through a LOGO-to-Pascal interpreter?-- RayfordSteele, Jan 13 2019 No, but we've put in a budget request for one.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Jan 13 2019 Haven't you still got that HP85c that you needed for the Large Hadron Collider data analysis ? You could use that ...
When we read the title, we thought it would be a pair of sunglasses with a tiny speaker that played the phrase "You're going to fall asleep any minute now, you know".-- 8th of 7, Jan 14 2019 //HP85c// Yes, but those hadrons were tiny. We'll need something much, much bigger for a cricket ball.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Jan 14 2019 // show where the point is. //
You can't show something that doesn't exist.-- 8th of 7, Jan 14 2019 A point may not exist, but it still has a position. So you can show where it is. For instance, there's a point inside this O-- MaxwellBuchanan, Jan 14 2019 Yes, there is, but there's no point in cricket.
Interestingly, there apears to be even less point in baseball, which suggests that the square root of minus one comes into it somewhere.-- 8th of 7, Jan 14 2019 Now you're just imagining things.-- pertinax, Jan 14 2019 The most interesting variation of cricket is the game of "Bricket" where a half brick is used instead of a cricket ball. Players waddle around in heavily padded protective suits, similar to that of bomb disposal technicians. The Bricket keeper cowers behind an armour plate with a horizontal slot cut in it for vision.-- xenzag, Jan 14 2019 Now, we certainly would pay a dollar to watch that.
Are there land mines ?-- 8th of 7, Jan 14 2019 What do they use for the bat?-- pocmloc, Jan 14 2019 A cricket bat with a metal face should be suitable.-- xenzag, Jan 14 2019 Handy if you disagree with the other team and have to appeal to the vampire ..-- 8th of 7, Jan 14 2019 I think you'd be better off with a wom bat.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Jan 14 2019 No, but that would be a good idea in itself.-- 8th of 7, Jan 15 2019 Not observing cricket is very easy; just don't sit still looking in the same direction for a couple of hours. If you keep moving and keep looking at interesting things, the chances of accidentally observing cricket are slim.-- pocmloc, Jan 15 2019 There are ball catching robots that use a variety of systems to optically predict the flight of a ball. Even when it's gently tossed in their direction, they're dreadful at it. The moving part is the easy one for robots, it's not hard to make one that will whizz around faster than people. The sensing and prediction are where robots are behind the human visual cortex. Also, how does the path prediction take into account reverse swing when even grizzled Yorkshiremen don't understand reverse swing?-- bs0u0155, Jan 15 2019 //Although I don't play cricket, or watch or enjoy cricket, or know anything about it
and my 100% spot-on prediction is..cricket is boring.-- not_morrison_rm, Jan 17 2019 "... and tonight on Mastermind, our first contestant is [not_morrison_rm], who has chosen the specialised subject of 'The Bleedin' Obvious' ..."-- 8th of 7, Jan 18 2019 random, halfbakery