Tag Archives: boxing

The real fight isn’t Tyson vs. Paul — it’s Netflix vs. its livestreaming infrastructure

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Netflix has been experimenting with live sports over the last few months with golf and tennis exhibition events. The company has announced the biggest test for its livestreaming capabilities to date: a boxing match between YouTuber (and pro boxer) Jake Paul and former world heavyweight champion Mike Tyson.

The fight is going to be a spectacle for a number of reasons. Both fighters bring star power to the table. There's a 30-year age gap between them. Despite his 9-1 record, Paul can hardly be described as an elite fighter. While Tyson is regarded as one of the best heavyweights of all time, he retired 19 years ago and has only fought in two matches since then. Paul's second match was on the undercard of Tyson's last bout, which was against Roy Jones Jr. in 2020.

The battle will take place at the 80,000-capacity AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas. It's bound to attract a decent audience through Netflix as well. Most major boxing matches are on pay per view, but Netflix's 260 million subscribers will be able to watch at no extra cost.

Netflix hasn't released viewership figures for the Netflix Cup (its golf event) or the Netflix Slam (a recent tennis exhibition). Combat sports tend to deliver high viewership, though, suggesting that Netflix's infrastructure will have to handle more simultaneous streams than any of its other live events so far.

The company has dabbled with other live events over the last year or so, including a Chris Rock comedy special, the SAG Awards and a weekly cooking show with David Chang. However, the company has faced issues with livestreams in the past — it was forced to abandon plans for a live Love is Blind reunion due to technical issues.

Netflix has around nine months to make sure its livestreaming capabilities are in order before it embarks on its most ambitious sports (well, sports-adjacent) project yet. Starting in January, Netflix will be the home of WWE's live weekly shows in many markets, including the flagship program Raw in the US.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-real-fight-isnt-tyson-vs-paul--its-netflix-vs-its-livestreaming-infrastructure-190924232.html?src=rss

The real fight isn’t Tyson vs. Paul — it’s Netflix vs. its livestreaming infrastructure

Posted on by

Netflix has been experimenting with live sports over the last few months with golf and tennis exhibition events. The company has announced the biggest test for its livestreaming capabilities to date: a boxing match between YouTuber (and pro boxer) Jake Paul and former world heavyweight champion Mike Tyson.

The fight is going to be a spectacle for a number of reasons. Both fighters bring star power to the table. There's a 30-year age gap between them. Despite his 9-1 record, Paul can hardly be described as an elite fighter. While Tyson is regarded as one of the best heavyweights of all time, he retired 19 years ago and has only fought in two matches since then. Paul's second match was on the undercard of Tyson's last bout, which was against Roy Jones Jr. in 2020.

The battle will take place at the 80,000-capacity AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas. It's bound to attract a decent audience through Netflix as well. Most major boxing matches are on pay per view, but Netflix's 260 million subscribers will be able to watch at no extra cost.

Netflix hasn't released viewership figures for the Netflix Cup (its golf event) or the Netflix Slam (a recent tennis exhibition). Combat sports tend to deliver high viewership, though, suggesting that Netflix's infrastructure will have to handle more simultaneous streams than any of its other live events so far.

The company has dabbled with other live events over the last year or so, including a Chris Rock comedy special, the SAG Awards and a weekly cooking show with David Chang. However, the company has faced issues with livestreams in the past — it was forced to abandon plans for a live Love is Blind reunion due to technical issues.

Netflix has around nine months to make sure its livestreaming capabilities are in order before it embarks on its most ambitious sports (well, sports-adjacent) project yet. Starting in January, Netflix will be the home of WWE's live weekly shows in many markets, including the flagship program Raw in the US.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-real-fight-isnt-tyson-vs-paul--its-netflix-vs-its-livestreaming-infrastructure-190924232.html?src=rss

‘Smart punching bag cover’ may just be the most niche, cool, and unusual thing we saw at CES 2023

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Why punch a regular bag when you could punch a couple of sensors instead?

Meet the I-Perskin a seemingly ordinary-looking punching bag cover that comes to life the minute you switch it on. Equipped with LEDs, sensors, and a microcontroller, the I-Perskin makes training more effective by giving you actual targets to punch. Strategically-placed zones on the punching bag light up, and switch off when you land punches on them. The sensors measure your speed, force, and reactivity as you lay blows, and the companion app gives you a detailed breakdown of your training rep, telling you exactly where you need to improve. It isn’t as dramatic as a training montage from Creed, but it quite effectively gets the job done without requiring a trainer be present.

Designer: I-Percut

Using the I-Perskin is pretty intuitive, given that it just requires a companion app. You can set the boxing style you want the bag to emulate in the app (French/English boxing, Thai, fitness, kickboxing, or MMA) along with the difficulty level, and the I-Perskin’s series of LEDs glow to complement the style of boxing you want to practice. A play-pause button on the front lets you start, pause, or end training, and LEDs within the highlighted zones glow to indicate where you need to punch, and change colors after you land the punch as a means of visual feedback.

The I-Perskin was announced roughly 4 months ago, but debuted at CES 2023. Pricing on the smart-cover or the app is unclear at the moment, but we can expect details sometime in the near future. The Toulouse-based startup I-Percut mentioned that the bag has a battery life of 14 days, giving you a fortnight of training before it needs to be plugged in.

The post ‘Smart punching bag cover’ may just be the most niche, cool, and unusual thing we saw at CES 2023 first appeared on Yanko Design.

Giant Boxing Gloves Sectional Sofa Delivers a Knock Out toYour Wallet

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Are you a professional boxer? Or maybe you’re the world’s biggest boxing fan. If you’re one of the two, then this vintage Boxing Glove Sectional sofa may be for you. If you’re not, it probably isn’t. Produced by Swiss design house De Sede in 1978, the sofa is available through 1stDibs for the knock-out price of $31,500. I don’t know about you, but I’ve tapped out already.

Constructed with an all-leather exterior complete with glove tie accents, you can also separate the sofa into two individual lounge chairs in the event you can’t watch television with your roommate without arguing and eventually throwing punches. I know exactly what that’s like. We have to wear mouthguards just to get through an episode of The Book of Boba Fett.

So, for the price of a new car, you can be the proud owner of a boxing glove sectional sofa. Alternatively, you could spend a tiny fraction of that cost to pay me to knock some sense into you. Just FYI, if you want me to wear gloves, though, it will cost you extra.

[via DudeIWantThat]

This 4-armed sparring robot throws punches back at you while you’re boxing!

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Is this a metaphor for how life in 2020 has the ability to punch back? Who knows… All I can say is that the Stryk RXT-1 was built to make you a better sparrer, thanks to its ability to go on the offense, unlike punching bags that just stay static and accept the blows you give them. The RXT-1 is a robot that comes with four padded arms and a face you can absolutely unload on. Built with 3 training modes and 3 difficulty settings to choose from, the RXT-1 robot actually engages with you, allowing you to train with an AI competitor, sort of like in video-games… but for real!

Designed to be a slightly more intense version of those flailing balloon-men you see outside car dealerships, the RXT-1 comes with a head-target, and four padded arms that swing back and forth to simulate the effect of an opponent throwing punches. The arms are designed to throw soft punches (think of yourself being whacked by a pool tube), but they do move as swift as a human hand would, so you’re required to think and act fast to deflect them as soon as you can. A touchscreen on the torso lets you program the RXT-1, choosing between its three built-in modes – Practice, Spar, and Combination. The Practice mode gives you a more predictable opponent, as the robot punches back exactly every 2 seconds in a pre-determined pattern so you know where you next punch is coming from. The spar offers a more realistic experience, as the robot behaves randomly, engaging your reflexes and your ability to think on your feet (quite literally). The Combination mode lets you explore more than 100 different patterns and routines to loosen up your body. Designed to be like your own personal striking trainer. It has over 100 preset combinations and allows users to strike the arm pads as they would the focus mitts. This trains the user’s hand-eye coordination, speed, agility, and cardio.

The RXT-1 can either be wall-mounted, or kept on the ground using a robust floor-stand. It’s extremely easy to assemble, and even offers an add-on torso pad that sits where your opponent’s chest would, so you could train yourself on attacking your opponent’s torso too. The sparring robot comes calibrated to the standards of MMA athletes, but ideally, it’s made for anyone who either wants to keep their martial-arts/boxing skills from going rusty, or someone who’d like to train at home without having to interact with humans during the pandemic. Either way, the three difficulty settings are great for anyone from a beginner to an expert (although no professional fighter has managed to defeat the RXT-1 in its highest difficulty stage), allowing you to boost your reflexes, agility, and hand-eye coordination, while giving you an intense adrenaline-fused HIIT workout that tests both your offense AS WELL as your defense… more than that static punching bag could ever do for you. Oh, and unlike 2020 though, you can switch this guy off if you’ve had enough!

Designer: STRYK USA

Guy Makes Life-size Mike Tyson from “Punch-Out!!”

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Back in the day, there was a Nintendo arcade and NES game called Punch-Out!! As far as I know, it was the first boxing game ever. The original arcade game featured fictitious fighters like Glass Joe, Piston Hurricane, Bald Bull, and Mr. Sandman. But when it eventually made it to the NES in 1987, Mike Tyson licensed his name and likeness to Nintendo, and he became the game’s final boss.

If you’re a fan of Punch-Out!! and the pixelated version of Tyson that appeared in the game, then you’ll want to check this life-size cutout of 8-bit Tyson that I spotted over on Etsy.

This 66″ tall version of the boxer was made by artist Jason Walker, who cut it from a sheet of 1/2″ plywood, then painted all the pixels to make him come to life. I imagine it took quite some time to get all of those jaggy edges just right, so it’s well worth the $300 asking price. Of course, it’s a bit heavy and unwieldy, so it’ll cost you another $130 for shipping here in the US. Then again shipping around the actual Mike Tyson would surely cost more, and he’d probably punch you in the face while you tried to cover him in bubble wrap.

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DAZN will provide boxing news and highlights on Snapchat

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DAZN's boxing coverage is now headed to an unusual place: Snapchat. The sports network is teaming up with Snapchat to launch DAZN Fight Week and DAZN Fight Night shows on Discover that deliver boxing news and highlights in a cut-down form. Fight We...

Amazon might start using robots to box your orders

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A few weeks ago, Amazon said it will be at least 10 years before the company is running fully-automated warehouses. But partial automation is already underway. According to Reuters, Amazon is considering installing two machines at dozens of warehouse...