Guest Editors' Introduction: Pervasive Computing in Sports Technologies

S port is an extremely exciting field in which to apply our craft. Results over the last decade of research on applying ubiquitous computing technologies to enhance sports are indeed encouraging. Researchers have learned a great deal about sensors and how to embed them in everyday objects. For example, accelerometers, gyroscopes, microphones, and cameras all lend themselves nicely to a range of sports applications. Computer vision algorithms are enabling researchers to analyze not only a single player’s motions but also the patterns of a group of players simultaneously. Our goals in organizing this issue are to encourage and highlight new research in this emerging area and to pique everyone’s interest in understanding how technology can be applied to sports. Indeed, other efforts to do this exist. For example, in September, a pioneering workshop at the UbiComp ’05 conference (http:// ubicomp.org/ubicomp2005/calls/callworkshops. shtml), organized by Intel researchers Elizabeth Goodman, Brooke Foucault, and Sunny Consolvo, will examine various issues of applying technology in sports. This workshop is certainly timely, coinciding nicely with this special issue. The growing interest in and demand for better sports technologies have spawned a wide variety of new research.