The System
The technology we have developed over the past twelve months enables a live or archived race-view to be interactively presented to clients and users in a web-browser i.e. across the Internet. By bringing a new level of interaction to the user, there are opportunities to involve them much more than just providing video-feed with static web-pages. Only recently have supporting technologies converged to a point where we can achieve acceptable levels of performance. And things will only improve from here.
A brief summary of the main features of the TrackHawk application is as follows. Here we focus on the horse-racing aspects of the application, but we do plan to apply our product to all forms of circuit-racing.
- Internet enabled application running in a modern Browser [ medium broadband speed ]
- Replay of any archived races on demand
- In-depth graphical analysis available for every point throughout each race
- Provision for real-time playback when compatible data-capture hardware / software is installed at the track, with the option for user-diagnosis as soon as a race is archived
- We are currently working on extending the system to allow users to access a database of horse-profiles and run a simulated race of their choosing.
Supporting Technologies
Browsers:
Up until now, Browser support for graphics has been quite limited. With Firefox leading the way with a snappy SVG implementation, graphics are well supported. The Gecko graphics engine has also helped with fast bitmap display.
Google Maps:
Google has produced an excellent application illustrating the use of AJAX [ a technology that has been around a while but never really found a home ]. For the non-technical, this is a break from the traditional Internet model based on page-refresh. We can now make calls directly to the server to obtain data, much the same way as in a client-server situation.
Portable Internet Devices:
The ready availability of these devices [ Blackberry / Cell Phones ] means we have yet another opportunity to do something unique in the market place. In a sense, these devices have hit the market without a real killer application to drive the market. We may be able to fill that gap and provide the "killer application" for punters.
CPU Power:
Javascript is the glue to this type of application but, as it is a non-compiled language, it can often be quite CPU-intensive. CPU power has now reached a balance with Javascript-demands so that a reasonable response can be achieved, even for quite complex on-the-fly calculations.
Internet Speed:
Broadband has opened up opportunities in many areas. For the TrackHawk application, it means we have greater possibilities to integrate existing technologies with our own e.g. Live-audio can be run in parallel with our application, or even video-feed if required.
Data Capture:
At present, we have several hardware technologies under consideration. It is quite possible that we eventually provide several alternatives as appropriate in different environments. Without question, the state-of-the-art in electronic measurement allows us to capture data cost-effectively, either using GPS devices or dedicated transceivers.