Yes, this app promises to do more than shout "bend zee knees" while reeking of Gaulois and pissing at the edge of a ski run.
Code:
Three thousand metres up on Austria’s Hintertux glacier, the world’s best ski racers are being put through their paces. All these racers, all these coaches, and yet by far the most closely monitored skier on the entire mountain is me. I am skiing alone, unnoticed. Scrutinising my every move, from the angle of my ski edges to the relative pressure exerted by each toe, is the world’s first AI ski instructor. Hidden in my boots are two sensor-packed footbeds, communicating via Bluetooth to the smartphone in my jacket pocket, which in turn is reporting back to a server in Frankfurt.
Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
martinm wrote:
davidof wrote:
martinm wrote:
Behind a paywall....
not for me, have you read too many articles?
Nope.
The other thread is titled 'Carv' I think.
Thanks
After all it is free
After all it is free
Does it romance young attractive women, make bookings for lunch or lead crocodiles of 12 kids onto the piste without looking?
Thought not - AI still has someway to go
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
Won't be handing in my P45 just yet.
Don't think the sensors will be able to lift a student up off the snow 😉
Ski the Net with snowHeads
Ski the Net with snowHeads
Mike Pow wrote:
Won't be handing in my P45 just yet.
Don't think the sensors will be able to lift a student up off the snow 😉
still post 29th March you'll be teaching on the Brecons !
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
Paste the FT headline into a Chrome Incognito tab (without cookies) and you folks should be able to read the article from cached Google.
Looks like a good innovation.
They have basically taken the automotive pressure-sensors found underneath car-seats that link to the airbags (to identify who is in the vehicle), and stuck them in a pair of skiboots with a Bluetooth radio and some coding.
It is British, though... So they will probably bumble along for a while and end up selling it to the Americans or Germans on the cheap.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
The Germans will then develop an app that cheats on your skill level, to flatter fat German punters.
So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much
So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much
davidof wrote:
Mike Pow wrote:
Won't be handing in my P45 just yet.
Don't think the sensors will be able to lift a student up off the snow 😉
still post 29th March you'll be teaching on the Brecons !
Thankfully Brexit won't affect my livelihood like it will others.
But if climate models become reality then Wales is the new Hokkaido.
You know it makes sense.
You know it makes sense.
Whitegold wrote:
Paste the FT headline into a Chrome Incognito tab (without cookies) and you folks should be able to read the article from cached Google.
Looks like a good innovation.
They have basically taken the automotive pressure-sensors found underneath car-seats that link to the airbags (to identify who is in the vehicle), and stuck them in a pair of skiboots with a Bluetooth radio and some coding.
It is British, though... So they will probably bumble along for a while and end up selling it to the Americans or Germans on the cheap.
Doesn't work for me...
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
if I type "carv financial times" into google and select the second link (not the one in the box) I can read the article
Poster: A snowHead
Poster: A snowHead
Mike Pow wrote:
davidof wrote:
Mike Pow wrote:
Won't be handing in my P45 just yet.
Don't think the sensors will be able to lift a student up off the snow 😉
still post 29th March you'll be teaching on the Brecons !
Thankfully Brexit won't affect my livelihood like it will others.
well that's good news at least.
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
ohhh phukket
Quote:
Tom Robbins October 25, 2018
Three thousand metres up on Austria’s Hintertux glacier, the world’s best ski racers are being put through their paces. It is mid-October — long before the opening of any conventional ski resort — so they come up here to train, their multicoloured skin-suits animating a monochrome world of rock and ice, far above the tree line. Teams from Canada, Italy, Russia, Holland and many more crowd around the T-bars and near the tops of the runs, waiting for their turn through the slalom gates. And looking on, a battalion of stern coaches in puffa jackets, radios and binoculars slung round their necks, notepads in hand.
All these racers, all these coaches, and yet by far the most closely monitored skier on the entire mountain is me. I am skiing alone, unnoticed, wearing an old black anorak and woolly hat rather than national colours and polished helmet. But scrutinising my every move, from the angle of my ski edges to the relative pressure exerted by each toe, is the world’s first AI ski instructor. Hidden in my boots are two sensor-packed footbeds, communicating via Bluetooth to the smartphone in my jacket pocket, which in turn is reporting back to a server in Frankfurt. With each turn I throw up a spray of snow and a cloud of data.
Smartphone apps that record top speed and distance skied have become commonplace in recent years, but Carv is something altogether different. An average turn lasts about 1.5 seconds, during which time it will have collected and analysed more than 5,000 pieces of information. In free-skiing mode, it will silently record your performance so on the lift going back up, you can pull out your phone and check, for example, your minimum edge to edge time or see how early in the turn you start applying pressure. If that sounds altogether too geeky, you can leave the phone in your pocket, and a computerised voice will pipe up to give you a simple overall score for your run, a “Ski:IQ”.
Recording and scoring is just the start, though. Choose one of the instruction drills and the app will talk to you as you ski — via cordless headphones — giving you tips and encouragement, and marking each turn. An upbeat chime (I picture Pac-Man eating a ghost) rewards a good turn, a sludgy bleep denotes a poor one.
After a degree at Oxford and gap year in Whistler, Grant, now 32, was working as an intern for Barclays Capital while doing a PhD in financial economics at Imperial College London. “I was looking at using machine learning to optimise portfolio allocation in futures markets, so that gave me exposure to coding, statistics and data science. I became interested in the idea of using the same techniques to try to understand my own data as I skied.”
He began developing algorithms to track skiing and posted a message on the college noticeboard asking for help (and jokily promising the chance to “sell to Google for billions”). Among those to respond was Pruthvikar Reddy, a masters student in mechanical engineering who had already been snapped up by JPMorgan to work part time, helping develop an iPad app for use at the London Metal Exchange. Together, they founded Motion Metrics, initially developing a tracking app, then creating prototypes of sensors — at first just iPhones taped to skis — turning their backs on their nascent City careers to work on the project full time (even though Reddy had never previously been skiing). Helped by Imperial’s Venture Catalyst Challenge, an accelerator programme for start-ups, they won backers including Alex Hoye, chief executive of ski maker Faction, and Sean O’Sullivan, the US-based serial tech investor.
Since 2015 they have led itinerant lives, moving between Shenzhen, China’s electronics capital, where Carv’s hardware is made, and ski resorts in Austria, Italy, the US and Slovenia, where the software is tested and developed. “At one point we were testing prototypes at a dry ski slope in Essex,” says Reddy, now 26. “It was summer, and someone saw me carrying ski boots, with lots of wires coming out of them, through Liverpool Street station. The next thing, we turned round and the whole station had been shut off, the police were there with attack dogs and bomb squad. This terrified looking policeman asked me what I was holding — I said ‘it’s a digital ski coach!’.”
“Go get ’em tiger!” says the female, US-accented voice in my cordless headphones as I ski away from the top of a lift. Much as I am charmed by Grant and Reddy’s youthful enthusiasm, I am quietly dubious about their concept — given all the endless variables, I doubt any amount of machine learning can compete with an experienced instructor. More than that, I come to the mountains precisely to unplug from the constant buzz of technology.
And yet, Carv is surprisingly addictive. Even on the free-ski mode I find myself concentrating hard on every turn in order to up my score for the run — especially given the league table feature that ranks you against other users in real time, whether they be alongside you or anywhere else in the world. A combination of barometer and GPS tells the system when we are taking a lift, and on the T-bar Grant and I compare scores. (He skis at speed and spends much of the time waiting for me at the bottom — “I started a company that analyses turns but I really like going straight.”).
The 48 pressure sensors under each foot can tell if your weight is forward or back at the right point of the turn and whether you are transferring the weight smoothly from ski to ski. The movement of the phone in your jacket pocket can tell if your upper body position is correctly facing the fall line. An accelerometer, gyroscope and electronic compass, hidden in a tiny chip under each instep, can monitor edge angles, tempo, the symmetry of turns and much more. But finally, with a “Great job!” Carv announces I have completed the level, and by tapping my glove on my earphone twice, I move up to the next one.
So far, professionals have been positive — both racers, including British number one Dave Ryding and former US moguls world champion Jeremy Bloom, and instructors. When the company launched a Kickstarter campaign, members of the US ski team and the Professional Ski Instructors of America association saw it and invited Grant and Reddy to a training camp in California. Some of the PSIA’s star skiers, including Jonathan Ballou, head of the Aspen ski school, have helped develop the drills and skied with the system to provide benchmark data. “I guess you could say they are turkeys voting for Christmas,” says Grant, “but I think they genuinely just want to get more people into skiing.”
Even at those prices, instructors’ jobs are probably safe for now — Carv is more an added extra for the keen intermediate eager to accelerate their progress. But it is learning all the time — every turn you have ever made is stored in its servers, so the programme can begin to identify which instructions and drills you respond best to, as well as comparing you to other skiers of a similar type. Grant makes comparisons with the way Spotify gets to know what kind of music users like, and the way AI is being used by education companies. “The endgame is that everything is optimised just for you,” he says.
At the end of the day we take the series of cable cars back down to the valley, from winter back to summer — in the car park it is 21C and there is a smell of warm hay. Google and its billions may not have come knocking just yet — Grant and Reddy are staying in the cheapest hotel in town — but there’s little doubt the information age has arrived in the mountains.
Details
Tom Robbins was a guest of Inghams and the Tirol tourist board. Inghams offers a week’s stay at the four-star Alpenhotel Kramerwirt in Mayrhofen, just down the valley from Hintertux, from £839 per person, half-board including flights from London and transfers. For more on Carv see getcarv.com.
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Here's the thing. It can't actually see you skiing so it is relying totally on the 48 sensors plus gyroscope and accelerometer to know what you are currently trying to do, then guessing. How well can it do this? With the pressure sensors it can probably tell more about your skiing than a coach but it can't see your upper body movement etc - is knowing what pressure you are exerting on your foot enough?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
@davidof, that was my reaction to the initial carv story on here.
However, if it’s sking the skier to do specific drills, and they have enough prior data from good skiers doing those drills, and the various sensirs can compensate for real world conditions, some proper computing can probably work out how well the skier is performing the drills.
How well it can analyse my pillow hopping in bottomless powder is a different matter.
Funny that it is only an IOS app, that seems to restrict the market somewhat, or does it just filter it to gullible fools with more money than sense?
No properly independent reviews yet. I think you'd have to have one for a season and see if you improved in some measurable way, otherwise it is just more faff. It woudl be a job for DCRainmaker, seeing as he's a bit of a shitty skier already.
The buck tooth ginger lady in this video shows my other point, she is skidding her turns but also has flyaway arms, would Carv correct this, or will she overcompensate with her lower body using Carv? I'd also worry about collisions with other skiers, you'd have to be careful not to focus too much on the App voice.
In terms of that second video, I don't think that "your edging is a little off" (by which I guess they mean they would like to see bigger edge angles as she turns) is very helpful advice. The reason that she isn't creating big edge angles is that she's a bit rushed in her movements at the start of the turn, popping up a bit too much rather establishing a good connection between the ski and the snow in the setup phase of the turn. If she improved this she would establish a more solid platform at the beginning of the turn, which will start to create g-forces earlier than she is doing, which would allow her to keep tipping her skis progressively as she goes around the turn. It seems like the app is encouraging her to tip the skis more, giving her a numerical value on each turn. That's interesting information, but it's dealing with the symptom, not the cause. My guess is that she will keep trying harder and harder to tip the skis to a big angle, but that will be late in the turn and might mean her stance and lateral balance gets a bit contrived as she tries to tip her skis more without having the forces to balance against.
In terms of that second video, I don't think that "your edging is a little off" (by which I guess they mean they would like to see bigger edge angles as she turns) is very helpful advice. The reason that she isn't creating big edge angles is that she's a bit rushed in her movements at the start of the turn, popping up a bit too much rather establishing a good connection between the ski and the snow in the setup phase of the turn. If she improved this she would establish a more solid platform at the beginning of the turn, which will start to create g-forces earlier than she is doing, which would allow her to keep tipping her skis progressively as she goes around the turn. It seems like the app is encouraging her to tip the skis more, giving her a numerical value on each turn. That's interesting information, but it's dealing with the symptom, not the cause. My guess is that she will keep trying harder and harder to tip the skis to a big angle, but that will be late in the turn and might mean her stance and lateral balance gets a bit contrived as she tries to tip her skis more without having the forces to balance against.
reiterating what I said, the app will cause her to fix the in the wrong problem as it doesn't see the bigger picture.
I think they've picked a challenge that is maybe too big, or the app could be used as a professional tool for coaches to explain some issues to clients. Something like nordic skiing might be a better area where the landing and flatness of the ski can make big differences to energy used and thus speed. They also talked about cycling although not exactly sure what they will bring to the table here.
Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
davidof wrote:
reiterating what I said, the app will cause her to fix the in the wrong problem as it doesn't see the bigger picture.
I think it's an interesting idea and if they fix the lack of reliability that some have reported in this (or the other Carv) thread then it adds to the pool of available information. But as with all things (online video resources, books, apps, even different instructors) you need to be careful how you use it as it would be easy to head down the wrong development path with your skiing because you are focusing on a symptom not a cause and don't have an experienced pair of eyes to provide a context for the data you get from the system.
Caveat: I've never used Carv, and have never seen one so I could be completely wrong about their utility.
After all it is free
After all it is free
@rob@rar, an APP that takes away work from ski instructors is this something else that you can blame on Brexit
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
Tignes addict wrote:
@rob@rar, an APP that takes away work from ski instructors is this something else that you can blame on Brexit
No, that would be a bit silly, wouldn't it?
I like the idea of Carv, in much the same way I like other resources such as some skiing books, apps, Youtube videos, etc. I think they all have a place in helping skiers to think about how they could improve their skills and enjoyment of skiing.
Ski the Net with snowHeads
Ski the Net with snowHeads
Tignes addict wrote:
@rob@rar, an APP that takes away work from ski instructors is this something else that you can blame on Brexit
A statement based on no facts whatsoever. Where have I seen that before.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
I took the "your edging is a little off" as meaning the edge angles of the skis were not the same but the drill does appear to be targetting maximum edge angle.
For cycling perhaps they are aiming to achieve the best pressure distribution for most of the pedal rotation.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
DB wrote:
I took the "your edging is a little off" as meaning the edge angles of the skis were not the same but the drill does appear to be targetting maximum edge angle.
That would been my my concerns about Carv, that it tries to achieve a mathematical precision in your skiing which is at best unnecessary and potentially holds you back. Skiing is a dynamic sport in a constantly changing environment, so we are not looking for a perfect, unchanging stance. Does it really matter if our inside ski is a few degrees different edge angle to our outside ski for some of the turn? Trying to find a spurious precision is going to make it much more difficult to ski fluidly with the terrain and the snow if we are trying to impose a mathematical precision on each turn.
So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much
So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much
Quote:
Tom Robbins October 25, 2018
... The movement of the phone in your jacket pocket can tell if your upper body position is correctly facing the fall line.
Unless you have the core of an oak tree and the balance of a tightrope walker good luck with completing a carved turn whilst facing the fall line.
You know it makes sense.
You know it makes sense.
Mike Pow wrote:
Quote:
Tom Robbins October 25, 2018
... The movement of the phone in your jacket pocket can tell if your upper body position is correctly facing the fall line.
Unless you have the core of an oak tree and the balance of a tightrope walker good luck with completing a carved turn whilst facing the fall line.
It is what any racer is taught to do. Plenty of U10s manage to do it.
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Mike Pow wrote:
Unless you have the core of an oak tree and the balance of a tightrope walker good luck with completing a carved turn whilst facing the fall line.
There is a big danger of simplification to the point of getting things wrong, this advice to 'correctly' face the fall line being one such example.
Poster: A snowHead
Poster: A snowHead
rjs wrote:
It is what any racer is taught to do.
In all kinds of turn? A GS turn? Long radius SG or DH?
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
rob@rar wrote:
rjs wrote:
It is what any racer is taught to do.
In all kinds of turn? A GS turn? Long radius SG or DH?
Yes.
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
It's pretty clear at the moment it is a tool for hi end instruction and coaching not a substitute for instruction. I can see people might like it as something to geek out on like strava.
I took the "your edging is a little off" as meaning the edge angles of the skis were not the same but the drill does appear to be targetting maximum edge angle.
That would been my my concerns about Carv, that it tries to achieve a mathematical precision in your skiing which is at best unnecessary and potentially holds you back. Skiing is a dynamic sport in a constantly changing environment, so we are not looking for a perfect, unchanging stance. Does it really matter if our inside ski is a few degrees different edge angle to our outside ski for some of the turn? Trying to find a spurious precision is going to make it much more difficult to ski fluidly with the terrain and the snow if we are trying to impose a mathematical precision on each turn.
Yes it might be the camera angles and I'm no ski instructor but it did look to me as though she was rushing the start of the turn and then holding a stance for a moment when an ever flowing movement would be better. I wonder if a futher development that somehow monitors the position of the hands, knees and hips might be of more use. Unless it can monitor when the start / end of the turn is along with the slope steepness I'm not sure how it can determine if the skier is doing it right.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
rjs wrote:
Mike Pow wrote:
Quote:
Tom Robbins October 25, 2018
... The movement of the phone in your jacket pocket can tell if your upper body position is correctly facing the fall line.
Unless you have the core of an oak tree and the balance of a tightrope walker good luck with completing a carved turn whilst facing the fall line.
It is what any racer is taught to do. Plenty of U10s manage to do it.
I guess nobody taught Ted because his upper body isn't pinned to the fall line
Unless it can monitor when the start / end of the turn is along with the slope steepness I'm not sure how it can determine if the skier is doing it right.[/quote]
And even when it can, presumably using mo-cap sensors, who dictates what is right? I'm not sure everyone trying to emulate say Jonathan Ballou's movements will mean they are expert skiers - the art will be in them feeling what good feels like and being able to replicate it in different unassisted settings unconsciously. Personally I don't think they get to autonomous ski instruction without it also being synced to a follow drone for footage.
Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
Isn't "AI" just being used as the latest wankphrase?
It may be of use but there doesn't appear to be any "Intelligence " built into the whole scheme from one end to the other. It further looks remarkably like data acquisition for analysis, which is the same as any other routine that then requires a real brain to decipher and comment upon to provide desirable actions.
They even demonstrate what @rob@rar, says about "skiing to mathematics" by flogging their use of "Algorithms " as the core of the system. It's just a long chain of maths, isn't it?
So if someone skiing mathematically perfectly was beaten in a specific discipline by someone who demonstratably was not conforming to that mathematics imprint/data record, which one's correct? Do you then have to alter the programmed parameters? Which is then technically correct?
Maybe it is more in depth than that which has gone before it, but it's still just more volume of data acquisition.
After all it is free
After all it is free
@ski3, hah hah. Yes, “AI” is.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
It follows that as a ski instructor you could brand yourself as AE, meaning Acquired Experience. Just marketing really.
Because that's really the element that's being used for analysis, after high speed biological transfer from from paired image acquisition devices (the eyes) and live non-virtual simulation (let me show you what a good stance looks like) techniques.
Chuck in some blue sky, out of the box, clear horizon, thinking, and Bob's your uncle.
Couldn't see how to fit "nanotechnology " in there, but you can't have it all I guess.
Ski the Net with snowHeads
Ski the Net with snowHeads
Surprised they didn‘t use „Blockchain“ too or is that reserved mainly for vapourware? 😏
FAQ
Poster: A snowHead
