Steve Ballmer shows off his AI-powered basketball broadcast
Steve Ballmer wants to upgrade your basketball viewing experience.
The former Microsoft CEO and owner of the LA Clippers demonstrated some new capabilities of Second Spectrum, a service he's planning on releasing in 2018 that adds the power of artificial intelligence to the sports watching experience.
At the annual Code Conference, Ballmer showed off a short clip of what the experience would be like for someone watching a basketball game online. As you watch, you could see fantasy scores floating above select players, the percentage chance a player with the ball will actually make the shot, and custom highlight reels from the game.
The animations and features could even be customized to the individual user. That way, Second Spectrum isn't just for superfans -- it could have different animations and info for a person new to the sport than someone who watches every day. There could even be more decorative (or silly, depending on your perspective) animations, like lightning strikes. Ballmer also proposed the service could synthesize the POV of an individual player from several high-def cameras positioned in the arena.
When asked about the broadcast rights of the games, which are locked in for the next eight years, Ballmer pointed out that the local rights are more flexible.
Second Spectrum is far from the first service to add custom animations and information, but the application of AI and adjusting the information in real time is fairly novel. If it really adds value, you can expect the networks to jump on the AI train, too.
Topics Artificial Intelligence
Pete Pachal was Mashable’s Tech Editor and had been at the company from 2011 to 2019. He covered the technology industry, from self-driving cars to self-destructing smartphones.Pete has covered consumer technology in print and online for more than a decade. Originally from Edmonton, Canada, Pete first uploaded himself into technology journalism at Sound & Vision magazine in 1999. Pete also served as Technology Editor at Syfy, creating the channel's technology site, DVICE (now Blastr), out of some rusty HTML code and a decompiled coat hanger. He then moved on to PCMag, where he served as the site's News Director.Pete has been featured on Fox News, the Today Show, Bloomberg, CNN, CNBC and CBC.Pete holds degrees in journalism from the University of King's College in Halifax and engineering from the University of Alberta in Edmonton. His favorite Doctor Who monsters are the Cybermen.
