sports

The Seattle Seahawks stadium, Qwest Field Event Center, is adding solar panels to its roof.

The solar arrays from Fremont, Calif.-based Solyndra are racks of thin-film CIGS (copper, indium, gallium, and selenide) solar cells shaped like tubes. The racks will cover approximately 2.5 acres, about 80 percent, of Qwest Field, Solyndra announced yesterday.

Solyndra is known for its tube-shape solar cells that capture direct, diffuse, and reflected sunlight throughout the day without the need for a rotating mechanism, the method often used to maximize the efficiency of flat solar panels.

The arrays for Qwest Field will come from Solyndra's state-of-the-art solar manufacturing plant in California, which was built in part with a $535 million federal loan guarantee from the Department of Energy. The plant is a showcase for U.S. green-tech manufacturing: It employs over 1,000 people operating robotics manufacturing tools as a way to curb production costs and compete against inexpensive solar panels from China while keeping jobs in the U.S.… Read more

The ContourHD and ContourGPS sports cameras are compact, rugged, and (most importantly) inexpensive action cameras that are great for recording epic videos of extreme sports. We use a few of them (along with the competing GoPro HD Hero cam) to record segments for our Car Tech videos and we see them all of the time at motorsports events suctioned to the hoods and roofs of high-powered race cars and auto enthusiasts' daily drivers. Not to rest on its laurels, Contour is adding an upper tier to its line of sports cameras with the Contour+, a prosumer level HD camera that … Read more

The camera market might be dominated by giants such as Canon and Panasonic, but a small start-up founded by a surfer in Half Moon Bay, Calif., has persuaded venture capitalists to invest.

GoPro, maker of the diminutive Hero line of cameras geared to record action video of snowboarding, base jumping, mountain biking, scuba diving, and car racing, announced the funding today. The "substantial strategic investment" of undisclosed magnitude is from Riverwood Capital, Steamboat Ventures, Sageview Capital, Walden International, and U.S. Venture Partners.

The company has found a niche for its products--including a range of accessories such as … Read more

It's a weird time for the NFL, to say the least. The league has been in a state of suspension since the Super Bowl in February, engaged in a lockout that seems, at the moment, to be lifted. And, of course, the NFL draft is about to kick off tonight amid the confusion. No better time to check out the latest edition of EA Sports' Madden franchise, which was unveiled today in playable form during an event in New York City's Times Square.

Enter EA Sports, which decided to engage in an unorthodox campaign of its own for this year's Madden 12 by putting the yearly cover athlete up for a bracket-based public vote.

In a shocker, the Cleveland Brown's gritty running back Peyton Hillis beat out the controversial Mike Vick, becoming the first cover athlete on EA's box in recent history who most people can't even recognize.

The cover photo shoot happened as a live event in Times Square, and alongside the session were the first playable versions of Madden 12, tucked away in a press tent. Needless to say, I stuck around to play (I'm a bit of a New York Jets fan, in case you didn't know).

I also spoke with Madden 12's art director, Mike Young, and executive producer, Phil Frazier, about how this year's version will fare amid a season that's still very much in flux. In addition, I asked about my continual pet peeve: Bill Belichick's mysterious absence from the Madden franchise. Check out the video above for the interview. Down below, I'll briefly discuss the game and my initial impressions.… Read more

The Acura TSX wagon is sold as the Honda Accord wagon overseas, which is telling. It's a nice car, but it is basically an Accord and just doesn't quite print "Acura" enough. Brian Cooley takes you for a drive to check the tech.

(Full CNET review of the 2011 Acura TSX Sport Wagon)

Baseball is a team sport, but for fans of the major leagues, there's never been a good way to play along in real time.

Until now that is, say the creators of GameSlam, a real-time social predictive baseball game that allows fans to get in on the fun even as the balls and strikes are being thrown and the home runs are clearing the fences.

For years, baseball aficionados have been able to take part in Major League Baseball by joining a fantasy league. And there are 10 million people in leagues like this, as well as 20 million … Read more

The last time we went behind the wheel of a Suzuki, we called the 2010 Kizashi S a sheep in wolf's clothing. It was a well manufactured sedan with acceptable levels of power and nimble-enough handling, but the Kizashi simply didn't live up to the sporty promise of its aggressively styled sheet metal. This second time around, we took the wheel of Suzuki's midsized sedan with a Sport badge affixed to its rear decklid.

Taking a look at the 2011 Suzuki Kizashi Sport SLS' specs, we see that (as expected) not much has changed in just a … Read more

So you work for a video game company. Say it's called 2K Sports. You are about to launch a game called "Top Spin 4."

Now, tennis isn't quite the most popular sport in the world. And you need to persuade, oh, young, happily hormonal men to buy your game.

You hold a brainstorm that takes at least some minutes. You decide you need to make your game sexy. "Serena Williams is sexy," someone says. "Yeah, yeah," someone else replies.

Your minds then hotfoot it to an ad concept in which Williams looks … Read more

The newly formed Green Sports Alliance will promote eco-friendly practices for professional sports teams and their stadiums.

The alliance, announced this week, was created by team owner Paul Allen and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). Allen, who co-founded Microsoft, owns the Seattle Seahawks and Portland Trail Blazers and co-owns the Seattle Sounders.

The Environmental Protection Agency and six pro sports leagues are endorsing the effort: Major League Baseball (MLB), the National Basketball Association (NBA), the National Football League (NFL), the National Hockey League (NHL), the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA), and Major League Soccer (MLS).

Six teams, including … Read more