360 DEGREES Weblog

Snow-capped mountains are glistening with the season’s first snowfall and they beacon the avid skiers to slide over its untried, whitish veneer. For those who have decided to pick up the call, take a look at this new Aston Martin range of skis made from latest material including composites, aluminum and carbon. The ski, designed to allow ultimate control for slalom and freestyle skiing, is well suited to the needs of a casual skier. While the ski is available in four different colors: Morning Frost White, Quantum Silver, Almond Green and Silver Blonde, one can personalize the color, which is just a phone call away.

It’s 2010. You know — the future. The first entertainment advancement of this strange new decade comes to us from the leader in TV sports and Dad-like catchphrases. ESPN 3D is a newly announced channel that will show around 85 live sporting events in 3D during its first year, launching on June 11 with the first 2010 FIFA World Cup match. Other events will include the 2011 BCS National Championship Game, various college basketball and football games, and the Summer X Games. You’ll need a new 3D-capable HDTV (stay tuned for announcements this week from the Consumer Electronics Show on Uncrate) and those dorky 3D glasses.

Back in 2005, BMW shocked the Formula One racing world by announcing it would leave its longtime partner Williams F1 in order to acquire its rival Sauber. But after four years of racing, the economy tanked and the coffers ran dry. BMW announced it would withdraw from the sport, leaving Sauber to look for a new investor.

A new investor was found, but reports now indicate that the deal could have been an elaborate fraud. The buyer was identified as Qadbak Investments, a mysterious Swiss firm that had recently acquired a football club in England and which was supposedly backed by wealthy Middle Eastern investors who preferred to keep a low profile. After an exhaustive chase of paper trails and dummy companies, it now appears that Qadbak is nothing but a front for one Russell King, a British national based in Dubai previously convicted of fraud.

According to the report, King was planning on using Sauber as a means to tap into the revenue sharing scheme in Formula One, worth tens of millions of euros.

The latest skis from the small Swiss ski maker Zai are the Spada skis which are named after the Romansh word for Sword. The skis are hand made and feature a core made of specially treated granite from the Grisons canton as opposed to the normal wooden or titanium cores of skis. The granite is treated with a process called Technocarbon which allows it to be bendable and retain the same strength which results in incomparable agility, grip and smoothness.

The technology behind RadarGolf is something that they like to call BPS, ball positioning system – the balls and a receiver communicate via RF signals to make for easy location. In theory that should equate to less lost balls, or more importantly less time wasted looking for lost balls.

According to the manufacturer, the transmitter chip is small enough that it does not affect the performance of RadarGolf balls, which meet USGA specs for size, weight, distance, initial velocity and symmetry.

One wonders how well the system will work if it takes off, given that the balls all emit the same signal.

Price: The RadarGolf starter kit, which includes 12 balls, a handheld receiver and two Shield-it pouches costs about $200, extra balls will set you back $40 for a dozen.

Let’s face it, we don’t like to be overweight and we don’t like that hour-long session in a gym, and instead in a desperate bid to get away from tipping the scale, we go to extremes like starving ourselves to shed those excess pounds. Here comes a faster and easier way to slim down, right in your own home. The Mobia treadmill from Nautilus promises to cut your workout time in half or burn up twice as many calories at the same speed. The fitness machine has treadles that allow you to walk forward like a treadmill and due to the independent movement of the treadles, the user can also step up like a stair climber. These two actions together make for a great workout. Even if you are at a walking pace, the Mobia’s 3-in-1 motion delivers healthy results and reduces the impact on joints and muscles. The treadmill comes with an easy to read console that features a water bottle holder and media tray. The ergonomic handrail design allows proper upper-body positioning, which increases the benefits to the core muscles. Mobia’s multiple resistance settings let you adjust your step height to customize your workout intensity. The treadmill comes complete with a Telemetry Chest Strap that wirelessly monitors the heart rate and the specialized Nautilus nutrition plan and introduction to fitness guide. For the contemporary design aesthetics, Nautilus collaborated with the San Francisco office of award-winning Frog Design Inc.

Man has always desired to fly with the birds and now you can literally do just that. According to the SFGate, if you visit Nepal and pay the well-worth-it fee of $150, you can tandem paraglide with an Egyptian vulture in an extreme adventure sport run by Scott Mason. The bird or prey stays on the Mason, the falconer’s arm during liftoff. In mid-air, the bird is released and it acts like a guide, leading the parachute to thermals- spots where the warm uplifting currents are.

A few times during mid-flight, the falconer will use his whistle to call the bird back to his arm. Anybody?

Surfing is cool and so are surfers. For the surfer who has the skills for hanging ten without succumbing to a wipeout, stylish surfboards will give an extra edge to set the classy surfers apart. These striking MWM X Almond Surfboards are limited edition one-run models hand-shaped by Dave Allee of Almond Surfboards with graphics by MWM (Matt W. Moore). The boards feature the solid mahagony “huck” fin which makes them stand out from the other artistic surfboards. Only one of each color was made and is available for $1,450 each.

Kettle bells are great for a variety of strength training exercises, but not all require the same weight. So instead of spending a small fortune on a whole set, just pick up a PowerBell ($200-$250). This ingenious training device uses a set of weight plates that can be easily removed and reconfigured to create the ideal weight for your current exercise — from 5 to 20 lbs. or 10 to 40 lbs — saving you precious space in your home gym and a whole lot of cash.

Embattled F1 driver Nelson Piquet Jr.’s legal statement to the FIA, in which Nelson confesses to purposefully crashing in the 2008 Singapore GP under orders from team manager Flavio Briatore, has leaked. No team orders in F1, huh?

Read the whole official statement here.