Famed tennis tournament to be seen in a new dimension with the help of augmented reality

Bank of the West Classic 2010

Bank of the West Classic 2010

This is a repost with official corrections made:

Bank of the West, California’s 5th largest bank, has teamed with CrowdOptic, a new technology company based in Silicon Valley. The partnership was announced last month as part of the Bank of the West Classic event, the longest running women’s tennis tournament in the world. It will be held at Stanford University this year and will be one of the venues for the Olumpus U.S. Open Series. CrowdOptic has been selected to develop a new “fan-friendly” mobile application that will use augmented reality to enhance the event.

Using CrowdOptic’s application, spectators can point their phones at the different competitors in the tournament and see real-time, in-depth information displayed in the camera’s photo viewer. Fans of particular athletes will be able to find training routines, coaching tips and statistics displayed in real-time. When a fan snaps a photo, the information displayed on the phone also becomes part of the photo for posting and sharing online. The CrowdOptic application also makes note of how many people are currently viewing a player’s augmented profile, allowing event producers to monitor crowd interests and behavior in real time.

The application will be available for both Android and iOS platforms in time for the tournament. Users will also be able to link the application to their social networking sites and share their findings with their friends.

CrowdOptic is backed in this venture by the Band of Angels group, an organization comprised of current and former technology executives who invest in startup companies. Ian Sobieski, member of the group, believes that augmented reality technology could change the way competitive sports are experienced by fans.