Chelsea Football Club launches official training app
The new app offers users an AI based virtual coach, an advanced computer vision and augmented reality program, that can help anyone and anywhere to practice and perfect their skills.
By DANIEL NISINMANFootball / soccer ball(photo credit: INGIMAGE)
Chelsea Football Club has entered a partnership with Coach-AI, an Israel-based artificial intelligence company, in order to produce "Perfect Play," their new soccer-training application."Perfect Play" incorporates cutting-edge technologies that allow anyone who has a smartphone, anywhere in the world, to enhance his or her soccer skills, according to a statement by the Chelsea Football Club.The new app offers users an AI-based virtual coach – an advanced computer vision and augmented reality program that can help anyone and anywhere to practice and perfect their skills.Computer vision refers to training computers to interpret and understand the visual world in the field of artificial intelligence. Augmented reality can be explained as putting computer-generated information, such as signs and icons, in the form of layers on visual reality.By using their smartphones, any user can turn any surface into a football field where they can train, whether it is a small backyard or side street. The app studies the user's movements, analyzes them and provides feedback.The training program embedded in the app was developed by soccer experts from the Chelsea Football Club.David Rose, director of Chelsea's Digital Ventures said that "it was important for us to be able to produce a system that knows how to measure exactly users' performance, provide them with a feedback in real-time and help them to improve."The app was developed by Coach-AI, a team of behavioral science experts and artificial intelligence engineers, in laboratories in Israel and Germany.AdvertisementApart from soccer, the technology that was developed by Coach-AI and used in the new app, can be also used by both children and adults for other related physical activities such as, dancing, child development as well as other sports fields.At this stage, however, the advanced app is only available for apple users in the United Kingdom and the United States. Next month, according to the developers, the app will be made available for android users as well. Later on, the app will be translated into other language as currently it is available in English.It is likely that such technologies will be widely used in the future.
