'They take the pecking that we see all birds doing and take it to the extreme.' Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. Woodpeckers really know how to punch above their weight. The woodland birds can attack a tree at about 15 miles per hour with their powerful beaks . To achieve this, woodpeckers essentially turn themselves into hammers, by bracing their head, neck, abdomen, and tail muscles to hold their bodies completely rigid when they pound into wood.

Top men's tennis players were shielded from more than 162,000 social media comments containing "severe" abuse during the first year of the artificial intelligence-powered ATP Safe Sport initiative, the sport's governing body has announced. The abusive messages, which targeted 245 players, were found and then hidden in real time as the system scanned more than 3.1 million comments for harmful digital content following its launch in July 2024. "Safe Sport creates a healthier online environment, free from hateful comments and negative messages," said Serb Dusan Lajovic, the ATP Player Advisory Council member said on Thursday. "This way, my social media presence is defined by who I am, not by my performance on the court." Tennis players, like many athletes, often have to deal with the wrath of anonymous abusers online.

Numerous studies have demonstrated the manifold benefits of tennis, such as increasing overall physical and mental health. Unfortunately, many children and youth from low-income families are unable to engage in this sport mainly due to financial constraints such as private lesson expenses as well as logistical concerns to and back from such lessons and clinics. While several tennis self-training systems exist, they are often tailored for professionals and are prohibitively expensive. The present study aims to classify tennis players' skill levels and classify tennis strokes into phases characterized by motion attributes for a future development of an AI-based tennis self-training model for affordable and convenient applications running on devices used in daily life such as an iPhone or an Apple Watch for tennis skill improvement. We collected motion data, including Motion Yaw, Roll and Pitch from inertial measurement units (IMUs) worn by participating junior tennis players. For this pilot study, data from twelve participants were processed using Support Vector Machine (SVM) algorithms. The SVM models demonstrated an overall accuracy of 77% in classifying players as beginners or intermediates, with low rates of false positives and false negatives, effectively distinguishing skill levels. Additionally, the tennis swings were successfully classified into five phases based on the collected motion data. These findings indicate that SVM-based classification can be a reliable foundation for developing an equitable and accessible AI-driven tennis training system.

Many people consider John McEnroe to be one of the best tennis players to ever live. His resume serves as proof of his extraordinary talent and commitment to the game. McEnroe won seven Grand Slam singles championships, including three Wimbledon and four US Open crowns. In addition, he amassed nine Grand Slam doubles trophies and held the top singles and doubles rankings in the entire world. On the court, this degree of power is unequaled.

Wimbledon is a unique event in the British sporting calendar. While fans of soccer, rugby, and cricket follow their teams throughout the year, the country's tennis obsession only emerges for a two-week tournament in London. In many cases, spectators don't even know most of the players' names. Their main attraction to the championship is a summer's day indulging in the traditions of a national institution. Wimbledon's organizers want to turn these casual fans into lifelong devotees.

British stars Emma Raducanu and Andy Murray are among the British players kicking off their Wimbledon campaigns on Centre Court today, marking the first day of this year's hotly-anticipated tennis Championships. For any tennis player, a match on Centre Court is a highlight of the annual calendar – not only is it the biggest stage at the world's most prestigious tennis tournament, but a chance to perform in front of distinguished guests, including the Royal family. However, whether or not it's the best place to secure a win for homegrown tennis stars is another matter. Researchers at IBM, the official technology partner of The Championships, have trawled through 21 years of data to find the Wimbledon court with the best British win percentage so far this century. The data covers all Gentlemen's and Ladies' singles matches on all Wimbledon courts going back to 2000, when IBM's records start, captured using its IBM Watson AI software.

Fox News Flash top headlines are here. Check out what's clicking on Foxnews.com. Legendary tennis star John McEnroe will undoubtedly go up against his toughest opponent this week – himself. Michelob ULTRA invited the four-time U.S. Open champion to "celebrate his joy" and to look back at his career accomplishments. McEnroe will go head-to-head against five different versions of himself – in 1979 when he won his first Grand Slam title, becoming the world's No. 1 tennis star in 1981, excelling as a tennis player in 1982, arguably his best year ever in 1984 and his final year on the ATP in 1992.

The brain is a generator of automatisms, which allow us to do things even though we can't explain how we do them. The goalkeeper who dives to clear that ball in the corner, the gymnast who throws the ribbon and catches it without looking after several somersaults, the tennis player who connects the passing shot on the run. None of them think about (or know), while executing these movements, the mathematical model or the laws of physics that determine these trajectories, yet nevertheless, based on some basic concepts and millions of repetitions, they are capable of doing them. But sometimes, something happens that truncates that ability. Like Simone Biles at the Tokyo Olympics, sometimes the brain loses its automatisms.

The New York Times reported that an AI system known as Aristo had become the first to successfully pass a standardized eighth-grade science test. The achievement arrived four years after a competition in which 700-plus scientists all failed to build a system capable of accomplishing the same task despite the incentive of the contest's $80,000 prize. Aristo has been viewed as a significant breakthrough in the evolution of AI technology, with far-reaching implications for natural language processing, business intelligence and more. The system provides a vivid illustration of the differences between human and artificial intelligence. It shows why the most effective AI systems still incorporate help from human experts -- a fact that has big implications for AI in business and other applications. The Aristo system represents a major step toward imbuing AI with what one Wired article refers to as "common sense," the expansive and unconscious background knowledge that we apply when navigating new situations or engaging in conversation.

As a long-time sponsorship partner of the U.S. Open, IBM is out with a new artificial intelligence technology to help coaches train the next generation of tennis players called Coach Advisor. Yahoo Finance's Julia La Roche joins YFi AM from the U.S. Open grounds to share more.