Football with a layer of 'brain'

My line of work means I occasionally have to stumble across gadgety websites like T3. Sometimes - not often, but sometimes - something of interest to the football community rears its head.

The latest such story was a news piece I came upon yesterday, announcing that Puma has developed the 'world's first intelligent football'. And very intelligent it is too, although its value is ultimately questionable.

Puma is earning something of a reputation for itself in the field of sports development. Their strips over the last decade or so have been revolutionary, sometimes too revolutionary. We all remember the skintight effort worn by Italy, and the ingenius all-in-one outfit which was intended to thrust Cameroon into the aristocracy of international football.

I'm pretty sure a source at Puma told me they'd spent some time developing the world's roundest ever football too. Not just the roundest, it seems.

On top of that, their attention must have moved onto the burning (?!) question of football intelligence. Presenting, then, the Puma V1.08, the football with a brain. The concept is rather impressive. It all hinges on a layer of material between inner ball and casing - the d3o layer, in case you were wondering - whose properties allow the ball to adapt its behaviour to the type of contact made on it.

So, if a player controls the V1.08 with a deft touch, dribbles it up the wing, or cushions a pass to a colleague, the ball feels soft as a feather.

But here's the science part (concentrate!): give the thing some welly and the molecules of the d3o layer instantly lock together, meaning the world's roundest ball leaves the foot with acceleration increased by 6%. That, folks, is very clever.

Aside from Puma's push into the position of sports development thought leadership, the V1.08 is unlikely to make too much of an impact - or at least I hope not. The very core of football is the level playing field, and the presumption that the laws of the game can be applied equally from Premier League level right down to 22 fat blokes playing on Hackney marshes (sorry, how very cliche).

Therefore, until this ball or balls like it become ubiquitous, the uniformity of the football world should not be compromised by the big boys having better equipment than the BIG boys. I understand that is already technically true, but I firmly believe that in the case of the football, the likes of you and I should not be disadvantaged on the basis of finance.

Still, it's damn cool. Nice work.