Sony buy Hawkeye

It seems that the Winchester based company, Hawkeye Innovations, who provide the ball tracking part of the UDRS in some counties, have been bought by Sony.

What are the implications for cricket? I'd love to be able to tell you....I presume that with greater financial backing, Hawkeye Innovations will be able to afford to go further in demonstrating their technology for free during pitches. That was something of a stumbling block when dealing with FIFA in the past, as football's governing body wanted full demos paid for by pitching companies without any commitment to use the technology for goal line decisions even if the technology tested successfully. Hawkeye weren't willing to commit to a huge spend to do all the tests without any guarantee of business off the back of it.

I imagine that Sony will be able to utilise their greater international coverage too....it will be interesting to hear what they plan to do with Hawkeye know they've bought it.

Incidentally, this is an interesting piece I noticed having just gone to the Hawkeye site about issues with the Virtual Eye technology used in The Ashes. Worth a read if you're as sad as me....