Unlike other sports, surfing can only be participated in when certain variables are controllable. It cannot be done in indoors, when there’s a typhoon, or if the sea is very calm. A strong wave is always needed in order for people to learn and enjoy surfing.<\/p>\n
But what if there was a technology that would allow people to surf whenever they wanted? That is what 11-time world surfing champion Kelly Slater and her company did for 10 years: develop a man-made wave. Last year, the first prototype of this technology was showcased to the world in the form of a video, and it looks like Slater\u2019s artificial wave will change the sport forever.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been called the Holy Grail or the mythical unicorn of sport, but creating a perfect manmade wave has been just out of our collective grasp for some time,” wrote a SurferMag<\/a> journalist. \u201cIf this wave can be replicated, this opens the world up\u2014for better or worse\u2014to the sport. The next few weeks\/years are going to be very interesting.”<\/p>\n When Slater released the video last month, a number of publications, including SurferMag, immediately picked up on the news and helped to spread the word. Within an hour of it being posted on Facebook, the video already garnered a quarter of a million views.<\/p>\n The video posted by Slater showing the artificial wave soon went viral. Over 250,000 people watched it in just under an hour which is pretty impressive seeing as the video was hosted on a single website. Which goes to show how things can get around the world so quickly due to power of mobile. Gaming Realms<\/a>, a software developer and the creator of recreational site Spin Genie<\/a>, says consumers are now using mobile more than any other tech device to consume data nowadays. The gaming company went on to document how 50% of content consumed online comes via mobile devices, which shows how easy it was for Slater\u2019s post to reach all the continents in the world within a matter of hours. As of this writing, the video has about 740,000 hits on YouTube.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n