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AT&T Park gets more Wi-Fi, new DAS backend, and iBeacon… plus seat upgrade app

March 28, 2014 by Leave a Comment

Generally recognized as perhaps the best-connected sports stadium anywhere, AT&T Park in San Francisco will greet fans for the 2014 baseball season with upgrades to make the technology experience even better than before, with upgraded Wi-Fi and DAS, as well as Apple’s new iBeacon technology.

In a press release sent out earlier this week the Giants said that they and partner AT&T had been busy this offseason adding upgrades to the Wi-Fi network that has hosted more than 1.85 million visitors since it first went online in 2004. According to the Giants the park now has 1,289 access points for its free Wi-Fi service, second in number only to the Dallas Cowboys’ home, cavernous AT&T Stadium in Dallas.

On the DAS side of things AT&T Park now has a completely new headend system that fully supports both AT&T and Verizon versions of 4G LTE signals. According to the release T-Mobile and Sprint services will join the DAS later this year.

Like many other MLB parks the Giants’ home will now feature Apple’s iBeacon technology, which is basically low-power Bluetooth connections that can communicate with nearby Apple iOS7 devices. Though phones may now run out of juice quicker at the park if you need to leave both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth on, it should be interesting to see how fans respond to the iBeacon deployments, whether they find them helpful or annoying. MSR will keep following the iBeacon deployments through the year, and we encourage any and all fans who use the system to tell us how it worked.

This year the Giants will also be working in partnership with the Pogoseat app for instant at-the-game ticket upgrades. The feature will be available in the Giants version of MLB’s At the Ballpark app, where Giants fans will be able to search for better seats to pay for while at the park. Of course you can always try the time-honored method of just sneaking into empty seats in later innings of the game, but there is no app for that.

Filed Under: 4G LTE, Apple, AT&T, Baseball, DAS, iOS 7, Major League Baseball, Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon Wireless, Wi-Fi Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

MLB delivers completely revamped At The Ballpark app

March 27, 2014 by Leave a Comment

mlbcom

With the start of the Major League Baseball season just days away the league has delivered a complete rebuilt At The Ballpark app that includes a great deal more local customization, new technology integration and support.

The app has been available for 4 years and the facelift will add many features that will give users a greater ability to customize the app to meet their personal needs and usage model. It is available now for 20 ballparks and runs on both Android and Apple’s iOS operating system with additional customization in the latest release for the iOS 7 operating system.

The first of the two key technologies that have been incorporated is mapping and directions provided by a MapQuest-powered engine. MapQuest has a deal with MLBAM that will call for the delivery of additional MLB-focused features that will be available soon for both operating systems that At The Ballpark supports. In addition MapQuest and MLBAM also are co-creating an original video series, expected to debut in May 2014.

The second technology has been much more talked about in recent months, and that is the inclusion of iBeacon, a low powered micro-location technology that was introduced with iOS 7. MLBAM has equipped 20 ballparks with dozens of iBeacons each, and starting with Opening Day fans can check in at the ballpark and then receive offers and information from locations within the park as they travel around or sit in their seats.

Currently there are only a select few applications for the technology at the ball yards but MLBAM is working to create more and expects to deliver them later this year, as well as expand the number of fields that have the technology.

For fans who have been using At The Ballpark in the past it will still have the familiar functions including the ability to use MyTickets Mobile for delivery and storage of all MLB tickets sold as well as seat upgrade functions in select clubs. Some clubs also allow you to order food and beverages with the app.

You can view team stats, schedule and watch video of games, a number of hooks into social media and rewards for check-ins as well as more mundane features such as ballpark guides, parking and directions are all among the functions of the app.

This is a great upgrade to the app and really enables fans to not just customize their experience but will provide even seasoned baseball game attendees the ability to make the experience easier and more enjoyable.

Filed Under: Android, Apple, Apps, Baseball, iOS, iOS 7, Major League Baseball, Social Media, Sports Social Media Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Google seeks to expand ‘wearable’ options with Android Wear program

March 20, 2014 by Leave a Comment
The Moto 360 Android

The Moto 360 Android

Google made a lot of noise a few years back with its push for Google Glass project, a pair of glasses that are connected to the Internet and now it is adding a second front in the wearable war with a push that it calls Android Wear.

The company has launched the Android Wear project in an effort to greatly expand the market for wearable hardware and related technology, with but not limited to helping a new generation watches running the company’s Android operating system.

The core of the effort will be a Software Developers Kit (SDK) that the company will be delivering to interested developers later this year.

While connected watches seem to be the first area that this effort will have an impact Google sees the effort expanding into other areas including bringing additional technology to more established platforms such as tablets.

However watches seem to be at the forefront of this space and potential developers that include everybody from Nike to Apple have indicated some level of interest in developing a watch. In addition there are already several connected watches on the market such as the Samsung Galaxy Gear and Pebble’s Steel Watch. Google has a number that have now announced their intention. With such a huge position in the smartphone operating system already Google has a huge advantage and it looks to be building on it quite quickly.

Several partners have already announced intentions to build watches and in some cases have shown examples of their development efforts. Motorola, unsurprisingly, has one in development called the Moto 360 Android that it said will be available this summer while LG Electronics said it would introduce its first Android watch, the G Watch, sometime this quarter.

The watches will be equipped with a variety of sensors and the ability to connect to an Android phone. So it can sub for the fitness trackers that are popular with the athletically inclined. It will allow notifications and text messages to be forwarded from a user’s phone and enable voice replies.

I imagine it would be a great tool to use to cheat on exams, but that might just be me. However being in a meeting and getting, say, March Madness game updates, could be a boon for those times when it is frowned upon to look at your smartphone. However the flip side of this is that many, at least those of us old enough, might just see this as a glorified pager with a bit more functionality.

Filed Under: Android, Apple, Apps, Google, Live sports via mobile, Samsung, Smartphone, Tablets Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

New app features, streaming opportunities for March Madness

March 19, 2014 by Leave a Comment

bracket

The NCAA Men’s Division 1 Basketball tournament, or as it is better known March Madness, has already started but there is still time for those that wait until the 13th hour to get their act together to both follow the tournament as a fan and your bracket as, well also a fan.

First and foremost is watching and following the games and Turner Sports, along with NCAA.com and CBS Sports have simplified that by making all of the games available online, with some requirements for the viewer. You can go to the March Madness main page for more information; the key is finding the “Select TV provider” button in the upper left corner as you must have a qualifying TV service contract to watch online. The effort by Turner et al may shake up how future major sporting events are broadcast and garnered solid reviews in Fast Company. There is also a twist for the Final Four television coverage, where there will be separate announcing teams on alternative Turner channels. The SI roundup has a good description of what’s going on, television-wise.

Pretty much any newspaper, blog, web site and sports channel has a contest, ranging from billionaire Warren Buffett and Quicken Loans’ offer to pay $1 billion to anybody that picks all 64 winners to local office and bar pools.

The next games start Thursday and many pools allow you to enter up until just before tipoff of that round. If you are looking around for something that is not in the mainstream but will connect you to everybody that you might want to chart with, or talk trash with.

An app launching in support of the iPad in time for the tournament is called FanKave, and it functions much like you might imagine. You enter a ‘Kave’ for each game and can talk, both online and using voice, with friends or rivals while receiving play-by-play results. A nice feature is that from a Kave a fan can post to a variety of social media sites such as Facebook without needed to open a separate app for that.

The app supports more than simply the basketball tournament, with the NFL, NBA and NCAA football available now and MLB and FIFA World Cup 2014 expected soon. It is currently available only on the iPad platform but its developers said that iPhone and Android versions are expected soon.

A more established mobile app called theScore is also trying to make hay while the tournament’s sun shines by adding a number of additional features that revolve around March Madness. Among the new features is an ‘upset tracker’ that uses push notification to let users know that an underdog is leading with 5:00 minutes in the game.

There are plenty of established apps as well and pretty much everybody I know has multiple ones to follow both the tournament but also teams that they are interested in. Checking out specific schools can get you apps that (sometimes) enable you to closely follow the team’s progress through the tournament.

Filed Under: Android, Apple, Apps, Basketball, CBS Sports, Duke University, Facebook, FIFA, Instagram, iOS, iPad, iPhone, iTunes, Live sports via mobile, Live Sports Video Consumption, NBA, NCAA Hoops, NCAA.com, NFL, truTV, Turner Sports, Twitter Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

Google teams with NCAA, Turner Sports and CBS Sports for March Madness promo

March 17, 2014 by Leave a Comment

google

Google is seeking to make waves during the NCAA’s March Madness basketball tournament in an effort that teams the Internet giant with the NCAA and its broadcasting and software development partners Turner Sports and CBS Sports.

The effort will revolve around Google’s social network application called Google+, a rival to industry leader Facebook, and it will be interesting to see if Google publishes the results from the effort. You constantly see Facebook listed as an almost default player in this type of event and a major push by Google into sports and other avenues will make for an interesting fight.

The effort actually started on Selection Sunday but will run the length of the tournament. A wide range of NCAA March Madness digital products will be flowing through Google’s pages including NCAA March Madness Live™, the Capital One March Madness NCAA Bracket Challenge™, the NCAA On Demand YouTube channel and the NCAA March Madness Google+ page.

However Google has taken steps to help steer fans who might not be aware of the effort or who might need a gentle reminder of the tournament on a daily basis. It has teamed with its partners to feature March Madness related search insights in Google Trends. This means that fans using Google for search and looking at what is trending will see the topics and teams from the tournament that are popular on Google Search.

Other efforts by the partnership include such features as Turner integrating Google sign-in technology into the NCAA Bracket Challenge game. Fans that follow up from seeing information in the Google Trends can go to a “Google Bracket” that will rank teams throughout the tournament based on Search interest.

Google has also created a number of “Google+ Hangouts” that are related to March Madness. These are social networking microsites where fans can discuss related issues and share photos, among other tasks. The Google+ Hangouts On Air enables fans to interact with Turner Sports and CBS Sports on-air talent and can be entered either from NCAA.com/hangouts or the NCAA March Madness Google+ page.

Google+ has seemed to be an afterthought to many, although any program that counts its membership in the hundreds of millions should be taken seriously. However this could help promote the company into a more mainstream awareness position with the sporting public at large, or it might just be like a 16 seed and go one and done. Game on, Google.

Filed Under: Android, Apple, Apps, Basketball, CBS Sports, Google, NCAA Hoops, NCAA.com, Social Media, Sports Social Media, Turner Sports Tagged With: , , , , ,

Jawbone UP24 support comes to Android

March 11, 2014 by Leave a Comment

jaw

For the fitness band user and Android owner there are a few options not available to you as some products are only available for Apple’s iOS app platform. But in this emerging market but one of the stalwarts, Jawbone, has just made the transition to supporting Android in its most recent release.

A few months after Jawbone released an Apple version it has released the UP 3.0 app that brings Android support to the UP24 fitness tracking band, opening up a much bigger market.

The new app enables users to track a wide variety of physical activities up to and including sleep, food, and drink nutritional data. It is designed to enable a user to both set goals and milestones and to track progress towards achieving them. Users can log workouts, team with friends or rivals to establish competitions.

It has an array of alerts that a user can customize from ones that set nap time and lengths to ones that alert you to any time that you have been inactive too long and this can be set for different levels at different times of day. The app supports a wide number of languages including English, Spanish, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese (Brazilian), Russian, Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese.

The fitness band space is increasingly competitive as sports watches seemed to pioneer this space but a number of the lightweight and flexible bands have started to emerge as a viable and easier to wear alternative.

There are also a number of fitness bands such as the Nike + Fuelband, the Fitbit Flex that are strong players in this space and larger, more dedicated watch like devices that originally started out as single sport appliances have pioneered this field but it seems likely that the emergence of Android and probably other OS wearable devices from Google Glass to a possible Apple iOS-based watch will start to compete here as well going forward.

Filed Under: Android, Apple, Apps, Garmin, iOS, Nike, Outdoor Activities Tagged With: , , , , ,
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