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Nike delivers new FuelBand and a developers program

October 15, 2013 by 3 Comments

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With the original introduction of the Nike + FuelBand last year users were presented with a tool that enabled them to track their activities and monitor their exercise of a daily, hourly or even by the second basis.

However active and inactive users learned that the system could be gamed and you could increase your ratings by doing such activities as punching the air. It also fell down on some activities that while strenuous, simply did not register, such as yoga.

Now Nike has come out with a new generation of FuelBands, the Nike + FuelBand SE that not only address the flaws in the first generation but have enhanced features that help you monitor additional activities and even count calories when you are inactive, such as when sleeping.

At a press event in New York that sometimes resembled a calisthenics class the company showed off the latest technology and ran it through its paces, with an assist from some of the more energetic members of the audience.

The company took all of the data that it had accumulated over the past year to fine tune its algorithms that are the heart of the monitoring program and to improve its measurement and tracking capabilities. The band uses Bluetooth 4 technology to connect to the related Nike+ FuelBand app.

The band comes with features that are designed to help motivate you to be active including one called “Win the Hour” that tracks each hour’s total movement that features built-in reminders. Then there is “Fuel Rate” that helps you see how much fuel is being earned. The bands have color coded signals to let you know where you rate. There are others such as “Milestones”, “Nike + Move” app and more.

Nike is also looking to expand the ecosystem of the FuelBand by teaming with developers that will use the NikeFuel APIs in a program called the Nike + Fuel Lab, an enhanced version of what it had been doing with its Nike + Accelerator program.

A downside to the band is there is no apparent Android support as of yet. Android users will have to go to the company’s web site for tracking and information purposes. It does support Apple’s operating system. iOS 7.

The Nike+ FuelBand SE is available for preorder now and will be available beginning Nov. 6 in the current Nike+ FuelBand countries of U.S., Canada, and the UK and for the first time in France, Germany and Japan. The Nike+ FuelBand SE will launch in Black and the Sport Pack colors of Volt, Pink Foil or Total Crimson priced at $149.

Filed Under: Amazon, Android, Apple, Apps, iOS, iOS 7, Nike Tagged With: , , , , ,

Friday Grab Bag: Top Sports Twitters, No one wants NASCAR

October 11, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Sports humor site Deadspin breaks down the top sports Twitter accounts with a short synopsis of each, most of them dead on and pretty funny, using actual tweets from each account to highlight, sort of, what the person stands for.

The piece does not spare many, with pretty much an impressive list of people and put downs. It should be noted that Deadspin only included 73 sites in its Top 100 list.

Instagram a threat to hockey reporters?
Sports reporters who cover the Philadelphia Flyers are all up in arms over the team’s decision to use Instagram as the avenue by which it announced who would be its starting goalie. The best part is how the reporters, some of the most old school in the nation, responded.

That would be via their smartphones and through their Twitter accounts of course. Nothing can show your disgust over someone using the latest technology than by also using it to complain about that use.

Aereo coming to Android
The TV over Internet developer Aereo said that it will soon be delivering to the Android operating system. It already has a version of the iPhone but said that the Android took much longer because of the huge number of customized versions of the OS.

Aereo is currently locked into a lawsuit with TV broadcasters over its rights to rebroadcast their products and they are trying to fast track the suit to the US Supreme Court to prevent the rapid expansion of the company,

iPhone 6 to reported to have 4.8-inch screen
Cnet is reporting that a Jefferies analyst is predicting that the next generation iPhone, expected in sometime in 2014, will have a 4.8-inch screen. The current screens on the just released iPhone 5s is 4 inches.

Jefferies analyst Peter Misek made his prediction after meeting with Apple suppliers in Asia. Currently Apple is behind the curve in screen size, with an estimated 50% of other smartphones that shipped last quarter having screens larger than 4 inches.

ESPN & Turner fleeing NASCAR
It has been reported elsewhere that NASCAR’s viewing numbers have been declining for the last several years but has it really come to this? The Sports Business Daily is reporting that both Turner Sports and ESPN are looking to exit their respective broadcast deals with the sport early.

The idea was to turn responsibility for the telecasts over to Fox Sports a year early, since Fox will be the new broadcaster for NASCAR in the future. NASCAR turned down the idea according to The SBD.

Motorola to one-up Samsung in large format smartphones
According to Cnet there is the possibility that the next generation smartphone from Motorola will feature a 6.3-inch display, placing its own stake in the ground in the rapidly growing phablet market segment.

The space, pioneered by Samsung and its Galaxy Note lineup, has seen a number of additional players enter the market such as Sony while others such as Microsoft have hinted at the possibility. Apple appears to be the lone holdout on the large screen segment among the major players.

Filed Under: Amazon, Android, Apple, Apps, ESPN, Fox Sports, Instagram, iPhone, Live sports via mobile, Live Sports Video Consumption, Motorola, NASCAR, Turner Sports Tagged With: , , , , , ,

LG ready to ship high-end G Pad tablet

October 9, 2013 by Leave a Comment

lg gpad

The fall tablet rollout continues as LG delivers the details of its LG G Pad 8.3 as the company seeks to establish itself as a contender in the small to midsized tablet space with an offering that should start hitting stores later this month.

The tablet, originally shown at IFA in Berlin last month, has an 8.3-inch display with 1920 x 1200 resolution but LG worked hard to keep the bezel small enough so that the tablet could be easily used in one hand. It is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 1.7GHz quad-core processor.

It features 2GB of RAM as well as 16GB of storage that can be expanded to 64GB via a microSD card It has a 5MP rear facing camera and a 1.3MP front facing camera. It runs on the Android 4.2.2 operating system release.

The company plans to release the tablet in the U.S. in the upcoming weeks according to reports and then follow that up with a European launch. It is expected to be first available next week in Korea but pricing for the U.S. model has not yet been announced.

The release of the G Pad 8.3 puts the company directly in competition with the growing number of developers cashing in on the demand for the smaller than 10-inch tablets with high quality smaller form factor offerings.

One of the top complaints against the 10-inch and larger models is that they are too cumbersome to use with one hand and need steady support for use, something that is not an issue with the smaller models.

Apple’s new iPads are expected later this month, the actual date of introduction is still a point of speculation at this time. Others that have refreshed already include leaders such as Amazon and Google.

Then of course there are lower cost models, usually ones with a lower resolution screen, less storage and fewer other bells and whistles, which does not mean that they have no role in this market, just not in a heads-up competition with the top of the line offerings.

There is also the growing corporate space where much larger storage is seen as a must. It will be interesting to see how the market segment breaks out going forward and if one tablet will suffice to work in all spaces or if it will be broken down by both size and market segment, with different leaders in the differing areas.

Filed Under: Amazon, Android, Apple, Apps, Dell, Google, iPad, Microsoft, Samsung, Surface, Tablets, Windows 8 Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

NBC clarifies ‘Old Mac’ problems for Sunday Night Football streaming: Newer OS required

October 8, 2013 by Leave a Comment

If you are still wondering why you can’t see NBC’s streaming broadcast of its Sunday Night Football games on your Mac, I now have an answer: It’s because you’re running an older operating system, older than Mac OS version 10.7.5.

After a special-to-MSR telephone confab with some technical folks on NBC’s staff last week we quickly rooted out why I was able to see the banners and home page of the Sunday Night online broadcasts but not the live video player: According to the NBC folks, my older iMac and its 10.6.8 version of MacOS isn’t technically up to snuff for the special player NBC is using for the Sunday night show.

New error message shown by NBC's Sunday Night Football online to older Mac users. Credit: NBC.

New error message shown by NBC’s Sunday Night Football online to older Mac users. Credit: NBC.

Mind you, my not-that-old desktop does just fine showing every other NBC online offering, including the recent live broadcasts of the America’s Cup sailboat races, or the London Olympics. And for those I can use the browser of my choice, usually Chrome and sometimes Firefox. But because of the NFL’s recent deal with Microsoft, NBC is forced to use a different video player for its Sunday Night Football broadcasts. Though they aren’t completely blocked for Mac users who want to watch, they must have a machine with MacOS 10.7.5 or higher, and can only use the Safari browser. I will spare you the HTML5-related details why this is so, to only say that if you have a Mac and you want to watch SNF online, you need to upgrade your OS, make sure you have Safari 6.0.5 or higher, and turn off any ad-blocking utilities.

Is it worth the pain for you to upgrade your OS? I have no idea how you’d exactly go about doing so, I’ve looked at a few online tutorials but really it’s just not worth it for me (I think there is also a $19.99 charge from Apple for the software). I don’t blame NBC here, I actually can’t praise them enough for marshaling some pretty impressive resources to find the root of the problem for our humble little outlet and our devoted, passionate readers. After our inquiries, NBC also started showing the error message above to users of older Mac platforms, so they wouldn’t wander in the dark questioning their own sanity, like I did for the first few weeks of the season.

Instead I point the finger at the Shield and at Microsoft, for forging some deal that alienates some users solely so that the NFL can spend some more Microsoft cash, and so Microsoft can strike a blow against Apple that it can’t do in open competition. Bravo. Fan first, you know.

If I may editorialize a bit, I would say that the NFL gets away with cutting these bad-for-fan deals (like the exclusive deal with Verizon for NFL Mobile) because it’s so big and powerful that it can. What other entertainment outlet would cut a deal that would only allow 1/3 of the U.S. mobile phone customer base to watch their product? And what about when that service goes kablooey and there’s nobody explaining why? And the Microsoft deal, which cuts off older Mac customers from Sunday night football now and who knows what else in the future, is just another greed-driven strategic ploy that only benefits the NFL and Microsoft, and does nothing for fans.

It will be interesting to see what happens as the NFL moves more toward an MLB-type offering for online video and highlights, a move that we foresee even though we don’t have any solid evidence of it yet. Will the NFL cut deals to restrict access to selected hardware or software platforms? Is this a return to the bad old days of browser cutoffs? Is there a Net Neutrality argument in here somewhere?

Extreme thoughts, maybe, but who would have thought that in 2013 we’d see an entertainment outlet as popular as the NFL limit the capabilities of one technological platform versus another simply because it was paid to do so? And not just once, but several times? Aren’t we paying enough for football as it is? Or should we just get used to paying more, because we have no choice and apparently no seat at the table?

Filed Under: 4G LTE, Apple, AT&T, NBC Sports, NFL, NFL Mobile, NFL Network, Verizon Wireless Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Friday Grab Bag: Fenway Boots, Fox vs. ESPN

October 4, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Nokia is starting to sound like a punch line from a Monty Python movie “I’m not dead yet.” While many have given up on the company it is still churning out products and is expected to unveil its first tablet later this month.

According to Yahoo a Nokia tablet has passed FCC approval and the company, soon to be owned my Microsoft, plans to show a tablet that will run a version of Microsoft’s Windows 8 operating system at an event in Abu Dhabi.

The difference between ESPN and Fox Sports Live
The good folks at the Sports Business Daily have broken down the difference between the two sports broadcasters, looking at how each o them present the biggest sporting events of the day, using last Monday night as the benchmark.

Not surprisingly ESPN led off with the NFL Monday night game that it had just concluded broadcasting while Fox focused on the MLB playoffs. As usual ESPN pretty much ignored hockey.

L.L. Bean makes Fenway Park boots
LL Bean now has something that only a die hard Red Sox fan could want, boots that are made, in part, from the tarp that was used to cover the field at Fenway Park during the 2012 season. 100 pairs are expected to be produced.

However the made to order boots are not available on a first come/first serve basis. The company is having fans visit Facebook/LL Bean site and share their favorite moments for a chance to win with 50 selected at random. There are additional avenues a fan can enter, to be announced at a later date.

Nike sets date for NikeFuel Forum
If you are an athlete, or maybe not one, but use the NikeFuel band to track you exercise and caloric output you will be happy to know that the company will be hosting an event in New York City that will discuss how it sees the digital world and physical activity merging.

This market, slow to emerge over the last few years has really jump-started with the news of wearable appliances such as Samsung’s Galaxy Gear and rumored other smartwatches as well as the Google Glass and rival efforts. It will be interesting to see how the company plans to compete going forward.

McAfee to deliver device that thwarts NSA?
Antivirus developer John McAfee has a new target in sight, preventing the NSA or any agency from snooping on your online activities. He has developed a product that he calls “Decentral” to do this.

The small device can be used with smartphones and other mobile devices to create a type of mobile network that cannot be penetrated by government surveillance. He said it will cost around $100.

New iPad to outsell last edition?
With Apple’s newest iPads expected to be unveiled in the near future analysts are back predicting how sales will be and KGI is saying that the new iPad 5 will far out pace the new iPad Minis, at least initially.

Market research firm KGI has said that it expects about 10 million iPad 5s sold in the fourth quarter compared to 2 million Minis. There has been a great deal of speculation that the Mini production is slow getting going and that supplies will be limited.

Filed Under: Amazon, Android, Apple, Apps, ESPN, Fox Sports, iPad, Major League Baseball Tagged With: , , , , ,

Emetic latest with low cost tablet

October 2, 2013 by 1 Comment

ematic

Ematic has joined the tablet fray with an 8-inch Android-based offering as the market continues to heat up in the short term and Android tablets overtake Apple’s iPad in market share, just prior to Apple’s expected revamping of its own tablet offerings.

The Ematic 8” Pro Series tablet is a low cost alternative to many of the rivals in this space be they running Apple, Android or Microsoft operating systems. The 8-inch tablet has a $130 price tag, putting it under almost all rivals in this space.

The tablet runs the Android 4.1 operating system (Jelly Bean) and features an 8-inch 1024 x 768 resolution display with 1GB RAM, an ARM 1.6GHz dual core processor with 8GB of storage that is expandable to 32GBs via a microSD card. It comes with 5GBs of cloud storage and there is also a 2MP back and 0.3 MP front facing cameras. For those that want to stream to a television it has HDMI output.

The competition in the tablet space has been fierce and is expected to stay that way, at last now that new platforms are here or on the way. Amazon and Google have both recently refreshed their offerings and Apple is expected to do so later this month.

Sales slowed in the last quarter, attributed to lack of new models from the major players, according to research firm IDC.

However once you have one tablet a second one often makes sense and I can see the low cost providers starting to surge as they offer a great deal of what the larger, better known players offer. Into this space developers such as Ematic should find a sweet spot.

Filed Under: Amazon, Android, Apple, Apps, Google, Microsoft, Samsung, Tablets, Windows 8 Tagged With: , , , , , ,
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