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Mobile Sports Report TechWatch: Chipped Jerseys?

December 5, 2011 by

Microchip in Jerseys boosts merchandise, ticket sales
The NHL’s Tampa Bay Lighting has added a replica jersey to its lineup that features a radio frequency chip that allows fans to scan to get assorted deals. The chip, when scanned at stadium stores will offer discounts on team merchandise and refreshments.

The team had been struggling with fan support and claims that this program has been a boon for its sales and has attributed the chip in part for a twofold increase in its season ticket sales this year. A secondary effect has been the increase in fans wearing the home team jerseys, rather than those of the opposition.

Acer readies budget Iconia Tablet.
After leaks about its new tablet starting hitting the streets Acer must have decided “why not” and unveiled its budget tablet, the Iconia Tab A200. The company kept some things the same-10-inch display and dual core Tegra 2 processor.

To save costs the available storage has been reduced to 8GB or 16GB rather than the 16GB and 32GB offerings elsewhere in the Iconia line. It will have a 2MP front camera but no rear facing camera, a microSDHC card slot and will ship with Android 3.2 but the company said that it will be upgradable to 4.0. Pricing has not been announced.

A Microsoft platform without Windows?
Well not quite but PC Advisor is reporting that the forthcoming Windows 8 Tablets and other devices will just have to do without the traditional Windows desktop since it will not be offered on ARM-based devices.

Instead Microsoft will continue to push its Metro interface as the interface of choice on mobile devices. The company has already debuted Metro on the Windows Phone 7 devices. If you are an iPhone or Android user Microsoft is offering test drives of the interface on those platforms.

Intel eyes China as destination for additional investments
EE Times Asia is reporting that Intel Capital is planning to increase its investments in China next year. The company looks to focus on technologies that are related to the mobile device and ultra-thin portable PC technologies sector.

Intel said that in 2011 it invested approximately $70 million in 10 companies based in China, out of a total worldwide investment of $500 million. Other areas that it will look into investing in include cloud computing, software, security and products that support the mobile device ecosystem.

New features for Android in 2012
Wondering what will be in store for your next generation smartphone, assuming you are using an Android-based device. Well PC World has taken the time to list a range of the new features that are expected, but not announced for that platform.

Included are some that are expected such as better graphics and better cameras as well as a few that might be a bit further out such as enhanced voice command capabilities and hopefully a translation features as well.

Samsung wins latest patent round with Apple
A US federal judge has stymied Apple’s efforts to block Samsung from selling a range of smartphones and Tablets that Apple claims infringe on its patents related to its iPads and iPhones. Judge Lucy Koh of the U.S. District Court in San Jose last Friday denied Apple’s request for a preliminary injunction against Samsung.

This is just one of the ten countries that the two are fighting a heated patent battle with the results mixed for both companies. This ruling opens the door for Samsung to sell its highly rated Galaxy S and other tablet and phone products.

Scrolling by the patent wars
While a great deal of noise over who stole what is still going on, Apple has apparently licensed some of its iOS technology and even offered it to Samsung, according to a report from the Verge. It said that the “scrollback” feature that displays a different background when you scroll past the edge of a document.

The report stated that Apple licensed the technology to both IBM and Nokia and offered this to be licensed by Samsung as well. Samsung declined. This technology is one of the bones of contention between Apple and Samsung.

Filed Under: Amazon, Android, Apps, HTC, Intel Capital, iPad, iPhone, NHL, Samsung, Tablets Tagged With: , , , ,

Mobile Sports Reports Monday TechWatch: An Android Rebuttal

November 28, 2011 by

Social Games Developer gets $12.5 million investment
SNS Plus, a 3-year-old developer of games that run on social media sites has just received an influx of funding amounting to $12.5 million from WI Harper, a Chinese VC, and Matrix Partners. SNS focuses on developing for Facebook with 60 games already available on that platform and an additional 15 games on a variety of others including Friendster, Zingme and Apple’s iOS. The company currently focuses on the Asian market and has offices in China, Taiwan and Thailand.

Android apps revenue trails iOS- Wait until next year!
Last week we noted that a study be market research firm Piper Jaffray said that Apple iOS app developers were racking in the funds while their counterparts in the Android space were just getting crumbs.

Now Inside Mobile Apps has refuted the estimate claiming that it is flawed. In particular it notes that free apps have a strong revenue generating potential by in-app sales. While we don’t track this thing, it seemed at the time that Piper Jaffray’s estimates were too low. It will be interesting to follow this space as the analysts start to develop real tools that can provide developers with the information they need to profitably allocate their resources.

Panasonic’s US Android plans: Someday?
It looks like Panasonic Mobile Communications Co. will be bringing a lineup of smartphones to Europe as it seeks to establish itself as a player in the Android-powered smartphone space. According to a report from the Nikkei that was forwarded by Reuters the company seeks to sell 7.5 million phones in that market, half of its output, but not until 2015.

It will look at further expansion down the road into the US and additional Asian markets. The company dropped out of all but its own domestic mobile phone space in 2005 due to a variety of issues including tough price competition.

Apple dumping Samsung LCDs?
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Apple is moving to a new partner for the displays in its forthcoming next generation iPads. The company will be moving from Samsung Electronics, a company it has partnered with in the display space for some time.

The report, well actually more of a rumor, claims that the LCDs will come from Sharp and that Apple is also investing an undisclosed sum in Sharp’s panel manufacturing facilities in Japan.

This seems to be a trend by Apple and you have to wonder if it has issues with Samsung? It was reported in September that it was moving away from using Samsung memory components. Earlier this year it moved away from using Samsung’s manufacturing for its processors that power its devices. Think that the patent disputes between the two have any impact on these decisions?

Did Apple products really account for 10 percent of Black Friday online sales?
A story coming out from electronista, citing a report from Coremetrics, an IBM company, claims that Apple mobile products accounted for approximately 10.2 percent of all online sales on Black Friday this year, while rival Android products only accounted for 4.1 percent.

At first look I took this to mean that Apple had a huge surge in sales of its products, which did have a number of sales last week, but what the piece means is that customers using those platforms made 10.2 percent of all purchases.

With Android phones extending their market share lead over Apple’s on a daily basis I found this to be a bit odd. Also the linked to report, while listed for 2011 was actually from 2010. Maybe I just could not get the latest report?

Are Android phones the breeding ground for viruses?
An interesting take on the reason that suddenly we seem to be inundated with alerts that your phone OS, especially Android, is rife with viruses and that you need the latest and greatest anti-virus software to ensure that your every Tweet, text and e-mail is safe.

According to ITWire it is all a conspiracy plot between Intel, its wholly owned subsidiary McAfee and Microsoft. Ok that may be an exaggeration but the piece does throw it out there. Of course as we noted in an earlier brief Google says all of the news of the rise of a new generation of malware is all garbage.

Apple rumor of the week.
Apple is working on a television that understands when you yell at it. Great, mine will explode every football and baseball season, who needs to buy two sets a year. It will also understand gestures. Still don’t see this as a positive. Now if it could cut out the ads I would be a happy camper.

Have a product that will be on display at the upcoming CES show and think we should know about it? Drop us a line and let us know.

Filed Under: Amazon, Android, Apps, iPad, iPhone Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

CBS Streaming Top Rated SEC Games this Weekend

November 23, 2011 by

Broadcaster seeks to grow success from LSU vs Alabama Game

CBS Sports, coming off a very strong viewership of its live streaming broadcast of the LSU vs Alabama game several weeks ago is now touting its live streaming of the game between #3 Arkansas vs. #1 LSU as well as broadcasting the “Iron Bowl” between #2 Alabama and #24 Auburn.

The event will follow a familiar format for viewers that have experienced previous broadcasts from CBS Sports. The game will be broadcast live at CBSSports.Com/SECLive and for users of iPads, iPhones and iPod Touch I can be found by using the CBS Sports Mobile app.


The games between all of these top ranked teams has the extra incentive for the teams in they all compete in the same division and so that the winner will capture the SEC West Championship, a sure stepping stone to a top BCS Bowl game.

The LSU game will be played Friday, Nov. 25th at 2:30 ET while the Alabama/Auburn Iron Bowl game will be played Saturday, Nov.26th with a starting time of 3:30 ET. Both games will be followed by the “5th Quarter with Gary Danielson”, an interactive show that is available at cbssports.com/gary or can be followed on Twitter at @DanielsonCBS.

The LSU vs Alabama game, which pitted a #1 vs. #2 drew 214,560 viewers to its online broadcast earlier this month. The number includes an impressive 42,912 viewers who partook via a mobile device and the sites CBS Sports mobile app for Apple iOS devices.

While the game was touted as a game of the century, as if we don’t get on of those every year, it was a bit of a disappointment. Missed opportunities coupled with missed field goals left an unsatisfactory feeling for many fans.
Still CBS Sports said at the time that it believed it to be the biggest audience to watch college football on-line, although ESPN claims that it has the title from the National Championship game last year that was broadcast on ESPN3 and drew 690,000 viewers.

It will be very interesting to see how the attendance for this game compares to the first. All of the SEC fans that I know are among the most fanatical football fans I know. Yet the first game was not quite what it was billed to be in terms of scoring and excitement. Will the fact that so many are traveling this weekend spur additional mobile viewership or will it detract? Just have to wait until Monday to see the numbers from CBS to see how it pans out. From there it would be nice to see this as a growing trend in the industry.

One question for fans of either LSU or Arkansas. Is the game still officially called “The Battle for the Golden Boot”? I did not see any mention of it this week.

Filed Under: Apps, CBS Sports, Fanatic Fans, iPad, iPhone, Live sports via mobile, NCAA Football, SEC Tagged With: , ,

Friday Grab Bag: Pre Black Friday Issue

November 23, 2011 by

Site takes you on Stadium Journey
Every year or so you see a story about some intrepid fans that are going to travel around the US and visit all of the ball parks during baseball season. A bit rarer but you also see people that try to hit all of the minor league fields on occasion.

Well if you are just an armchair traveler, or looking to do research about a sporting venue prior to leaving home then the folks at Stadium Journey have the site for you. Sure it covers all of the MLB parks with solid info and interesting photo montages, but that is the tip of the iceberg.

How about the Central Hockey League arenas? Or are you headed to Europe and want to see what Old Trafford, the home of Manchester United looks like before attending? Its there and much more. Of course there are gaps in its lineup, particularly in Europe and possible elsewhere (I did not carefully check each league) but it is a fun and informative site. One comment- in its AT&T review it mentions “blistering Candlestick”- try freezing Candlestick.

EA’s Twitter Campaign gets Results
Electronic Art’s decided to use a sponsored Twitter to promote its FIFA 12 video game several months ago it found that the social media site, couples with a focused time-sensitive ads brought solid results, 5%-8% higher than normal for Twitter-based campaigns.

The program had a 11% customer engagement was due to what EA said was its ability to take advantage of the traffic generated by the ads and so turn it into both sales but increased following for EA’s normal Twitter feed, thus setting up potential future sales as well.

For those of you that are scratching your head and wondering what FIFA is, it’s the The Fédération Internationale de Football Association (International Federation of Association Football) that hosts the World Cup every four years. You know, soccer.

Facebook is seeking another avenue into your soul
Rumors have it that Facebook is teaming with Taiwanese cellphone developer HTC to develop a customized Android-powered smartphone code-named ‘Buffy”. Buffy, really? This rumor is according to the blog All Things Digital.

The reason is clear why Facebook would want to move further into the mobile space, it already has 350 million mobile users and relationships with a huge number of mobile operators across the globe. Still this just brings the ESPN phone back to my mind.

However don’t hold your breath waiting to use this phone to poke your friends- Facebook still has a ways to go including signing carriers, designing and then building the devices so it is not expected for at least 12- 18 months.

Top iPhone Games-No football?
Ever wonder what sports apps you should have loaded on your iPhone, assuming you have an iPhone, so that when you finally tire of shooting birds at pigs while sitting in an airport lobby you can have something else to do?

Well a short list has been created at appolicious advisor, which brings in 5 programs that it touts as timeless- thus eliminating from consideration season focused apps such as SEC Football lite or NBA 2011-12 (is there such an app?)

The five that made the cut include Bill James Baseball IQ, ESPN Radio, PrePlay, Tiger Woods: My Swing and Yahoo Spectacular. Anybody have an issue with this or what they fell is better choices send them my way and maybe I will follow up with fan favorites.

Is Malware a threat on Android?
Google is in a verbal fight with at least one security expert over the threat that viruses and other malware present to the Android mobile operating system, according to a recent post at ITWorld.

On the one hand we have Google’s open source program manager Chris DiBona claiming that the virus and security software companies are a buch of charlatans and scammers and there is no problem.

On the flip side there is Denis Maslennikov, a senior malware analyst for Kaspersky Labs who claimed that the number of malware discoveries on Android has been growing and that in less than half a year the number has rapidly grown.

Parade-
Have a great Turkey day and if you are stuffed and sitting on the sofa as the Macy’s Parade goes by look for my niece in the Homestead High marching band- she’s the cute one! And did you know there is an app to follow what is happening in the parade? Someone had too much time on their hands!

Filed Under: Amazon, Android, Apps, Baseball, Facebook, HTC, iPhone Tagged With: , , , ,

Sling Media moves to Facebook with new App

November 22, 2011 by

The company continues to reach out to new platforms

Sling Media, a provider of streaming media, has once again expanded its reach by developing a Facebook app that has the potential to reach millions of additional potential customers as well as make its make its technology more easily used.

The program is called SlingPlayer for Facebook and the obvious target is its installed customer base. To use the app you need both a Facebook account and more importantly a Slingbox. It provides you with an on screen remote control that enables you to watch and record programs remotely from your home system.

SlingPlayer for Facebook does not require additional hardware, passwords or software. A user that already has an account with the company can now use existing passwords etc to access their DVR or live television. It supports a wide variety of browsers including Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Internet Explorer and works on both PCs and Macs. However only customers with its Pro-HD or Solo devices will be able to use the app.

The app will also enable the company to possibly get into businesses and other sites via a potential backdoor by using Facebook. A company may close many different sites to keep employees focused on work but Facebook tends to be exempt.

I expect that it will provide a secondary boost to the company as customers will likely show friends at work the technology and say on a Thursday night where you have to work late it can show a football game that you might otherwise miss.

Sling Media has been aggressive in moving its technology onto additional platforms. It is also available on Android phones and tablets, iPads, iPod Touch, iPhones Windows Phone 7 and BlackBerrys. In addition it has a Windows app and a Mac OS X app.

The company needs to stay aggressive due to the current competition from players such as Apple TV, Roku, and Boxee as well as a number of similar approaches including Xbox 360 and streaming sites like Netflix that seek to erode Sling Media’s original core space.

Filed Under: Android, Apps, Facebook, iPad, iPhone, Sling Media Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Mobile Sports Report Monday TechWatch: Poor Android Apps Revenue?

November 21, 2011 by

The Kindle-It’s Cheap!
Love it or hate it, the Kindle Fire is making its mark, and a primary reason is that it is less than half the price of rival tablets such as Apple’s iPad. A compilation of reviews at Network World is less than kind to the device for all uses aside from reading books.

I keep wondering why people compare it to an iPad when it looks to be trying to take a slice of the market that only somewhat overlaps. My Dad wants a Kindle, I want an iPad or a Samsung Galaxy and we want them for different purposes.

Nook Tablet vs Kindle Fire- a Side by Side Look
Decided you want a small form factor tablet but cannot decide which one you want or how they compare to each other. Engadget kindly did the work for you by taking a hard look at the features of these two recently released devices so that you can make an informed holiday purchase. Among the areas they look at are performance, form factor, software and display.


Android Apps poor Revenue Stream?
A report in Business Insider claims that despite the huge platform advantage that the Android platform is enjoying over rival Apple iOS and the rest of the pack, it’s payback to developers lags at just 7% of what iOS developers receive. The report said that Android revenue for developers is dwarfed by the revenue for the iOS. According to a study from Piper Jaffray that breaks down to $330 million for Android developers compared to $4.9 billion for the iOS community. Could they have possibly dropped a zero or two?

More Patent Goodness
Slashdot notes that Apple’s iOS 5 has a Reminders feature that can be location based and a patent pending called Computer Systems and Methods for Collecting Associating and/or Retrieving Data (Snappy title that). Amazon was just granted a patent on its Location Based Reminders while Google has a patent on Geocoding Personal Information that includes location based reminders. Microsoft, not wanting to be left on the sidelines has a pending patent called Geographic Reminders.
There are also some older patents involved from Microsoft. I see a lot of legal fun and the horde of lawyers that they all employ gleefully rubbing their hands together and buying themselves new helicopter pads for Christmas.

IT Execs don’t seem to mind new Mobile Technology
CIO Magazine found that CIOs are rapidly starting to embrace employees using their own mobile technology such as smartphones and tablets for work. According to its 2011 CIO Magazine Consumerization of IT Survey 49% of its respondents said that allowing their employees to do work on personal devices from home or the office. An issue that has the potential to slow this is the ability or inability of most IT departments to support every hardware and software platform.

Latest Apple Rumors
Thicker iPads, how will I be able to handle the 0.7 mm difference? All metal iPhones that are larger with a 4-inch screen, will the world be able to survive? A revamped MacBook Pro in 2012- that will kill my holiday buying plans! Anyway if you are looking for the latest rumor about Apple’s next generation plans head on over to Cnet which has kindly rounded them all up in a nice tidy bundle.

Filed Under: Amazon, Android, Apps, iPad, iPhone, Tablets Tagged With: , , , , , ,
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