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NCAA.Com Provides 2013 College World Series App

June 11, 2013 by 1 Comment

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If you are fan of college baseball, baseball in general or a school that made the College World Series then the NCAA has an app for you that will help you stay abreast of what is going on, what has happened and when things will be happening.

The 2013 NCAA Men’s College World Series will run from June 15 through either the 25th or 26th depending on results and will take place in Omaha. SO chances are that you might not have factored that into your summer vacation plans, but if you did not, or if you are attending the app has plenty for all.

The NCAA Men’s College World Series app is free and there are versions for iPhone, iPod touch as well as select Android devices. While the app provides a host of information on the tournament as well as an interactive map of the tournament site and a visitors guide to the city of Omaha.

Among the features the app includes are a daily event schedule with times, locations, directions/maps and lists of all the tournament’s festivities, live scores of all games and general information about the tournament and site.

Other features include real-time game highlights, post game post-game photo galleries, press conferences and editorial content about the tournament.

It seems that the NCAA is moving more into the mobile world every year. Earlier this year it featured an app for March Madness and had huge numbers in terms of viewership. It is unlikely that the baseball one will reach that level for a variety of reasons but increasingly the league is developing alternatives for fans that are on the go. As with the March Madness app the NCAA.com worked with Turner Sports on the program.

Filed Under: Android, Apple, Apps, Baseball, iOS, iPad, iPhone, Live sports via mobile, Live Sports Video Consumption, NCAA.com, Smartphone, Tablets, Turner Sports Tagged With: , , ,

Friday Grab Bag: Watch NBA Finals on Select Mobile Devices: New Rival to Google Glass

June 7, 2013 by 1 Comment

Just a reminder that with the NBA Finals now being fought out on the court you can still watch the games if you are not in front of your television on ABC. Well on most but not all mobile devices. For users of Apple’s iPhone and iPad there is an app at the iTunes store.

There is also an app for users of the Kindle Fire and Kindle Fire HD. Viewers using laptops as well as desktop computers can log into ABC.com. Looks like Android users are out in the cold on this for some reason. This is all part of a free access preview running through the end of June.

Asus fights for tablet share with low cost Memo Pad HD7
Asustek’s latest offering is a 7-inch tablet that could create demand for lower cost offerings in the tablet space. The $129 Asus Memo Pad HD7 has a 7-inch display with 1280 x 800 resolution and it includes a 1.2 megapixel front facing camera and a 5 MP rear facing camera. Depending on market it will be available with either 8GB or 16GB (at $149) of storage.

The company also delivered a 10-inch tablet this week, the 10-inch Transformer Pad Infinity that has the Android 4.2 operating system and is powered by a quad-core Tegra processor. It also features a 2048 x 1600 resolution display. Pricing is not yet available according to Arnnet.com.

Intel invests in gesture control technology developer Thalmic Lab
There has been a great deal of talk about the advent of wearable computing devices, from smartwatches to Google Glass and Intel does not want to miss out on the fun. It has joined an investment round to provide $14.5 million in Series A funding to Thalmic Labs.

Thalmic Labs has developed a wearable gesture control device called MYO and said that it will use the funding, which came from a round that was led by Intel Capital and Spark Capital and included Formation 8, First Round Capital and FundersClub, along with the following individual investors: Paul Graham, Marc Benioff, Geoff Ralston, Sam Altman, Garry Tan, Fritz Lanman, Hank Vigil, Tom Wagner, Alex Bard, Michael Litt and Daniel Debow.

Intel will provide access to manufacturing and technology to Thalmic to help it both scale production of its existing devices as well as develop future generations.

Rivals to Google Glass starting to emerge
At the annual Computex trade show a developer called Oculon Optoelectronics surface, that has a rival product to Google Glass that Oculon calls Oculon Smart Glasses. It claims that they will have better battery life, a better display and will cost less, around $500. Well that is settled.

Google Glass is not the first time a developer has created a wearable computer in the form of glasses, although Google’s effort is by far the largest and best financed effort. I wonder if developers that once sneered at the idea of a tablet now want to try and be in front of the acceptance curve rather than behind it and so are working to have products out simultaneously with Google so as to not initially surrender the market?

Filed Under: ABC, Android, Apple, Apps, Asus, Google, Intel, Intel Capital, iOS 6, iPad, iPhone, Live sports via mobile, Live Sports Video Consumption, NBA, Tablets Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Verizon Extends NFL Mobile Deal for $1 Billion

June 4, 2013 by 7 Comments

Verizon Wireless and the NFL have extended their current deal around mobile viewing of live NFL games, with a $1 billion, 4-year extension announced this week.

The billion-dollar deal does not, however, cover mobile viewing on tablet devices, a distinction noted by this story in Sports Business Daily and one we will bet is going to be kept by the league for its own video streaming plans. There will be more to this story later, but the good news for football fans who have Verizon phones is that for the 2014 season, you will be able to watch all live games — including CBS and Fox broadcasts — and not just the Thursday-Sunday lineup now available.

No word yet on ESPN’s plans to pay for mobile access for sports fans. On the Verizon side, the NFL Mobile viewing access is still apparently priced at $5 per month, but I bet that increases with the increased game schedule in 2014. Got to pay for that $1 billion bill somehow!

Filed Under: CBS Sports, Fox Sports, Live sports via mobile, Live Sports Video Consumption, NFL, Verizon Wireless Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Microsoft Signs Deal that Brings Interactive Viewing to the NFL

May 23, 2013 by 2 Comments

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Microsoft will soon be a presence on the field and in your home as part of the NFL game-watching experience as the team has joined with the league to provide interactive viewing capabilities to fans in a 5-year deal that is estimated to bring an additional $400 million to the NFL’s coffers.

There is a catch of sorts, you need to be viewing using Microsoft’s Xbox One game console or another device that features Xbox Live. For the fans that have that technology they can now permit users to have split screens that show stats, fantasy football team data and game highlights in real time, among other things.

It will also support Skype so that fans can be using the same device to watch games as well as chat with other fans or friends during the game. Other features include access to the NFL’s RedZone and replays from a matchup. Also if a user has a second screen or mobile device they can have additional information sent to that device simultaneously as when they are viewing on the Xbox One.

The deal could lead to another solid plus for Microsoft. Over the last few years a number of teams in the National Football League have talked about their use of Apple’s iPads as a training tool and a superior replacement to the traditional binders that had been in use for decades. However it now looks like Microsoft has taken a night march on Apple and inked a deal with the league that will call for the Microsoft Surface tablet to be used on all the teams’ sidelines.

While this is still in an area that the league is investigating the Surface tablet would be used to provide up to the minute information about looks and formations that other teams are using during games. Players viewing printouts and pictures of formations could be a thing of the past as they instead watch plays on a tablet on the sidelines. Referees will not be left out of the action as it could become the key viewing tool for replays and challenge calls.

Filed Under: Apps, iPad, Live sports via mobile, Live Sports Video Consumption, Microsoft, NFL, Surface, Tablets Tagged With: , , , , , ,

MLB Comes to TiVo-Is there a Player it Does Not support?

May 22, 2013 by Leave a Comment

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One of the advantages of having MLB.TV Premium subscription has always been that you can use a variety of platforms to watch and listen to games, but until MLB added TiVo I never realized how many it actually did support.

TiVo users can now watch MLB games, subject to certain limitations, and the app is designed to take advantage of select features that come with TiVo. MLB integrated TiVo’s standard playback functions into the app, including the ability to pause, fast-forward and rewind or skip game action.

The MLB.TV is set up to deliver game viewing and video stream in a picture-in-graphic (PIG) or an “L bar” window to view the score while watching a game. There are a range of additional features from the relatively mundane ones such as stats and standings, favorite team selection, a choice of home or away broadcasters, and calendar view to one called “Jump to Inning” that permits users to jump back to the beginning of any inning in the game.

The addition of TiVo support is in line with MLB’s approach of delivering its programming and games to its audience in as wide a manner as possible. It has a number of mobile devices supported including Apple’s iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. Then there is the huge number of devices that support Google’s Android operating system and most recently added was support for the BlackBerry Z10.

Now I was aware of all of these but the other, more stationary platforms caught me by a bit of a surprise, although I have watched games on two of the platforms. There is the Sony Playstation 3, Samsung TV and Blu-ray Disc Player, Apple TV, Roku Player and Boxee. Then of course there is also Xbox 360, Sony TV and Blu-ray players and Western Digital TV Live.

It is too bad that other sports do not actively follow the lead of MLB, but I guess that the broadcasting contracts most likely prohibit them from doing so. Fans of many teams, say in football, are constantly subjected to a limited number of teams on national broadcasts, and if you live outside of your teams home base you may only see them once or twice on broadcast TV a season.

Filed Under: Amazon, Android, Apple, Apps, Baseball, BlackBerry, Google, iOS, iPad, iPhone, Live sports via mobile, Live Sports Video Consumption, Major League Baseball, Tablets Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

MLBAM Teams with NDN to Deliver MLB Video to News Web Sites

May 8, 2013 by Leave a Comment

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A trip to your favorite baseball news site may soon be enlivened by video that matches up with the stories due to a new deal that has been struck between Major League Baseball’s Advanced Media (MLBAM) arm and Internet video provider NDN.

While it may seem odd that MLB needs a partner on video, it has been producing highlights and videos that are available on the Internet for over a decade, the deal will enable the sports league to hook up with a huge number of online news services.

NDN will enhance MLB’s existing video business by passing it along to its syndicated news partners, with approximately 4,500 online news publishers that have relationships with the company. In addition it often works with its partners to embed content in its partners stories.

The net result will be a boon for baseball fans who now can read a local story about their favorite team and then watch the clinching strike out or the walk off home run rather than forcing them to eave that site to go to MLB’s site to view the action.

This policy shines very nicely when compared to the very restrictive rules of the NFL, which has very strong restrictions of what can be shown, and for how long. It even demanded that top reporters shut down their twitter accounts during the NFL draft.

It seems to us that sports networks need to understand that increasingly fans are looking for information, and videos, on their teams from a growing diversity of media including YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and Internet news sites and rather than fight them they are better off joining with them to make the experience better for the fans.

Filed Under: Apps, Baseball, Facebook, Live sports via mobile, Live Sports Video Consumption, Major League Baseball, NFL, YouTube Tagged With: , , ,
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