Elemental Technologies lands $13m in Series C funding

Elemental Technologies, a young company that is focusing on creating video solutions for multiscreen content delivery has closed its third round of funding after landing $13 million in a Series C round of funding.

The round was led by Northwest Venture Partners (NVP) and was joined by three additional partners; General Catalyst, Voyager Capital and Steamboat Ventures, all of whom are previous investors in the company.

This brings to $27.6 million to the company, which was founded in 2006, has managed to raise in the past few years. It closed its Series B round in July, 2010 after raising $7.5 million and $7.1 million in its first round in July, 2008.

In that time it has signed more than a 100 customers including number of top tier players including ESPN, Comcast and HBO, been named to Forbes Magazine’s Most Promising Companies in America list and more.

One of the most interesting is the deal it landed last month that calls for it to be part of the backbone to the systems that will be broadcasting the upcoming London Olympics to viewers in Japan, the United Kingdom, Canada and a dozen countries in Latin America.

Online Golf Back This Week: It’s All About the Island Green at The Players Championship

Call this an early version of “watching Golf this week” but we wanted to join in the leadup hype for what some call the “fifth major,” The Players Championship. The good news for those of us stuck at desks is that the PGA’s live online coverage, @Live, returns this week for the big-ticket players event.

There’s even an online “preview” show scheduled for Wednesday evening, from 5 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. Eastern. On Thursday and Friday @Live online coverage goes from 9 a.m. Eastern to 7 p.m., and on the weekend it’s Noon to 7 p.m. each day.

Though not as complete as the Masters online coverage, the PGA’s @Live broadcasts are pretty good, with all the camera angles and commentary you expect from a broadcast TV show. I hope there’s a 17th hole cam because this week is all about the Island Green. More viewing details later in the week.

Lotsa Luck: Colts will Have Live Mobile TV Cam Following Top Draft Pick

In a new, mobile twist to the 24/7 NFL Draft coverage idea, the Indianapolis Colts will have a live, mobile TV camera following top draft pick Andrew Luck from the moment he’s picked Thursday throughout his Friday welcome-to-Indy activities.

Partnering with mobile camera technology supplier LiveU, whose camera modems are finding more fans in the sports world, the Colts will be breaking new ground by providing a Luck’s-eye-view to the hoopla surrounding the top draft pick. No info yet on where the feed will be posted, but you can check the Colts’ official website as well as the LiveU Facebook page, where more info is sure to be posted.

UPDATE: Here’s the link to the streaming page. Apparently not quite 24×7, but still cool.

The Colts will also host a Google+ hangout with luck, according to this release. We will also update this post with more info as we get it, so stay tuned for live, mobile coverage of Andrew Luck’s million-dollar-plus day.

The Colts are also not the only NFL team taking advantage of LiveU’s technology, which is basically a bunch of cellular modems in a backpack (or a beltclip) that allows users to broadcast live, professional video content from just about anywhere at the fraction of the cost of using a satellite truck. Though LiveU couldn’t name the teams, several more are expected to be broadcasting their own draft news and views live Thursday, so check your team’s home page to see if they have a LiveU feed running. For fans of always-on info, the revolution has now reached the broadcast TV market.

Friday Grab Bag: The Olympics are 98 Days Away!

Next week in pro football news, the ever popular draft is coming. One interesting thing about the NFL regular season schedule being released this week is that Las Vegas already has lines on the games! Not sure if it is time yet to lay a dime on Green Bay giving the points however.

Intel delivers high capacity solid state drives for consumers
Intel has delivered the Solid-State Drive 330 Series, a lineup that is directly targeted at the consumer market. Now being a consumer you might wonder why you would want one of these drives and the answer is easy. They have the capacity to store your growing digital music/video/images collection that might not fit on your smartphone or tablet, or even computer.

The drives will be available in the 60GB, 120GB and 180GB capacities and is a SATA 6Gb/s-based SSD. The difference between a SSD and what is probably in your computer is that a traditional hard disk drive has rotating material and so is much more prone to damage from dropping or other accidents. A SSD is what is in your smartphone, or at least the underlying technology is.

Exercise cycle delivers feedback wirelessly
Ever ridden an exercise bike and found that the data that it provided was worthless, or like at my gym, the data technology always seems to be broken? Well a company called Body Bike wants to fix all that with a wireless solution that can provide feedback using Ant + wireless technology developed by Ant Wireless.

The Body Bike Connect uses the wireless technology to send a wide range of information including VO2 max, calories, distance, and average, percentage and maximum values to an Ant enabled console. It also can be used to handle personalized settings.

Foursquare tops 20 million users
Now I have to admit I am not a Foursquare user. I don’t care that you are buying a cup of coffee or getting your haircut. Why do you think that is interesting to anybody but stalkers and home thieves? Well enough of the rant, as I see that the location-based check-in service startup has 20 million users, up from 15 million in December.

Google’s Motorola plans driving partners to rivals?
There is growing speculation that part of Google’s plans for its $12.5 billion purchase of Motorola Mobility is to emulate what Apple is currently doing, becoming a vertically integrated developer. What that means is that it would develop the hardware, the operating system and possibly even the chip, for future Android devices. Currently it helps partners design products that are sold as Nexus systems.

This would make it very tough for partners to compete with Google’s own products, and could be a major impetus for them to look for alternatives. While Apple’s iOS is out two alternatives remain that already have at least a bit of mainstream acceptance.

The two are Research in Motion, which reportedly is in talks to license its technology to Samsung. The second and possibly more viable alternative is Microsoft. Its Windows 8 is due soon and it has Intel helping to promote the technology.

Apple and Samsung to settle?
Among the many patent battles being fought across the globe, two of the bigger participants are Apple and Samsung with over 20 cases between the two pending, and now it looks the top bosses will be talking face to face about how to settle the issues.

The two companies have agreed to settlement talks that will be presided over by a San Francisco-based magistrate judge. At the meeting are expected to be Apple chief executive Tim Cook and Samsung CEO Choi Gee-sung, as well as the general counsel for both companies.

BBC will stream all Olympic games
The BBC is taking an aggressive broadcasting stance for the upcoming Summer Olympics. With the games in its own backyard the broadcasting giant said that it will be broadcasting up to 24 streams of live HD sports to cable and satellite broadcasters for television viewing.

This will enable viewers to watch every Olympic sport, if they were so inclined. The move is an expansion of its previous plan that had called for all of the games to only be broadcast online. In addition it will be broadcasting on BBC One and BBC 3 as well as radio coverage.

This move, coupled with NBC Sports promising to put a huge amount of the games online mean that viewers can now see events that they wish to rather than simply the ones that the broadcasters have determined that viewers want.

No Greek Warship for Olympics?
A Greek trireme powered by 170 rowers has been scratched from the opening ceremonies of the upcoming London Olympics- the reason is that they are afraid that it will be too popular, causing I guess people to actually want to come to the opening ceremony.

That is really too bad because it not every day you see a replica of the Olympias, an ancient warship that was used in one of history’s most important battles sailing by. I hope they are not planning on canceling the basketball portion of the Olympics because I hear that is very popular as well.

NBC Launches Olympics Site, Pledges to ‘Stream Everything’ Online

Call it the fully online Olympics: In a news release today NBC said it would put as many events as possible from this year’s Summer Olympics online, often live as they happen from London. “If cameras are on it, we’ll stream it,” said Rick Cordella, vice president and general manager of NBC Sports Digital Media, in a report from the New York Times. The content will be offered free at NBCOlympics.com, a new site which launched Wednesday with the games 100 days away.

With digital viewing of live sports on the increase everywhere, it’s no surprise that NBC is going to show as much of the Olympics as it can. With high-profile partners like Cisco and AT&T helping flesh out the technical infrastructure, NBC should be well prepared for the expected online onslaught. Like the Masters and other events occuring over long periods of time at non-U.S. prime time hours, the Olympics are tailor-made for asynchronous viewing on mobile platforms. You could even say that the Olympics are the perfect event for online, on-demand viewing since many of the sports aren’t mainstream but have devoted followers who for years had to go through bizarre hoops just to find coverage of their beloved events, like curling or equestrian.

And it’s a good bet that people who watch an event live on a mobile platform will return later that day or the next day to watch a produced version of the event on the regular TV shows; so far all stats for online viewerships show that having more content online only increases the regular broadcast audience of an event.

Did you know MLB has an App Game that Could Enable You to Win $5.6 Million?

A few weeks ago we looked at a number of apps that Major League Baseball has made available to fans, including the ever popular MLB.com AT Bat 12 as well as the recently released At the Ballpark, both of which have been very well received.

What I missed was the app Full Count that delivers streaming content and the fact that the game that fans can participate in to try and break Joe DiMaggio’s all-time consecutive hit streak is not only an app but has a $5.6 million prize, so a short comment on both is worthwhile.

Full Count is an app that was developed in conjunction with Yahoo! Sports and it provides a range of features including up to the minute player and team stats, scores, live look-ins at key plays and in-game progress video highlights.

A user can pause a video and rewind it if they so desire and they can follow an embedded twitter feed that includes ones from analysts, commentators and MLB.com insiders. The program is free and can be accessed on iPads, iPhones and on PCs. This looks to me like the second best thing to watching a game at work.

The second app is called MLB.com Beat the Streak presented by Scotts and it involves an effort by fans to participate, but that have the potential to win a $5.6 million grand prize. To play you pick one or two players from a list supplied by MLB on a daily basis. If your player gets a hit on the first day you have the start of a streak. You keep on selecting for as many days as your players keep you in the game, if you have a day with no hits you are set back to zero, but can start again.

There is no limit to how many times you select any individual player, and you can make selections up to 10 days in advance, a boon to those with weekend duties or travel obligations. The contest ends with the end of the 2012 regular season. The first to reach 57 consecutive games wins.

To play you need to register at www.mlb.com/bts or www.mlb.com/fantasy and then download the app, which is currently for iPhones, iPod Touch and iPads only.

This strikes me as a great way to keep fans not only engaged but actively following all players to ensure that they have a hot hand and pay attention to what pitchers their selected hitters will be facing.