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Apple Makes Big iPad Education Push — Sports, Social Media, Hardware Developers to Benefit

January 19, 2012 by

Apple is returning to its roots with its new education push announced today, only this time there will be no floppy drive or large beige computers on students desks with a tangle of wires connecting everything, but rather tablets and wireless communications.

While this will most likely mean great news for education content developers as well as students, it will also be a boon for other markets as well, ranging from Wi-Fi equipment manufacturers and the entire world of sports and sport content development.

The news

Apple is back in the space, but this time as a supplier of educational material, primarily books. It has unveiled iBooks 2 for iPad, and claims that it will lead to a new type of textbook for students.

The key to iBooks 2, which is available in its own section at the iTune store, is that it will enable the creation of materials that will feature interactive animations, diagrams, photos, videos and will provide an easy to use navigational system.

The company has already enlisted several educational publishers including Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, McGraw-Hill and Pearson. Also teachers can create their own books for class using the iBooks Author tool.

For students the advantages are obvious, lighter backpacks since all of their text books can be carried in one small device. The cost, which Apple said will be in the $15 range for many books, will help with their expenses and they can be updated in real time to reflect current events or current ideas on a theme.

In addition to the iBooks 2 Apple has also released the iTunes U app that makes available a huge catalog of free educational materials, 20,000 educational apps as well as a wide variety of books that are used in school curriculum.

This is just the latest step from Apple in its effort to reestablish itself as one of the premier hardware and software players in the education market. It has been courting educators since it released the iPad. Apple has already seen a growing adoption of the iPad as a teaching tool in other areas including the NFL.

If Apple continues to gain share in the education field, as seems very likely at this point due to the poor showing by most of its rivals in the tablet business, this success will have far reaching implications for other companies as well.

Benefits for others

First and foremost it is most likely that the huge bulk of these iPads will only use Wi-Fi, since having two cellular bills is probably a bit much for the average student. I do not believe that most schools are prepared for a huge increase in the number of Wi-Fi users this will represent, as well as the huge increase in volume.

So hardware providers in a number of technologies from Wi-Fi hot spots to backhaul equipment providers will all see increased demand for their products

Secondly students will not just dedicate their time with the tablets to work. Aside from social media sports plays a huge role in many students’ lives. With ESPN, CBS Sports and others now streaming games a student can now be n the library and still watch the game.

The huge amount of options made available by the Australian Open for interaction with remote fans looks to be the wave of the future. Athletic, as well as theater and any other group on campus can now make interactive pitches to students as well as make video of past performances and streaming video of current games available on line.

This should lead to a demand for app and content developers to create interesting and informative programs that will grab and keep students attention. I expect that Amazon and Barnes & Noble to quickly follow suit since no one wants to leave such a huge and potentially lucrative market to Apple.

It will also spur the other Android tablet developers such as Samsung and Motorola to also develop solutions to get a piece of the pie. For customers this is great news because it will likely lead to price competition and a lowering of prices in an effort to grab market share.

Filed Under: Amazon, Android, Apple, Apps, BCS, CBS Sports, ESPN, iPad, Live sports via mobile, Motorola, NFL, Samsung, Tablets Tagged With: ,

Bookeen Seeks to Break Into U.S. E-Reader Market

January 16, 2012 by

French E-Book developer Bookeen seeks to break into US market with its Cybook Odyssey, a reader that incorporates the company’s high speed interface that it claims will help differentiate its platform from rivals.

The reader features a 6-inch E Ink Pearl with 800 x 600 pixel touch display. It is powered by an 800MHz Texas Instruments Cortex 8A OMAP3611 processor with 128MB of memory. The Wi-Fi only system comes with 2GB of on board storage that it said can store as many as 2,000 e-books. This is expandable to 32GB with the microSDHC slot.

The user interface is available in 23 languages and it uses Linux 2.6.31 as its operating system. It will initially ship with 100 books already preloaded, with 30 in English and currently only a French dictionary.

The reader supports open book format such as ePub and PDF. It also has MP3 music and supports JPEG, PNG, GIF, TIF and other picture formats.

The company used the International Consumer Electronics Show as the backdrop for its introduction and said that the $159.99 Cybook Odyssey will be delivered to U.S. retailers in the near future and is currently available from the company’s web site. The company said that different sizes models are likely in the pipeline as well as color models.

It looks like this could be a hard sell. With much greater name awareness and market presence rival eBook developers such as Amazon with its Kindle lineup and Barnes & Noble with its Nook lineup are already well on their way to dominating this space.

Bookeen will need to show strong advantages over these two in order to become an established player, and right now its price and performance do not set it apart, but this is just a step so it will be worth following to see what the company develops going forward.

Filed Under: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kindle, Tablets Tagged With: , ,

Friday Grab Bag: Bud is Back!

January 13, 2012 by

Selig has two year extension in the works-I assume it is guaranteed

The Good people at HardballTalk, among others, are reporting that MLB Commissioner Allan “Bud” Selig will sign a two year extension to remain at the helm of the sports. The deal is expected to be announced at the owners meeting taking place in Az. this week.

It comes as no surprise that he is staying there, who wants to give up an $18.4 million annual salary. I imagine he will dedicate the next two years to keeping players salaries down. Did anyone really think that he planned to retire?

Microsoft notches another win in its patent push
Microsoft and LG Electronics have signed a broad cross patent licensing agreement that gives LG coverage for Microsoft patents for LG’s lineup of devices that run Android or Chrome operating systems.

Included will be LG’s phones, tablets as well as other current and emerging consumer electronic devices. This is the 11th company that has entered into this type of licensing agreement with Microsoft and others include Samsung, Acer and HTC.

Apple gets egg on face, store after iPhone cancellation
After an abrupt announcement that the store would not be selling Apple’s iPhone 4S on the first day of availability in Beijing, the large crowd that had formed outside one of Apple’s stores in China became unruly and started throwing eggs at the building.

According to a piece at IDG a crowd had formed prior to the store opening and when an employee announced that there would be no phones available that day and gave no reason why.

Rams sign Fisher- Dolphins feel used
The St. Louis Rams have signed Jeff Fisher as its next head coach, according to ESPN and other sources. Details have not been released but I think it will be very interesting to see what he managed to squeeze out of them.

This has apparently irritated the owner of the Miami Dolphins, the other major suitor for his services. He had seemed to vacillating between the two and it seems Miami now was just using it for leverage in St. Louis.

I guess that the team learned nothing from its pursuit of Jim Harbaugh last year. Not only did it jack up what Harbaugh earn as a 1st time NFL head coach, Miami then had to salve its current head coach’s feelings.

I cannot wait until Miami goes on a search again- I suspect they will now massively overpay one of the former head coach/announcers out there like Gruden.

3D for Apple iOS
According to Mac Daily News Apple has filed for a patent that shows it will be developing a 3D GUI for its iOS-based mobile products. Apparently this is just one of several 3D products that are/were nder development at the company Will I be able to interface with my phone like they in “Minority Report”?

Mizco delivers cross platform USB charger for phones, tablets
Mizco International has delivered a cross platform charger that it claims will handle a wide range of smartphones and tablets, something that could make traveling with multiple devices significantly easier in the future.

Called the Cross-Brand Tablet and Smartphone Charger it is from the company’s Digipower division and is designed to support USB charging for products from all of the major manufacturers.

The $29.99 charger has a featured called a SmartSwitch that can be set in one of three positions and is capable of optimally charge USB-powered tablets from major manufacturers such as Apple, Samsung, HTC and BlackBerry as well as USB-powered Smartphones.

Filed Under: Android, Apple, Apps, Baseball, iPhone, Major League Baseball, Microsoft, NFL, Smartphone, Tablets Tagged With: , ,

Who Will Build a Kindle for Sports? Millions of Fans Await the Answer

January 12, 2012 by

One great comment I heard at CES in Las Vegas this week was that tablet computers are “the killer app for watching video.” To that I would add a caveat: Tablets could also become the complete killer app for watching sports in a mobile fashion, if and only if the leagues, cellular providers and broadcasters could come to some workable agreement on viewing rights. What could make all that happen quickly? Why not something like Amazon’s Kindle, but instead of books, have it devoted to sports?

The real revolution started by the Kindle isn’t the cool technology behind the device itself. Instead it’s the simple pricing and content procurement method which eliminates the need for consumers to care about the cellular connection and simply allows them to pay for the books they want to read. If only sports could be so simple.

In the real world, we know it’s far from easy to get sports content on your mobile device. Just trying to definitively describe how you could get Monday’s BCS Championship game to show live on a mobile device took a weekend’s worth of reporting and numerous email exchanges with the supremely helpful ESPN folks. It’s not all ESPN’s fault that its mobile offerings are so constricted, but the fees ESPN charges cable providers play a part in the snarl of rights and access barriers that make mobile sports viewing such a pain in the rear.

The hope here at MSR is that all parties concerned learn some lessons from the digital music business, where a simple store and powerful simple device — iTunes and iPod — led to an explosion in sales of music, videos, podcasts and now books too. The Kindle is an extension of the iPod/iTunes simplicity to the mobile ecosystem, eliminating the concerns about how much data you’re downloading and whether or not you are exceeding your monthly mobile limits. Why not build one tailored for sports, with the connectivity costs and rights fees built in? If half a million people went through the maze of tasks necessary to watch the BCS game online, what could the size of that audience be if folks could walk down to Best Buy, pick up a “KindleSports” and start watching immediately?

At another CES panel I heard representatives from the major motion picture houses talk about how mobile video is no longer a future thing, but a booming business already grabbing millions of viewers and the associated advertiser interest. It’s time for sports entities to get into the game in a similar big way, and a KindleSports would be a great way to start. I would be just one of the millions waiting in line to buy one.

Filed Under: Apple, Apps, AT&T, BCS, ESPN, ESPN3, iPad, iPhone, Kindle, Live sports via mobile, Live Sports Video Consumption, NCAA Football, Tablets, WatchESPN Tagged With: , , , , ,

Intel Aggressively Pushes Smartphone, Tablet Vision at CES

January 11, 2012 by

CEO Paul Otellini brings out Lenovo, Motorola as first smartphone partners

Intel president and CEO Paul Otellini used his keynote speech at the International Consumer Electronics Show to roll out new partners, products and reference designs as the chip company ramps up an aggressive push into tablets, smartphones and ultrabooks.

Paul Otellini

While the company has been participating in all of these spaces, with varying degrees of success for years, this is one of the biggest concentrated pushes from the company and one that appears to be ready to bear some immediate fruit.

Smartphone partnerships
Two key players came on stage to show prototype smartphones that they said will be shipping later this year, possibly by the end of the summer, powered by the next generation Intel Atom processor Z2460 platform, formerly code-named “Medfield,” Atom processors.

The first on stage was Liu Jun, Lenovo senior vice president and president of Mobile Internet and Digital Home where he showed the pending Lenovo K800 smartphone, using the Atom processor. That will run the Android operating system. Expected to ship in the second quarter of this year the phone will run on China Unicom’s 21Mbs network and includes support for HSPA+ the Lenovo LeOS user interface for a localized experience in China.

The second is with Motorola Mobility and is a much more complex relationship. The two have amulti-year, multi-device strategic partnership that will also include tablets. Otellini said “Our long-term relationship with Motorola Mobility will help accelerate Intel architecture into new mobile market segments.”

Atom Processor Z2460

Motorola will be building Android devices using Intel’s Atom processors in both the smartphone and tablet space. The companies will collaborate across hardware, software and services, according to Sanjay Jha, chairman and CEO of Motorola Mobility.

Intel has made several products aimed at establishing itself as a provider of core technology in the cellular handset market over the last decade, with very poor results. However it has never had two major partners like Lenovo and Motorola not only on board but ready to ship products in the near future.

Strategic Reference Designs
Aside from the two key partners Intel has also delivered a pair of reference designs, one for tablets and one for smartphones, in order to help customers quickly build a phone that can also accept any innovation the partner may have internally.

The Intel Smartphone Reference Design features a 4.03-inch high-resolution LCD touch screen for crisp text and vibrant images, and two cameras delivering advanced imaging capabilities, including burst mode that allows individuals to capture 15 pictures in less than a second with 8-megapixel quality.

There is also a tablet reference design. A demonstration on stage had a Clover Trail processor running a tablet that had Microsoft’s Windows 8 operating system and Intel said that Clover Trail-based systems would support the Metro user interface from Microsoft as well as be compatible with millions of Windows applications.

Reference designs have long been a staple in Intel’s arsenal, providing a quick easy way for OEMs to enter a new or emerging space using Intel technology. The company faces an uphill climb in this market due to the firm establishment of ARM-based devices in the market already.

It appears that Intel’s long push for energy efficiency, and renewed push on advanced graphics will help it in this space but the battle here will be an interesting one, and one that for the most part Intel has lost the previous encounters.

Ultrabooks Galore
Ukltrabooks, for those that do not know, is a new and emerging class of notebook computers that closely resemble the shape and form factor of tablets but bring much more to the market. While smartphones, and phones in general, is a space Intel has struggled to enter and tablets are still a relatively new market, ultrabooks are right in the company’s wheelhouse.

The concept was introduced just over half a year ago and the company said that there are already 75 models in the pipeline, with virtually all of its major notebook partners involved. Dell showed one that it will be shipping next month, the new XPS 13, a sub-3lb system, that is less than half an inch think at its thinnest point and is powered by Intel’s i7 processor.

However Intel said that future ultrabooks will be powered by its future 22nm 3-D processor codenamed Ivy Bridge, due later this year. If you are wondering what advantage Intel gets by pushing processors down to smaller sizes, one is that they are faster because the signals have shorter distances to travel.

Intel showed a pair of prototypes on stage, one that really caught my eye was the one that allowed a user to flip the display over and turn it in to a tablet system. While I am sure this will not be for everyone I believe that people that need a full keyboard sometimes and want tablet functionality the rest this will be a strong selling point.

I will be very interested to come back to CES next year and see how well Intel has succeeded in getting the tablet and phone OEMs to adopt its technology. We will probably get a good feel for its acceptance later this year at the company’s annual developer forum.

Filed Under: Android, Apps, Lenovo, Motorola, Smartphone, Tablets Tagged With: , , , ,

Rockchip Hopes to Spark Low-cost Tablet Market

January 10, 2012 by

Rockchip Electronics Co., a Chinese company that makes processors for a variety of markets is now focused on the tablet and smartphone market is hoping to create the same type of tablet buying frenzy that accompanied Hewlett-Packard’s TouchPad when its price was slashed and that Amazon is now garnering with its Kindle Fire, but industry wide.

It sees its technology the RK2918 chip that is based on ARM’s processor cores, as the solution to the development and adoption of low cost full featured tablets that are priced in the $100 range, significantly lower that Apple’s immensely popular iPads and the Amazon’s top of the line Kindles.

The company is displaying over 40 prototypes based on its technology at the CES show this week and will even have version that will be running Adobe’s Flash 11.0 technology, which is not standard in the emerging Android standard.

It said that it sees the advent of its low cost chips with the emerging Android 4.0 operating system, code named Ice Cream Sandwich, as the key issues in driving the new sales. (Free Ice Cream Sandwiches are available at the booth at CES)

The company believes that it can succeed in both the 7-inch and 10-inch tablet space and that products will range from $100 to $250. This all comes as some are calling Android tablets a failure. This seems like a bit of overkill but they certainly have not lived up to expectations, for the most part.

There were a few nice products that hung around but they did not light the world on fire as some had expected. This is really to be expected as many companies put their toe in the water with their first generation tablets and hopefully are using it as a learning experience.

Look at Amazon’s Kindle Fire, selling a million or more units a week during the holidays and Amazon’s best selling product for more than three months running. The Kindle Fire showed how accepted a tablet can be when it has the right features and the right price point.Price is important in this space, but more so is the entire environment, and many hope that Android 4.0 helps deliver a better experience for customers.

Rockchip faces a range of challenges. If the Kindle Fire breakdown shows that it cost over $200 to build, where will all of the savings come from? Also it is not alone in developing chips for the Android market that are based on ARM technology. Nvidia, Qualcomm and others have chips on the market or at least a license from ARM to build them. Intel is still touting its Atom technology for this space and is gearing up for a renewed push. Apple of course is going its own way on chips, using its own processors.

Also for experienced visitors to CES and to older, now defunct shows such as Comdex, there always seemed to be a huge number of low cost options for popular products ranging from MP3 players to PCs, and yet few of them managed to hang on. However Rockchip is already established as a technology provider in other market segments so it is not gambling all on this effort.

It would be great to see tablets become low cost items because this will help greatly expand the market for them as an alternative to notebooks as companies will be much more willing to invest in them if the upfront and replacement costs are not prohibitive.

Filed Under: Android, Apple, iPad, Kindle, Tablets Tagged With: , , ,
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