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Mobile Sports Report TechWatch: Facebook Phone, Dell Tablet Specs?

May 29, 2012 by 1 Comment

Toshiba has announced that it is getting out of the netbook market and will not be offering new ones, at least in the United States. This follows a trend that has been developing for some time as others have already discontinued their efforts, including Dell.

Toshiba said that it will instead be focusing on the ultrabook, an emerging class of notebooks that feature light, sleek form factors coupled with powerful processors, according to Liliputing. I suspect that the netbook category is going to be killed, at least in the US, by ultrabook from one direction and tablets in the other.

Dell Tablet specs leaked?
I am always a bit leery of publishing leaked information unless it was leaked to me personally but the piece over at Neowin looks pretty compelling. It appears that Dell is developing its forthcoming Windows 8 tablet around Intel’s Clover Trail dual core Atom processor and that the device will have a 10.1-inch HD display with 1366 x 768 resolution.

Other features include 2GB of memory and as much as 128 GB of SSD storage. An interesting feature looks to be a removable battery that allows users to choose between one that has a 6-8 hour life and a larger one that has 10-12 hour life.

Apple’s response to DOJ a good read
While I have not read the legal documents the people at Forbes have gone to the trouble and bring out some marvelous quotes from Apple’s filings and some interesting commentary about how they foresee the case progressing.

Not being a lawyer hinders any real objective opinion on my part but I think that the author of the piece, Philip Elmer-DeWitt, makes a pretty compelling argument on Apple’s side. Head over for his piece and a like to the Apple filing.

Crowdfunding site flaws?
I increasingly talk about crowd funding as it is an interesting method for small developers to get the initial funding needed to launch a product. However there is another side to the equation that is clearly brought out by Gizmodo — the failures.

It points out that companies that you see on its front page are ones that are getting funding, while ones that fail, or are on their way to failure, seem to completely disappear from the site, as it only wants to show winning or potential winning offerings.

Since, according to the article, Kickstarter gets a percentage of the amount pledged; this makes sense since only projects that get 100% of their request get anything. To see why some of them might have failed head over to Mashable for a short piece on crowd funding mistakes.

The Patent Wars continue

Microsoft wins round versus Motorola in Germany
Apparently Microsoft owns patents relating to how you splint one log text message into two smaller ones and Motorola has violated those patents. A German court ruled that Motorola’s technology to permit this feature infringes on Microsoft’s patents. It was reported that while Microsoft could ban Motorola products in the country it is instead seeking a license fee.

The two have been going at it tooth and nail for some time in the patent department with both sides scoring what appear to be major victories. I wonder of the license fee is the first step towards resolving their issues.

Apple tops in mobile PCs
The preliminary results are in for the NPD DisplaySearch’s Quarterly Mobile PC Shipments and Forecast Report is in and to the probably surprise of no one Apple is the top dog in this field. According to the report Apple shipped approximately 17.2 million mobile PCs in Q1’12.

This is a 118% increase over the same period from a year ago and of the total iPads represented 80% of Apple’s total, or 13.6 million units. For the industry as a whole the results were nowhere near as good with shipments growing 30% year to year, reaching 76.2 million for the quarter.

Cisco kills Tablet
In a move that surprised me because the product never appeared on my radar in the first place, Cisco is killing its Cius tablet. The networking giant had developed and introduced the tablet a year ago with the stated purpose of pioneering the business market with the product.

The tablet featured a 7-inch display and had a $750 list price. Sold via its channel partners it was obviously hurt by lower cost offerings from rivals that businesses increasingly allowed employees to bring in from home.

Facebook building smartphone?
The New York Times has reported that Facebook is once again dipping its toe into the smartphone market and has a project underway that should see a new product available in the market sometime next year.

According to the article Facebook has been actively hiring hardware and software engineers including a number that had worked on Apple’s iPhone. It had been reported a few years ago that Facebook had a development project for a phone but killed it.

Filed Under: Amazon, Android, Apple, Apps, Cisco, Dell, Facebook, Kickstarter, Mashable, Microsoft, Motorola, Smartphone, Startup, Tablets Tagged With: , , , , ,

Belmont Stakes’ Website gets Facelift with Social Media, Mobile Modules

May 27, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Even sports steeped in tradition have changed as fans’ habits following their favorite sports continue to evolve. The Belmont Stakes, the 144th edition of which will be held June 9, is a prime example.

The website of the final leg racing Triple Crown, BelmontStakes.com, has been updated to include the Facebook page of the New York Racing Association, Inc. (NYRA) and Twitter page.

The site’s social media modules are updated in real time with the latest Belmont Stakes news.

The NYRA has also debuted a featured group on GroupMe, the New York-based chat room site, for the Belmont Stakes. It also allow fans to stay connected through mobile devices and the web.

BelmontStakes.com offers videos, photo galleries, news, race day information, a section dedicated to the race’s history, and special content from the Daily Racing Form.

The website allows fans to sign up for the Belmont Stakes Prize Package, offering the chance to win tickets, hotel, and airfare to the Belmont Stakes. Contributors include veteran journalists Teresa Genaro, Jenn Kellner, Ernie Munick and Andy Serling.

Filed Under: Apps, Facebook, Uncategorized Tagged With: , ,

Microsoft Slowly Pushing So.Cl Social Media Engine to Public

May 24, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Microsoft has expanded the scope of who can use its So.Cl (pronounced social) social media search technology to everybody after a quiet beta push, as it seeks to establish it as a mainstream player in the social media environment.

So.Cl is a search engine that is designed to find and share social media, enabling you to connect with other users that have similar searches and interests and hopefully create an engagement between the participants. It enables users to take an assortment of media such as video, texts and photos, combine them into posts and then share them.

It is one of the many efforts under development at the company’s FUSE Labs and Microsoft has taken a low and cautious rollout for the product, quite the opposite of some of its efforts in the past. The company designed the technology for students and select schools were the first beta sites including University of Washington and New York University.

The student focus is intentional as the company has said that it believes that the features of the program reflect on how schools are teaching and how students are learning today, and not just computer science or technical students but for a range of scholastic focuses.

While focused on students I wonder how this will evolve, assuming that it does get off the ground. New sports blogs, apps for teaching players what to look for in an NFL defense, with commentary and past results listed in the frame? I have seen some pretty advanced sports pages and the ability to bring a large number of like minded fans, say baseball stat people, with live video examples etc.. could be compelling.

The effort was decidedly low key and that of course might have simply been because Microsoft did not want to try to be heard over all of the noise coming from the Facebook IPO or just because it is taking a different approach to establishing the technology.

So far it has had mixed reviews (I have not tried it yet) with Digital Trends decidedly unimpressed and with Cnet much more impressed with all of the features that the service provides.

Filed Under: Apps, Baseball, Facebook, Fanatic Fans, Google, Microsoft, So.Cl, Social Media, Social Media Data, Sports Social Media, Sports Social Media Data Tagged With: , , ,

Mobile Sports Report TechWatch: Facebook buys Karma

May 21, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Lost amid all of the noise about Facebook’s huge IPO was the fact that the company is continuing to address a shortcoming in the mobile app space. It has purchased a company called Karma that has developed an e-commerce platform as part of its overall presence.

The management team at Karma has already developed one successful app and the current focus, on gifting, seems to be a good match since Facebook has a huge amount of personal data on users and can now send alerts about anniversaries etc and recommend gifts and send users to Karma. The terms of the deal were not revealed in the announcement made on Karma’s blog but the company’s founders have had success in creating other successful apps.


Samsung’s Galaxy S3 sees strong preorder demand
Samsung, the leading smartphone developer in the world is about to see a nice spike in sales if reports are correct about pre availability demand for its Galaxy S3. According to a report from the Korean Economic Daily, forwarded by Mashable there is already a 9 million unit demand worldwide.

That is very impressive, especially considering the company’s factories can only crank out 5 million units a month, and I am assuming that is for all handsets not just this model. I hope they have been building the devices for the last few months.

China gives Google a thumbs up on Motorola
The long wait is over for Google with the company finally gaining approval for its $12.5 billion purchase of Motorola Mobility. The approval, which came from China’s Anti-Monopoly Bureau, had followed a delay in which the agency had requested more information.

This approval was the last before the deal can go through and give Google access to Motorola’s huge patent portfolio and manufacturing capabilities. According to a report from the AP the deal has a condition- Google must make the Android operating system available for free to mobile device users for the next five years.

Motorola faces possible ban in US
To counter the good news coming out of China, Motorola was on the losing side of a judge’s ruling the Motorola did infringe on a patent held by Microsoft. The ruling came from the US International Trade Commission and has the result of banning Android-powered smartphones made by Motorola from being imported into the US.

While the ban will not go in effect until July, it is likely that Motorola will seek a licensing deal rather than eliminate the technology. With Motorola having recently won a ruling against Motorola regarding different patents they could just sign a cross licensing agreement, but right now no word on what its plans are.

Apple seeks to block Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1 in US
If this sounds familiar well… Apple is following up a win in US Appeals Court that said a ban should probably have been imposed on Samsung for copying features from Apple’s iPad, Apple is now once again asking for that ban in the United States.

It could be a negotiating ploy since as has been reported here and elsewhere the two have been ordered into a settlement talks that will feature the top executives from both companies and it appears likely from this piece at Electronista that no action will occur until after the settlement talks are over.

EU regulations will apply to Android and iOS apps
Apps that are downloaded to devices running both the iOS and Android operating system are subject to the European Union’s Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations, officials from the Information Commissioner’s Office said.

The rules regulate, but do not prohibit the use of technologies such as cookies and require that users provide informed consent. This will require the apps to inform the user that it is downloading a cookie and provide them with the option to not have them loaded in their device, according to an article in Computing.co.uk

Is a 10-inch Kindle in the works?
Increasingly rumors are surfacing that the next generation of devices from Amazon will include a model with a 10.1-inch form. The move would make it a more direct competitor to Apple’s existing iPads as well as to the rumored smaller iPad that has been talked about for months.

According to DigiTimes the pad is expected in the third quarter of this year and that at the same time the company is likely to kill its 8.9-inch pad that has been on the drawing board. Around this time Google is also expected to bring out a pad to help heighten the competition even more.

Apple loses round in e-book case
A United States District Court judge has denied petitions from Apple and several of its largest e-book publishing partners to dismiss a lawsuit against them. The lawsuit claims that the companies conspired to illegally price fix e-books. This case is similar to, but separate from the one filed by the Department of Justice against the same companies.

New Kickstarter project trying to get light on a dark subject
A company called Scrap Pile Labs has developed a docking cable for iPads and iPhones that has a built-in LED that allows for easy use at night. Called CordLite it is now seeking funding at the site Kickstarter and the developer is seeking to raise $70,000. If it succeeds the company expects to ship the cables in September.

While the initial focus is on Apple’ products the company said that it plans to develop for other platforms as well and has a microUSB cable in prototype but that production costs are scheduling issues it will be some time before that sees the light of day.

Filed Under: Amazon, Android, Apple, Apps, Facebook, FTC, Google, iPad, iPhone, Kickstarter, Mashable, Microsoft, Motorola, Samsung, Startup, Tablets Tagged With: , , , , ,

Facebook gains Mobile App Developer Team ahead of IPO

May 16, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Mobile consumer app developer Lightbox, known for its Lightbox Photo mobile app, has announced that it is joining Facebook, but that Facebook did not purchase the company. Still it looks as if it is shutting down its operation and will release as open source portions of its code.

Seven employees will join Facebook but no user data or technology will come with them. The deal, is not that surprising although before the IPO is a bit of a surprise. Facebook is just days away from its IPO and it has talked about mobile apps pretty much non-stop for the last few weeks.

Demand to be included in the IPO is great, and it was recently reported that the company recently is raising its initial public offering from $34 to $38 a share, a move that will raise as much as $12.8 billion and give the company a valuation of as much as $104.2 billion.

Some cracks in the IPO facade
While it has been relatively smooth sailing for Facebook and its executives doing its pre-IPO road show, they have run into a few issues and more seem to be bubbling to the surface. At the most obvious level is its admission that it has almost no revenue from its huge mobile presence and that will be its top priority going forward.

This of course is very important to app developers looking to leverage Facebook’s huge presence in the mobile space. How will Facebook seek to monetize this area and will it tap app developers as a potential source?
http://marketday.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/05/15/11702548-is-facebook-worth-the-price-analysts-split?lite

As should be expected with an event that has generated as much attention as the IPO, there are two sides to the analysts positions on the company, with some saying that the valuation is simply too high for a company with this type of business model while others say it is not high enough. Will it have the staying power of AOL and Second Life or Apple and Microsoft? Who knows and we will probably not know for years to come.

Of course the fact that Facebook’s offer of 337.4 million shares is already oversubscribed says a lot about the impact of these types of warnings. Hold on, it has just been reported that the company is adding an additional 85 million shares to the offering, bringing the value of the IPO to an estimated $16 billion.

However its mainstream model has taken a high profile hit this week when General Motors said that it would cease advertising on Facebook. The giant car maker revealed that it had spent a total of $40 million on advertising, with $10 million going directly to Facebook, yet it sees no real results from that effort. Instead it will continue its use of the free pages that Facebook provides.

A second troubling sign could be seen in the results of this recent Associated Press/CNBC poll that shows a large number of people see Facebook as a fad. Of course I have to wonder if that was also true with the automobile and the telephone? Still 51% also have a favorable opinion of the company and the difference in opinion on a wide variety of topics facing the company is strongly divided, with users much more favorable to the company than non-users. The poll has a wealth of data that can be seen here.

So why do we care about Facebook here at Mobile Sports Report? Well take a look for a sports league on it. It has the usual such as the NHL and NFL but also a huge number of sports that might not readily come to mind such as Foosball and Disc Golf. Many sites list apps or other programs in links. It presents a huge opportunity for app developers to leverage social media to enhance and advertise their products.

One recent example of that opportunity is that the Facebook travel app Gogobot has just hit 1 million registered users, according to Mashable. Now fad or not but 900 million users, or whatever the number is now, is a huge market and something that a developer wants to exploit. As with all markets it is good to know the positive as well as the negative.

Filed Under: Apps, Facebook, Mashable, Sports Social Media, Sports Social Media Data, Startup, Top News Tagged With:

Mobile Sports Report TechWatch: HP is Back with New Tablets

May 14, 2012 by 4 Comments

Study finds that 74% of smartphone owners use location services
A report from the Princeton Survey Research Associates shows that 74% of smartphone owners use their device to get real time location-based information. The study also found that 18% used a geosocial service to check-in to locations.

With roughly half of all Americans using a smartphone this is very good news for companies that take advantage of the variety of services that provide information about local businesses such as Yelp.

Hewlett-Packard vows return to tablet market this year
PC World is reporting the Hewlett-Packard executives are touting the company’s imminent return to the tablet space, something that they said will occur later this year. It plans to so with models that will support the Windows 8 operating system from Microsoft.

It is expected that HP, along with other Windows 8 tablet developers will focus as much on the business market as the consumer space .The company famously left and then reentered the hardware market and the tablet space over the last year, highlighted by the failure of its TouchPad tablet with HP’s own operating system.

I suspect that we will start seeing a great deal more –preannounced intentions to use Windows 8 as the launch date gets closer and it could make for an interesting dog fight in the tablet space. Will Windows 8 be accepted, will it erode Android and Apple’s iOS appear? Or maybe just make inroads in one of the two rivals space? It is too early to tell but it will make for an interesting end of the year.


Do people share too much info on-line? Intel study says yes.
A recent study conducted by Ipsos Observer and sponsored by Intel on the dual topics of “Mobile Etiquette” and “Digital Sharing,” reaffirmed what I believe many feel intuitively, that 90% of Americans adults believe that online users are sharing too much information.

This is the third such survey conducted by Intel and had some interesting results including a total of 85% said that they share information online while one-third surveyed said they are more comfortable sharing information online than in person and half said that without mobile information they would not know what was happening with friends and family.

Slow Internet Connection top issue for mobile users
In a mobile survey conducted by Prosper Mobile Insights focused on smartphone and tablet users the top issue that is a cause for concern is slow Internet connections with 36.9% listing it as the top service provider issue. Others that rated highly in the complaint list were cost of data plan at 32% (that low?) and dropped calls at 24.1%. Head over and see where your pet peeves were ranked.

Facebook’s Instagram purchase could be delayed
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has started a competition probe into Facebook’s $1bn purchase of Instagram, a move that could push the deal beyond the second quarter and so cause some heartburn at Facebook. The probe was expected as it is usual for deals of this size; the issue is that t could take as long as 12 months and Facebook has been telling people at its IPO road show that it would close in the second quarter.

Microsoft gets delay in German court
Microsoft, already on the end of a major losing patent battle with Motorola Mobility had its current case delayed by a German court. This trial has to do with a different patent that Motorola claims that Microsoft has infringed on, in this case one that deals with two way communications devices.

Facebook updates data use rules
Facebook has update its data use policies about what it gathers from users of its popular social site and how it uses that information. The move was motivated by an audit performed last year by Irish data protection authorities, Facebook said.

New charge in Oracle vs Google
Oracle has managed to get back on the winning track last week in its copyright and patent infringement case against Google over use of the Java technology. Oracle’s request for a judgment as a matter of law regarding an additional eight files copies directly into Android’s code base was granted, giving Oracle an additional copyright infringement win against Google. However as with its first win it still needs the matter of ‘fair use’ to be resolved.

Le Pan now Matsunichi-New Tablets due
Matsunichi has eliminated the Le Pan named that it was using earlier this year and has self labeled its tablet offerings as it enters into the cost effective tablet market. The company now has the MarquisPad MP977, a 9.7-inch table that is powered by a dual core 1.2GHz processor from Texas Instruments.
The $249 device features a 1024 x 768 display and will use the Android 4.0 operating system. There is 4GB of storage if you include the microSD card, or 2GB internal without the card. It has a front facing VGA camera.

The company has an additional tablet in the works, the MarquisPad MP979 that will have a more powerful dual core 1.5GHz processor with 8GB of storage as well as an additional 2GB MicroSD card, and it supports up to 32GB. The 9.7-inch device will also have 1024 x 768 resolution.

Filed Under: Android, Apple, Apps, Facebook, FTC, Google, iPad, iPhone, Lawsuit, Mashable, Microsoft, Motorola, Oracle, Smartphone, Tablets Tagged With: , , , ,
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