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Pre Play Sports Scores Subway Sponsor Deal for Super Bowl

January 31, 2012 by

Screen grab of a typical Pre Play app, where you predict the play before it happens.

In a field that’s going to become extremely competitive, predictive-gaming startup PrePlay announced a sponsorship deal with sandwich giant Subway, just in time for this Sunday’s Super Bowl.

If you’re not familiar with predictive gaming, don’t feel alone. It’s a new category of apps that allow smartphone or tablet users to challenge each other in trying to predict play-by-play outcomes of sporting events as they are happening live. MSR identified several of the players in the space last year, but with Subway sponsor dollars in its pocket Pre Play has clearly done something to attract attention. Even so, the company is using the Subway deal to “re-launch” its app, usually a sign that the initial iteration didn’t quite catch on.

The iOS-only Pre Play app can be freely downloaded from iTunes. Then you assemble a group of friends or family members with Apple devices and can compete to see who can better predict plays before they happen, earning points in the process for correct calls.

To perhaps better explain how it all works, here’s a Pre Play demo video. Maybe this is better than me screaming “FAKE! FAKE!” at the TV screen on every field-goal attempt. At least my neighbors might be happier.

Filed Under: Apple, Apps, iPad, iPhone, NFL, Super Bowl Tagged With: , , , ,

Idolian Develops sub-$100 Tablet that Targets Kindle Fire

January 27, 2012 by

Idolian, a telecommunications firm in Newport Beach, Calif., has entered into the 7-inch form factor tablet space with its IdolPad, a product it touts as being a viable product for both consumers and small businesses.

The IdolPad will be used to anchor the entry level position in the company’s expanding lineup of tables, which now feature eight separate models and top out with the high end TouchTab 10, with its 10-inch display. The IdolPad sells for $99.99, getting under $100 by the thinnest of margins.

The IdolPad is powered by a 1GHz Cortex 9 CPU with 512MB of RAM and runs on the Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) operating system. It has a 7-inch multi touch resistant screen with 400 x 800 resolution and comes with a 1.3 megapixel front facing camera.

It ships with a 4GB hard drive and can support up to a 32GB microSD expansion card. It ships with Wi-Fi but no Bluetooth support and the company claims that it has a 4-6 hour battery life and supports HDMI 1080 resolution.

With the ability to serve as an e-reader, stream NetFlix or be used as a Skype device Idolian is positioning the IdolPad as an alternative to the much better known and wildly popular Kindle and Barnes & Noble’s Nook lineups.

With no hands on experience it is hard to give an accurate impression of the device but it supports color and as a lower cost rival to the $199 Kindle Fire it could be very viable. It does essentially the same things, but features an unaltered version of Android, which the Kindle does not.

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

Fujitsu Contest Shows Flexible Design Concepts for All-in-One Device Combos

January 26, 2012 by

Want a quick glimpse of the future of high tech gear? Maybe these products will not see the light of day but a recent concept contest by Fujitsu has shown some great product ideas for a range of technologies.

Naturally a number caught my eye but one combo product really had me thinking that it would be interesting to own. The product was a combination notebook computer, tablet, smartphone and digital camera-but not as an all-in-one solution but rather as removable parts of a whole.

The concept design, which is on the short list in the Fujitsu Design Competition 2011 was created by designer Prashant Chandra which he named “Lifebook 2013”. It is designed to both provide a user with all of the tech tools that they might be carrying and put them into one slim, highly integrated package.

The drive behind the design is not just a gimmicky form factor that enables users to have a convenient place to keep all of their devices together. As additional devices are added their functions and capabilities are added as well.
Add the camera and get a high end digital imaging device as part of your notebook.

Add your phone you have communications, possibly your MP3 collection and other features. A tablet could serve as a second display or as a keyboard, helping to keep the weight down. Syncing all of a users devices should be a snap under a design like this.

But a key differentiator would be that the processors that are stored in the individual devices could also be tasked with some of the laptop’s functions as well.

If this device did manage to come to market in some form in the near future Fujitsu would have to exercise absolute control over both software and hardware design. Code would need to be written to enable programs to take advantage of the different processors, and to adapt when some processors or hardware are not present.

It would also have to be aware of what is and is not present so that it can alter its abilities in real time. A user would not want to constantly change settings when using a phone.

One hidden advantage is that a user might be able to use their smartphone as the communications device for the notebook and tablet without getting contracts for those devices. If nothing else it might serve to push telcos to offer better bundles so that a person can reasonably afford to have cellular capabilities on multiple devices with a reasonable contract covering them all. Ah to dream.

Filed Under: Fujitsu, Smartphone, Tablets Tagged With: , , ,

Restructuring Management at RIM, Corporate Restructure Next?

January 24, 2012 by


Co-CEOs step down, New CEO Named

The top management picture of wireless developer Research in Motion (RIM) has been completely redrawn this week with its cofounders surrendering the position of CEO and the board implementing a new top executive.

Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis, the co-chief executives and co-chairmen of the company announced that they were stepping down and submitted a succession plan to the company’s Board of Directors that included promoting one of the company’s two Chief Operating Officers, Thorston Heins, as the new CEO and president.

Lazaridis was the company’s founder and he has worked very closely with Balsillie as it grew to a $20 bn player and developer of the first popular smartphone, the BlackBerry.

However both Balsillie and Lazaridis will remain with the company in prominent roles. Lazaridis was named vice chairman of the board while Balsillie will remain as a director. Barbara Stymiest, who formerly served as a member of Royal Bank of Canada’s Group Executive and has been a member of RIM’s Board since 2007, has been named the independent Board Chair. John Richardson, formerly Lead Director, will remain on the Board. Prem Watsa, Chief Executive Officer of Fairfax Financial Holdings, also was named to the Board, expanding it to 11 members.

Declining Market Cap, Revenue and Market Share

The move comes as the once high flying developer of the BlackBerry is facing losses that are expected to extend across the current fiscal year and possibly beyond as demand for its technology continues to wane and the current generation of smartphones and tablets siphon away business.

It suffered a very bad 2011. Its market share has been plummeting in the smartphone segment, dropping from an estimated 30.4% to 16.6% as Android and to a lesser extent Apple iPhones have both expanded the overall market and at the same time eroded RIMs position in it.

The decline in market share has been accompanies by an even greater stock price decline, with a 75% decline in its stock value over the course of the year. It reported a 71% decline in earnings in its 3rd Quarter, it’s most recent. It has been hurt also by a delay in its next generation phones, the BlackBerry 10, now due late this year, and the fact that its tablet, the Playbook, has been a non-starter.

There have been increasingly growing demand from shareholders for vigorous action by the company, up to and including breaking it up or selling it in the last months. The promotion of Heins has not been met with universal approval by shareholders and analysts and is likely to fuel even more negative comments as Heins tries to turn around the company.

Fortune called Heins the wrong choice for CEO. Investopedia wonders if his appointment is simply ‘old wine in a new bottle’ and The New York Times led off with the headline ‘Markets Are Not Convinced by a New Leader at RIM’.

Yet he does have a number of assets in his favor- the company has new generation phones and tablets in the pipeline, it has $1.5bn in cash in the bank and a loyal core of customers that still claim it has the best tools for business. So while Heins has a tough road ahead of him, he has some props to help him along the way.

Filed Under: Amazon, Android, Apple, BlackBerry, iPhone, The New York Times Tagged With: , ,

Bleacher Report Adds iPad Version of ‘Team Stream’ App to Address Growing Mobile Reader Base

January 19, 2012 by

A screen shot of the iPad version of the Team Stream app from Bleacher Report.


To better address the nearly 40 percent of its viewers who access its content via a mobile connection, Bleacher Report is launching an iPad version of its “Team Stream” app today, giving fans a better mobile viewing experience for the “stream” of news, Tweets, story links and other info that Team Stream helps them create.

Having a version of the app available for the Apple iPad will give Team Stream users a bigger screen to negotiate between articles and content items, and will also provide a “personalized dashboard” on the home screen with national-topic headlines as well as stories about the topics and teams selected by the user.

While the Team Stream app has gained its share of kudos and credits — if you’ve never used it, it’s incredibly simple and powerful, bringing you a mix of professional media content as well as athlete- and fan-generated content on the teams of your choice — what was more interesting to us at Mobile Sports Report was Bleacher Report’s claim that almost 40 percent of the site’s overall traffic is now coming from mobile connections, showing that sports fans are leading the way to content consumption on the go.

Here's what the smartphone version looks like.

“We really saw mobile happen in 2011,” said David Finocchio, co-Founder and vice president of content and product at Bleacher Report, in a phone interview. According to Finocchio, Bleacher Report — one of the top sports websites — started the year with just less than 10 percent of its traffic via mobile. By the end of the year that number was almost at 40 percent, making the “mobile future” something that was here, now.

Inside the mobile traffic number, Finocchio said readers using tablets “grew faster than any [device] segment, and it continues to grow faster.” That fact made development of an iPad version of Team Stream a no-brainer. Now fans who currently use the desktop or phone versions of Team Stream to compile tweets, stories and other info from around the web (curated by Bleacher Report editors) will have a larger screen mobile option, the better to watch video replays or view pictures.

Bleacher Report, which now claims 22 million monthly unique visitors and picked up $22 million in growth capital this past summer, is carving out its own space in the ever-expanding world of sports media with a unique focus, one that Team Stream helps deliver: Finding the best content, which is often local in origin, and then arranging it in one place to make it easy for fans to find.

“Right now it’s just too damn hard to go out and find all that information by yourself,” Finocchio said. “You should be able to go to one place.”

Filed Under: Apple, Apps, bleacherreport, Mobile sports pioneers, Twitter 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: , ,
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