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Mobile Sports Report Friday Grab Bag: Legos Leap, Ravens Grasp Social Media

October 19, 2012 by Leave a Comment

It seems that all anyone could talk about at the start of this week was the amazing feat that Felix Baumgartner accomplished by setting a free fall record and breaking the sound barrier while doing so with a jump from 128,097 feet above sea level.

Now you can watch the entire event played out before you, by Legos!

Intel’s weak Q4 Outlook
Intel’s earnings were released this week and they disappointed, with its profits falling 14% amid a decline in sales of personal computers. The company had revenue of $13.6 billion and reported a profit of $2.97 billion.

The company warned about its outlook for the next quarter as it expects demand for personal computers to remain weak and the global economy to be soft. Also an issue is the demand for tablets, which appears to be siphoning away sales, although Intel will be looking to move further into this space when Microsoft releases its Windows 8 operating system later this month.

FBI warns on Android Malware
The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) has issued a release that said that a number of different malware apps are attacking mobile phones that run the Android operating system. Some of the latest known versions of this type of malware are Loozfon and FinFisher. Loozfon is an information-stealing piece of malware.

IC3 has a list of helpful hints that are designed to help prevent infection or to let you know how to deal with one when it occurs. Among them are use encryption is offered on the phone, use a pass code and be careful with apps that use Geo-locate.

NBC Sports Group in 4-year partnership deal with Formula One
NBC Sports Group will be showing all of the Formula 1 Grand Prix races starting next year including qualifying and practice rounds after it signed a 4-year deal with the Formula One Management. Four races will be on NBC and the remaining 16 will be available on NBC Sports Network.

The 2013 F1 Grand Prix schedule starts next March and runs through November and will include 20 races in 19 countries with the season starting on March 17 in Australia on NBC Sports Network and concludes on Sunday, Nov. 24 in Brazil on NBC.

NPD Group breaks down Windows Surface rumors
Want an advanced look at the forthcoming Windows Surface Tablet? Well we cannot help you there but the NPD Group has taken the trouble to parse down all the rumors and provide what appears to be a solid outline of the product and the company’s plans for it.

It looks as if there will be 3-5 million built and available on the initial run and that it will feature a Tegra processor, 32 and 64GB of flash memory, and a 1377×768 screen with a starting price in the range of $499 for a base model and the next step up at $100 more.

The Baltimore Ravens: Digital Powerhouse
There is an short piece in the Baltimore Sun about how the Ravens have embraced digital and social media as tools to not only reach out and embrace and inform the fans but also as a tool to publish and profit from that experience.

The image with the article is where the meat is, it shows that the team has a unified approach that includes Twitter, Facebook and mobile alerts along with mobile apps and other digital media all tied into its BaltimoreRavens.com site.

Apple loses too cool appeal
Apple has lost its latest legal round with Samsung when Britain’s Court of Appeal backed a lower court’s earlier judgment that Samsung’s Galaxy Tablet did not infringe on Apple iPad copyrights. The reason the lower court used was that the Galaxy is “not as cool” as the iPad.

Can’t we all be friends? Google event to compete with Microsoft’s
It seems that increasingly plotting the date for a hot new release has become a tough chore as a requirement seems to be to steal a rival’s thunder as well as promote your own product. Many believe that Apple’s iPad event that is expected for next week is one such scheduling example.

Now Google has jumped on the bandwagon and is hosting an Android launch event in New York City on Oct. 29, the same day that Microsoft is launching Windows Phone 8 in San Francisco.

Filed Under: Android, Apple, Apps, Facebook, Galaxy Tab 2 10.1, Google, Intel, iPad, Lawsuit, Microsoft, NBC Sports, Red Bull, Samsung, Smartphone, Tablets, Windows 8 Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Friday Grab Bag: YourSport-The Facebook for Sports? Kindle 4G Gets OK

October 12, 2012 by Leave a Comment

YourSports: The Facebook for sports?
A new online sports publication is coming into being called YourSports and it is a customizable sports page that is designed to enable fans to get the sports news that they want, including local sports that might be missed by the larger rivals.

While currently in beta it is open to all for the first time to take a look, it claims that it will fill in sports that is not currently handled by its rivals such as ESPN, BleacherReport and others by using social media to help fill in what is not available on broadcast sports while also providing news feeds on your favorite teams.


Amazon gets FCC approval for 4G Kindle
While Amazon announced its 4G Kindle Fire HD tablet last week it was only this month that the company obtained permission from the US Federal Communications Commission to actual sell the high end Kindle Fire HD that has the ability to connect to high speed 4G cellular networks.

The FCC approval is required for any device that has wireless communications to ensure that it does not create interference with other wireless devices. The product has been on preorder and is expected to ship Nov. 20.

Microsoft accuses Motorola of map stealing
As if Apple’s map problems are not enough now Microsoft is claiming that the Android phones from Motorola that use Google Maps, infringe on a mapping patent that Microsoft owns. The patent in question covers a method of obtaining the map from one database, resource information such as Starbucks locations from a second database, and overlaying the two sets of data.

The lawsuit is just one of several that Microsoft has filed in Germany regarding patent issues with the Google-owned Motorola Mobility as Microsoft increases the pressure to get Android phone makers to pay it royalties, according to Computerworld.

The Hank Aaron Award

Time to vote for the Hank Aaron award
While League MVP, Cy Young and other awards seem to always dominate the off season, the Hank Aaron award, for each league’s best all around offensive player, is one award that fans can have an impact in by voting.

The fans, along with an all-star panel that includes Aaron, ony Gwynn, Paul Molitor, Joe Morgan, and Robin Yount will vote on which of a slate of players is the best in each league. Voting closes Oct 16.

Lenovo now top PC maker
Market research firm Gartner has found that Hewlett-Packard has been unseated as top PC seller worldwide by Lenovo. HP, the top gun in this space for the past six years owned a 15.5% share of the market while Lenovo grew to 15.7% of the market.

This comes at a time when overall PC sales are declining. Gartner reported that in the third quarter of this year sales fell 8%, but it looks like some of that decline is simply buyers waiting for the Windows 8 release later this month. Dell, Acer and Asus make up the top 5 PC makers.

HTC departs US tablet market
While there is a growing rumble about a host of new tablets expected to be announced in conjunction with the Windows 8 rollout by Microsoft later this month, HTC is jumping off the bandwagon just as others are jumping onto it.

The company has announced that it is dropping its HTC Flyer and other tablet products from the US market. It said that the products were at the end of their lifecycle and the company has said it will watch the tablet space but does not want to have an offering that is a “me too” offering.

RoboCup Soccer gets champion robot
Don’t know what RoboCup Soccer is? Well join the club but an interesting piece in Gizmag talks about the state of modern robotics and how a league of five teams competed in the league that uses what it calls TeenSize robots, ones that are three to four feet tall.

They use an open source platform and cost roughly $26,000 apiece. The leagues goal is to develop a team that can beat the human champions, by 2050 that is.

Filed Under: 4G LTE, Amazon, Android, Asus, Dell, Facebook, HTC, Lawsuit, Lenovo, Major League Baseball, Microsoft, Motorola, Tablets, YourSports Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Advanced Micro Devices Jumps into Tablet Space with Z-60

October 11, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Advanced Micro Devices is staking its ground in the tablet space with the introduction earlier this week of the Z-60 Tablet chip as it seeks to become a player in this market as some of its traditional spaces such as desktop PCs continue to shrink.

The chip, also called Hondo, is the company’s latest attempt to establish itself in a market where devices either use a variant of an ARM chip such as the processors from Broadcom, Nvidia or Texas Instruments, develop their own processor like Apple and Samsung, or in growing numbers use Intel’s Atom processor family.

The Hondo chip is a low powered, 4.5 watt, dual core processor running at 1GGhz and the company has packed it with 80 integrated Radeon graphics processor cores, which will give tablets high-definition video and gaming capabilities. It will include support for DirectX 11 has the horsepower for high-definition 1080p displays.

The processor is expected to available later this month when Microsoft formally unveils its Windows 8 operating system for tablets and a host of hardware developers, including Microsoft, start selling or at least formally showing their tablets. Systems using these chips will only be able to run Windows 8 or Linux

Intel appears to have a lead in this race since its OEMs have already started showing finished products with Intel chips, however some of the documentation on developers sites does seem to indicate that they might also use AMD chips as well.

The competition should be good for customers since it could help drive the prices down on chips and that should lower overall systems prices. We can at least always hope.

Filed Under: Apple, Intel, Lenovo, Microsoft, Nvidia, Samsung, Surface, Tablets, Windows 8 Tagged With: , , , , ,

Mobile Sports Report TechWatch: New Tablets from Google, Acer

October 8, 2012 by 1 Comment

The latest rumor, about Google anyway, is that it is preparing to release another member of its Nexus 7 tablet family. The latest is expected to have 32GB of storage, a big leap up from the 16GB that is the current maximum storage available for users. For those looking to mark their calendar the rumor mill says it will be Oct. 24.

AT&T is planning on selling Windows 8 tablets
AT&T has announced that it will be offering a pair of tablets that will be running on the soon to be announced Windows 8 operating system. The company will offer the Asus VivoTab RT, a tablet that will be able to handle 4G LTE cellular communications. The second tablet will be the Samsung ATIV SmartPC, a system that has a removable keyboard and can be configured as either a clamshell notebook or a tablet.

AT&T is also venturing into selling antivirus by offering an app and a service that will work to keep smartphones free from infection. While AT&T Mobile Security is now only offered to businesses it has plans for a consumers offering as well.

Motorola wins one in Germany against Microsoft
The Mannheim Regional Court has ruled that Motorola Mobility did not violate a Microsoft patent on a “method and radio interface layer comprising a set of application programming interfaces (APIs).” The court gave no reason for its ruling and Microsoft is expected to appeal. This is only one of the issues that the two are fighting about in court.

Oracle readies for next round in fight with Google
Oracle has appealed the Google case, the one where the jury found that code in the Android operating system was not stolen, as Oracle had claimed. The case dealt with both patent and copyright infringement and while the jury found very minor infractions the court did not award anything to Oracle.

Acer’s Iconia W700 Tablet to cost $799
We have been a bit lax on reporting on the upcoming AcerW700 Iconia tablet so here is a quick snapshot. The Tablet will be released on Oct. 26 as part of Microsoft’s Windows 8 launch. With an expected $799 price tag it will feature an 11.6-inch display with 1920 x 1080 resolution. The tablet will include a Bluetooth keyboard, a choice of Intel processors including a Core i5 chip and will have 64GB or 128 GB of solid state storage.

Alcatel joins tablet space
Speaking of tablets it looks like communications player Alcatel has developed a 7-inch tablet that will compete with the likes of Google’s Nexus 7 and Amazon’s Kindle Fire families. The One Touch T10 Android tablet looks like it is designed for budget users and will include a 800 x 480 display and 4GB of flash storage.

MobileCon 2012 is this week
For the mobile minded the show formerly known as Fall CTIA has been renamed to MobileCon 2012 and will start Oct. 9 and run until Oct. 12 in San Diego. It should be good for some interesting handset offerings as well as most likely a host of product leaks.

One reason there might not be quite as many new products as expected is because just a short time later, on Oct. 29 to be exact, Microsoft will be officially launching its Windows 8 phone platform, a few days after it introduces Windows 8 for tablets.

Filed Under: 4G LTE, Amazon, Android, Asus, AT&T, Google, Lawsuit, Microsoft, Motorola, Oracle, Windows 8 Tagged With: , , , , ,

Intel Talks Gesture and Facial Recognition, Low Powered Chips at Developer Forum

September 11, 2012 by 3 Comments

IDF 2012

The Intel Developers Forum officially launched today, although its Labs group had a Day Zero event yesterday, and as expected the company rolled out low powered processors along with some other interesting technologies on stage.

David Perlmutter, Intel’s head of its architectural group gave the opening keynote and showed quite an array of interesting technologies, not all of them home grown, before rolling out the big processor news.

He showed Nuance Communication’s software for a voice recognition demonstration. The software offers the type of help features that are currently available in both Apple’s iPhones and on Android devoices. Nuance expects to ship the software next quarter.

A key technology that will probably interest the growing group of people that use their smartphones for banking and purchasing products was a demo with MasterCard that showed Intel’s security technology authenticating a credit card- it was used with an ultrabook but there is little doubt that the company will also be looking at tablets and other mobile devices in the future.

The company reiterated its previous statement that there are 20 tablets based on it’s Atom processor technology currently in development by its OEMs, but the first on-stage demo went a bit awry. Expect to get a good look at most of these when Microsoft officially rolls out Windows 8 next month.

Intel's David Perlmutter

The company demoed its next generation Core microprocessor, code-named Haswell that will be targeted at next generation ultrabooks and tablets. The 22nm processor is will feature integrated HD graphics support, new instructions for faster encryption and performance, new hardware-based security features and low-power processor sub-states to enable longer battery life.

Perlmutter showed it against the company’s current Ivy Bridge processor and it ran more efficiently at half power than Ivy Bridge did at full power. The processor is expected to appear in products sometime next year.

The starting of the keynote with voice recognition software was a pointer in the direction the company is headed with its partners. It has released a Perceptual Computing Software Development Kit, available next quarter, that will allow hardware and software developers to incorporate gesture, voice and facial recognition capabilities in future products.

Filed Under: Apps, Intel, Tablets Tagged With: ,

Amazon refreshes Kindle Fire as More Competition Looms

September 6, 2012 by 2 Comments

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Amazon has come back to the market with its second generation Kindle Fire as well as its lowered prices and enhanced the performance of existing Kindle models. Declaring that the company has decided to go big, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos took the stage today to introduce a pair of new Kindle Fire tablets called the Kindle Fire HD including an 8.9-inch device that caught many by surprise. There is also a 7-inch version.

The latest device appears to have something for everybody with enhanced e-mail that will appeal to business users, the ability to limit screen time that will make parents happy and a faster device and wireless capabilities that everyone will like.

The screen on the Kindle Fire HD has a 1920 x 1200 resolution and Amazon has eliminated the air gap in the new Laminated Touch Sensor display, a move that it said will eliminate glare by 25%. The tablet will be powered by a Texas Instruments 4470 OMAP processor.

The company has adopted a MIMO (multiple input-multiple output) dual antenna structure in the devices that help with providing a stronger, faster Wi-Fi signal, operating in the 5GHz band. A key advantages that even with the higher speeds it does not use additional battery power. Amazon said that this is 41% faster that the new iPad.

Additional hardware features a front facing camera and dual stereo speakers with Dolby Digital Plus. The storage will start at 16GB, with Amazon saying that 8GB, common in most rival offerings, just would not work with high definition.

There is a range of new software features including Whispersync for voice that enables you to listen to a book and then later start up reading where you were last listening. There is also a version for games so that you can continue on from where you stopped in a game.

For users that view movies on their tablets there is now a feature called X-Ray for Movies that was developed in a partnership with IMDB that allows you to freeze a scene and the app will tell you who is currently on screen. If needed it can go into a great deal of additional detail.

For the corporate user it has an enhanced e-mail that will enable a very tight integration with Microsoft Exchange. There is also a feature called Kindle FreeTime that lets you set screen time limits for kids with different settings for movies and reading.

The entry level price for the 7-inch Kindle Fire HD will be $199 while the 8.9-inch model will start at $299 and a 4G LTE version will have a $499 sticker price. The first model is expected in the next few weeks but the higher end models will not be available unit late November.

Another new offering from the company is its slim and light Kindle Paperwhite, a 7.5-ounch 9.1 mm thick e-reader that will include a front lit display with user changeable fonts and a higher resolution display. Its base price will be $119 while a 3G version will have a $179 price tag. The company reduced its Kindle from $199 to $159 with more memory and a faster processor, available on September 14.

The company first delivered the Kindle Fire last fall and it was one of the hottest products gifts of the holiday season, topping the sales charts at Amazon in its first weeks. However a bevy of competitors have darkened the sheen of the product. Amazon estimates that it now has 22% of the tablet market in the United States.

Barnes & Noble are fighting to get share with its Nook but the bigger competition has come from market leader Apple and its iPad lineup and newcomer Google with its Nexus 7 offering. In the near future we will see a host of tablets based on the two versions of Microsoft’s Windows 8 operating system

We are already seeing hardware OEM’s such as Lenovo, Acer, Asus and Hewlett-Packard release advance information about next generation tablets as well as new hardware developer Microsoft with its Surface platform. Intel claims that at least 20 tablets will be using its chips in future releases, and it is not the market leader in this space.

That is a reason why Apple’s and Samsung’s offerings cost significantly more; they are looking for profits off of their hardware. Amazon’s Bezos talked about how customers want services not gadgets and that hardware is a service. He noted that most of its rivals in the tablet space have failed because they do not realize this. He said that Amazon does not expect to make money from its hardware but from the content it sells. Despite this he claims that it is not a razor/razor blade situation. However there are dangers to this approach as pointed out here at CNBC.

Amazon has really raised the bar on features and performance with the Kindle Fire HD and it will be very interesting to see how the competition reacts. With Apple’s new iPad expected soon, it will probably be the first to face a drect comparison, followed by the Windows 8 tablets.

Filed Under: 4G LTE, Android, Apple, Apps, Asus, Barnes & Noble, Dell, Google, Intel, iOS, iPad, Kindle, Lenovo, Microsoft, Nook, Samsung, Surface, Tablets, Windows 8 Tagged With: , , , , , , ,
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