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Archives for February 2012

Fans Must Pay $3.99 to Watch NCAA Hoops via Mobile Devices

February 16, 2012 by

There’s no such thing as a free lunch, and now there’s no such thing as free access to the NCAA Men’s basketball tournament for mobile devices. According to an extremely unclear press release and FAQ released today, it appears you will have to pay $3.99 for access to the games via the March Madness application, whether you are using it on a PC or on a mobile platform, including Apple iPhones and iPads as well as Android-based devices.

Since it’s early and we haven’t had coffee yet this post might have later corrections but for right now here’s how it apparently breaks down: If you want to watch the games for free you have to go to the broadcasters websites. According to the press release you won’t be charged for the Turner-broadcast games if you can validate that you have a cable TV plan that includes the Turner Networks TBS, TNT and truTV. We are guessing that most people with a standards sports cable package will be covered, but you might need to check your plan. And right now there is no info on how that validation will happen. CBS says it will show all its broadcast games on CBSSports.com for free.

But if you want to use a mobile device to watch games online via the March Madness application, which includes a lot of bracket info and other goodies, the free lunch is over. It’ll cost you a one-time fee of $3.99, after which you will get a logon to use over any other device or platform you want. Apparently there is some messiness involved with using Android devices, and I am sure this won’t be the last post we do on the subject since the press release and FAQ look like they were also written without coffee or at least a decent proofreader.

If you want to try to avoid the $3.99 fee there is apparently some promotion coming next week involving Coke Zero where they will grant some folks free access, probably for surrendering your email address and your first-born child. Our quick prediction is that this news will cause howls of pain from the general hoops-loving public, who will start to wonder about government inquiries into the NCAA and its business practices. Maybe it’s time for coffee. And a search through the couch cushions for $3.99.

Filed Under: Android, Apple, Apps, CBS Sports, iPad, iPhone, NCAA Hoops, NCAA.com, TNT, truTV, Turner Sports Tagged With: , , , , ,

Verizon Used Cisco Gear for Super Bowl Wi-Fi Network

February 15, 2012 by

Cisco Sports and Entertainment Solutions Group SVP and GM David Holland

Nobody’s talking yet about how much traffic it carried, but from a recent Cisco blog post we learned that Verizon’s Wi-Fi network used inside Lucas Oil Stadium for Super Bowl XLVI was a Cisco Connected Stadium deployment.

David Holland, the Sports and Entertainment Solutions Group SVP and GM at Cisco, revealed the partnership Tuesday in a company blog post where he claimed that the Super Bowl was the first time fans had used an in-stadium Wi-Fi network for the big game. Cisco representatives, however, declined to say just how well that network was used during the Giants’ win over the Patriots. If Verizon ever credited Cisco for being the gear behind the Wi-Fi network at the stadium, we haven’t seen it.

Verizon has also remained mum on just how much traffic traversed its in-stadium Wi-Fi network for the big game. In its follow-on press release Verizon did note that its own customers used “2.75 times more data than last year’s Super Bowl in Dallas and 4.5 times more data than a regular-season game at the stadium,” but without hard numbers it’s hard for us to judge how big a deal that really was.

Verizon did note that other cellular customers, and not just Verizon customers, were able to use the in-stadium Wi-Fi network during the game. And neither Sprint nor T-Mobile has yet to reveal any discrete traffic numbers from the game, unlike AT&T which provided a very detailed description of the cellular traffic its customers generated.

So the question of “how much wireless data did Super Bowl fans really use” remains unanswered. But as Holland said in his blog, it’s a practice that will quickly go from being unique to mainstream:

Most importantly it shows that this is headed mainstream, and a tipping point has been reached. Just as people walk into an airport today and expect to be connected to a Wi-Fi network, so fans in stadiums around the world are beginning to look for and demand the same thing.

Filed Under: 4G LTE, AT&T, Cisco, NFL, NFL Mobile, Sprint, Super Bowl, T-Mobile, Verizon Wireless, Wi-Fi Tagged With: , , ,

Bleacher Report Joins YouTube Parade, Adds 4 New Shows

February 15, 2012 by

We’ve been asking the question about whether or not YouTube is becoming the next big de facto sports network, and Bleacher Report seems to agree with the idea — at least the news today about B/R launching four new YouTube shows points in that general direction.

Here’s the quick take: The old impression of YouTube is bad cell phone videos and crazy cat stunts. The new impression is professional quality content, from the rights owners themselves, available 24/7 to an audience that might just be mobile. For Bleacher Report, which is already reporting that 40 percent of its traffic comes from a mobile viewing platform, more YouTube shows makes perfect sense. Distribution costs are low, it’s easy to find and connect, and younger Internet users are familiar with the format.

It’s also interesting to note that for its video shows and for its site in general, Bleacher Report is adding more professional writers and producers to augment the fan-contributed material that made B/R a different animal than existing sports sites.

UPDATE: YouTube’s own blog spells out some more sports programming on the video giant. (Thanks to @xpangler for the HT)

Filed Under: bleacherreport, YouTube Tagged With: ,

Apple has Sold 55 Million iPads

February 15, 2012 by

Company believes that they will soon outpace PC sales
The pace at which new technology gets adopted seems to be faster than ever, or it might be more accurate to say that once it is popularized it gets adopted faster than ever, as Apple showed when it revealed the sales numbers of its popular iPad tablets.

The iPad is not the first, or even the second tablet to hit the market, attempts have been ongoing for more than a few decades including Alan Kay’s Dynabook computer concept, Motion Computing’s Tablet PCs, and the Microsoft PC Tablet to name just a few.

There are a number of failed attempts over the past years, in part because the technology was just not there in terms of enabling developers to create fully functional devices that were lightweight, tough and yet could rival a computer.

However that issue is a thing of the past and tablet sales have been growing at a tremendous rate- according to a recent report from market analyst firm BI Intelligence, tablet sales are expected to hit 500 million units a year by 2015. The firm estimates that tablets will be a $100 billion market and surpass PC sales by a good percentage- it believes PC sales will be approximately 360 million units. No wonder Intel is working so hard to enter this space.

So how is Apple doing in this space you wonder? Well according to Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO the number is around 55 million units. He revealed the number during a presentation at the Goldman Sachs Technology and Internet Conference.

He attributed the healthy ecosystem for the iPad platform as being very important for the growth and said that there were 170,000 apps that have been optimized for the platform as well as peoples previous experience with the iPhone.

He said that since its introduction he and others at Apple have believed that in the long run tablets would outsell PCs. As a user he said that he now spends between 80-90% of his time on an iPad. He said that it is cannibalizing Mac sales but if someone is going to do that he prefers it be Apple.

To put the sales figures in prospective with other Apple products Slashgear points out that it took Apple three years to sell that many iPhones and 22 years to sell that many Macintosh computers.

Filed Under: Apple, Apps, iPad, iPhone, Microsoft, Smartphone, Tablets Tagged With: , , , ,

Motorola/Google Deal Gets OK-With a Warning

February 15, 2012 by

The deal gets approval but EU said it is watching

As expected both the EU and the United States Department of Justice have given Google’s $12.5 billion purchase of Motorola Mobility the go-ahead. At the same time the US approved the purchase of Nortel wireless patents by an Apple-Microsoft led consortium.

From the outside it looks like this sets up a battle royal in the patent space as both now are armed with a host of additional patents and the players on both sides have shown a very ready willingness to go to court to enforce them.

Apple has been strongly going after a number of Android smartphone developers, in particular Samsung, HTC and Motorola. Motorola has been returning fire at Apple, with Google’s approval, while https://www.microsoft.com/Presspass/press/2012/jan12/01-12LGPR.mspx has been quietly but efficiently getting developers’ to pay it for select patents.

However hopefully we will not see a yearlong battle in this space, something that could temporarily blunt the strong growth of smartphones and tablets. No one wants what happened in the last years of dial up modems when conflicting technologies made for incompatibility.

According to a careful analysis of the agreements published in Foss Patents, Florian Mueller said that the approvals are not without caveats. The EU said specifically that it will be looking at future and past enforcement of patents by Google and that it is ready, willing, and able to step in if it believes they are being abused.

He said that the end result of these deals will be business as usual, which currently means a series of lawsuits working their way through court. At the same time he notes that just because no action has been taken to date does not mean that none is forthcoming.

From the European Commission’s press release announcing approval is this important paragraph. “Today’s decision does not mean that the merger clearance blesses all actions by Motorola in the past or all future action by Google with regard to the use of these standard essential patents. Our decision today is without prejudice to the legality under EU antitrust law of Motorola’s past and Google’s future actions. However, the question whether Motorola’s or Google’s conduct is compliant with EU antitrust law cannot be dealt with in the context of the merger procedure.”

So while it may be business as usual in the short run, the court cases could result in the addition of another player, and one that has a lot more clout than any of the individual players involved, or all of the players for that matter.

Filed Under: Android, Apple, Google, Microsoft, Motorola, Smartphone, Tablets Tagged With: , , ,

LTE iPads, More Mobile Data: Who’s Going to Pay for All This?

February 14, 2012 by

Two stories in the news today — the potential of LTE-enabled iPads and new projections for mobile data growth — seemed to me to be closely related and both lacking a final explanation: Who’s gonna pay for all the new toys and bandwidth?

As sports fans know, the Apple iPad and its imitators are great devices for watching sports on the go. The screen is big enough to approximate a TV experience, and the device is light enough to not be a bother. And the 4G LTE networks from Verizon Wireless, AT&T and soon from Sprint will make mobile video better thanks to faster download speeds and overall better behind-the-scenes technology.

But my question again — who’s going to pay for all this? At what point do we decide we’ve got enough devices, and that we’re not going to pay premiums just to get content whenever we want it? Are the devices and services so alluring that consumers will simply find a way to budget for them, or are they giving other things up from their disposable income buckets? Or will we see a backlash soon?

For all the heat the two stories have generated in the tech news world, my guess is that both are slightly overrated. Since LTE data contracts still remain fairly expensive — right now Verizon is charging $80 a month for 10 GB of data, its highest plan for tablets — I think folks might buy an LTE-enabled iPad for the convenience but will probably go for the lower-priced plans and use Wi-Fi whenever they can, especially when watching things like sports. Some smart guy already reported that Verizon’s 4G LTE phones aren’t big sellers because there isn’t anything compelling enough to make people pay a premium for the service. I think the LTE iPads will follow a similar lukewarm adoption curve.

On the mobile-data projections there are already some signs that Cisco’s predictions have shot past reality; AT&T, for example, said that its most recent figures showed data use growing more slowly than previously predicted. With cellular services prices expected to remain constant or rise even higher, my guess is that people may want to consume mobile data at the rate Cisco predicts but budgetary pressure will keep it from happening until lower-cost Wi-Fi networks reach out to more places than coffee shops and airport waiting lounges.

What will be really interesting to see is what happens if the LTE iPads fly off the shelves and crowd the networks, bringing back the original iPhone network jams. Think that won’t happen? Want to bet on it?

Filed Under: 4G LTE, Apple, AT&T, Cisco, iPad, iPhone, Verizon Wireless, Wi-Fi Tagged With: , , , , , ,
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