Friday Grab Bag: Who gets Hard Knocks and Tablet Sales Soaring

Nike’s push to establish its FuelBand, a rubber wrist band that it is seeking to establish as a standard piece of wearable sports technology continues to move forward as the APIs for the device have been given to developers, according to an article in PSFK.

The FuelBandAPI will enable developers to create a range of applications that reach from a user’s iPhone out to the FuelBand and back, not only for sports related apps but also ones that could provide access to music and other iPhone features.

Are four cores twice as good as two?
Have you ever wondered what the difference between a dual core processor and a quad core processor, aside from the very obvious in terms of number of cores? Well Cnet’s Jessica Dolcourt has taken the time to break down the issues and lay them out in a piece entitled 7 Myths about quad-core phones.

She looks into issues such as app development, impact on battery life and top down development of the cores, all with interviews with developers to fill in the gaps. After reading this you might not rush out and buy the first quad-core smartphone on the market

“Hard Knocks” heading to Atlanta?
ESPN is reporting that HBO has asked the Atlanta Falcons to be the subject of this year’s “Hard Knocks” a series that follows one NFL team throughout its entire preseason training camp. There have also been stories that the Jets management wanted the program again while the team’s coach did not.

And speaking of pro football don’t forget that it is just a mere two weeks until the annual draft. Get ready now to ridicule either a) your team, b) the sports channel you watch the event, c) one specific draft expert or d) all of the above.

Intel to push tablets in education
Intel has delivered Studybook, a ruggedized tablet for the education market that is part of the company’s Intel Learning Series family and will come with a range of software designed specifically for the education space.

The tablet features a range of education software including the Intel Learning Series software suite for both students and teachers. The tablet can also serve as an ereader and has an estimated 5.5 hour battery life.

It is powered by an Intel Atom Z650 processor and features 1GB DDR memory, a choice of 4GB, 8GB, 16GB or 32GB storage, a 7-inch 1024 x 600 resolution multitouch display, with optional front and rear cameras. Intel will license the reference design to company’s working in the education space and the tablets can run either Android or Windows tablet operating systems.

Tablets sales soaring-Apple leads the way
A recent report from market researcher Gartner Group shows strong growth in tablets from last year to this, from 60 million units to an estimated 118 million, and it shows that Apple’s iPad, not surprising, leads the way.

Gartner estimated that Apple sold roughly 40 million last year and will account for 73 million, or 61.4% of all tablet sales this year. By 2016 Apple is estimated to still be the market leader, but Android is expected to make a strong push into a very solid #2 position.

Microsoft’s forthcoming tablet OS and accompanying hardware partners will see it gain a very distant third by 2016, with estimated sales of 43 million, or slightly better than what Apple did last year. Head over to look at the charts here.

MLB.TV Blackout Rules in need of a revamp?
While we here at MSR are pretty big fans of MLB’s wide variety of tools and apps that allow access at some level to baseball, one that has always been an issue is its blackout rules for MLB.TV, which seem more than a bit arbitrary.

A post by Chad Moriyama recently brought home a major flaw in the program. He was informed that the newly revised blackout rules would not only block Dodgers and Giant games, but all West Coast teams as well as some others for a total of nine teams, including games in Texas.

So you might wonder if he lives in some wonderful central location that enables him to easily drive a wide variety of parks, possible the Springfield that the Simpsons live in. No, he lives in Hawaii, 3,000 miles from a Dodgers game.

If Internet Commentators were around then…
The Sports Pickle has really hit it on the head about Internet commenting, not just on sports but on pretty much anything these days. I always seems that you cannot get 10 posts before one is a troll, and trolls attract more trolls.

Even so this recreation of what comments would look like for four famous events- The Steelers Immaculate Reception, US beats USSR in Olympics hockey, Frazier beats Ali and Lou Gerhig’s farewell at Yankee Stadium are all spot on.

How many smartphones?
Analyst estimates are always to be taken with a grain of salt, at a bare minimum, but no matter which estimation you believe smartphone sales are continuing to grow at a very fast pace. Credit Suisse is predicting that sales will grow 46%, to 687.9 million units this year. It estimates 1 billon sold in 2014.

Gartner has estimates that last year all forms of mobile phones reached a total of 1.8 billion units. Then there is Cisco, which has forecast that by 2016 there will be 1.4 smartphones for every person on the planet. Head over to Mashable to look at all of the numbers. I imagine that half of them will be lost in the back of a cab.