Archives for 2012

Big Weekend for Racing Fans: Coca-Cola 600 and Indy 500

The two will make for a great week of viewing for fans. With Indy moving its starting time back to noon it once again gives drivers that want to the opportunity to race in both events, all it needs is a helicopter ride in between. I am too lazy to look at this moment but I believe that only one driver has ever finished both races in the same day.

Last week there was the All Star Sprint Cup event. I did not see these races due to other obligations but according to ESPN’s report I did not missed that much as drivers figured out how to game the system. Jimmie Johnson won the $1 million event but complains of sandbagging seem to have arisen. I suspect we will see the rules tweaked a bit next year to try and stop this from occurring once again.

Sprint Cup Standings
1) Greg Biffle
2) Matt Kenseth -2
3) Dale Earnhardt Jr. -14
4)Denny Hamlin -17
5) Jimmy Johnson -39

Twitter Feeds
@NASCAR-Official NASCAR feed
@NationwideNNS-Nationwide Official Twitter
@NASCAR_NNS-NASCAR Nationwide feed
@NASCARONFOX-Fox Sports feed
@AllWaltrip-3 Time NASCAR Champ and Fox announcer
@PRNLive-Performance Racing Network
@EdHintonESPN-ESPN Columnist Ed Hinton
@nascarnowespn-ESPN2 NASCAR
@siriusxmnascar- Sirius XM:
@SPEED-Speed
@NASCAR_TNT-NASCAR on TNT

The Coca-Cola 600

Broadcast
May 27 at 5:30 PM ET on Fox
The race will be held at Charlotte Motor Speedway and is the longest race of the season for the drivers, and that is not counting and any additional delays from cautions could drag out the telecast. It looks like the race will be run under hot and humid conditions, although there is also a chance of isolated thunderstorms as well.

With Jimmie Johnson so hot lately he has to be considered the favorite in this race, his having gone two for two over the past two weeks. No asterisk need be applied to last week because I am sure no driver hits the gas in an effort not to take home the prize. However the length of a race also has to impact the chances that some unforeseen mishap can ruin a driver’s day.

Nationwide Series
The Nationwide Series also returns, with the running of the History 300. Somehow I missed the fact that they were running in Iowa last week- sorry. I just looked to see what other race was occurring in Charlotte. O well it happens.

It looks as if Rickey Stenhouse Jr. did not miss me, dominating the race by leading 209 of the 250 laps and winning the checkered flag He apparently likes the track with three wins here in the last year. The win was good for extending his lead in the series. The top five was filled out by Elliott Sadler coming in second followed by Michael McDowell, Austin Dillon and Kurt Busch. For those of you still enthralled by Danica Patrick, she did not finish for the second time this year.

Nationwide Series Standings
1) Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
2) Elliott Sadler -34
3) Austin Dillon -43
4) Sam Hornish Jr. -74
5) Cole Whitt -92

History 300
Broadcast
May 26 2:30 ET on ABC

The Indy 500
Broadcast
May 27 12:00 PM ET ABC
The Indy 500 is also this weekend and fans in the infield should be prepared for some hot racing, and hot weather. There are expectations that the race may set a heat record, beating the 92 set in 1937 if it hits the estimated 94 on Sunday.

With qualifying over the top row will feature Ryan Brisco alongside James Hinchcliffe and Ryan Hunter-Reay leading off the 33 car field. It looks like it was a pretty busy week for the drivers and fans.

Friday Grab Bag: Astrodome doomed, Apple Exec Knighted

Remember Michelle Wie, the precocious teen golfer that continually tried to crack the PGA, all without winning on the LPGA? (Well she actually did win her first title in 2009 but still…) Well she has now achieved something that is quite praiseworthy; she has graduated from Stanford University with an undergraduate degree in communications.

Hopefully she will go on and her career mirrors that other famous Stanford Golfer, Tiger Woods, at least with his success on the links.

Google rapidly makes changes at Motorola Mobility
Days after China finally gave its blessing to the $12.5 billion union between Google and Motorola Mobility changes have already started. Motorola’s chief executive officer Sanjay Jha is stepping down from that position and is being replaced by Dennis Woodside, according to a blog post from Google’s CEO Larry Page.

Woodside is a long-time Google executive and has held a number of positions at Google and his current title was Senior Vice President. There are now rumors that there will be layoffs at Motorola but so far Google has been mum on the topic.

Facebook Rage
There was an odd amount of glee when Facebook’s huge IPO did not experience a solid bump on its first day of trading, but now as it slowly sinks all week people are coming out of the woodwork with some solid complaints against the company and its underwriters.

I am sure that you have seen the growing anger as investors discover that the underwriters had reevaluated Facebook’s quarterly and yearly revenues downward, and had not filled in everybody involved. Or did they? Morgan Stanley said it has done nothing wrong but already at least one class action lawsuit has been filed and the SEC is looking into the issue.

The 8th Wonder of the World to go under Wrecking Ball
When the Houston Astrodome opened to glowing reviews in 1965 it was touted as the ‘8th Wonder of the World” but it is now an obsolete building slowly rotting away. Other hi-tech stadiums have outpaced it and simply having a dome over a field now has no cachet.

The city spends millions on upkeep for a building who’s tenants have fled and the cost of destruction has been pegged at $128 million, while renovation would cost between $400 million and $600 million In a city that already has two new stadiums, one for football and one for baseball it is hard to see how it can justify spending that much on the facility.

Apple exec is knighted
Jonathan Ive, Apple’s senior vice president of industrial design is now Sir Jonathan Ive after having been made a Knight Commander of the British Empire (KBE). He was presented the honor by the Princess Royal at Buckingham Palace earlier this week. The award was in honor of his services in the area of design and enterprise.

After the ceremony Ive said that the current group of products that are currently under way at Apple will be the best yet that the company has released. Ive, who has a reputation for secrecy, did not elaborate.

No Expansion of replay for now in MLB
MLB commissioner Bud Selig, speaking at a sports and society conference at St. Norbert College said that he does not believe that baseball needs to expand video review of umpires’ calls, at least right now, according to ESPN.

Selig said that there has been very little pressure to do ao and that since adding additional areas to the existing replay would require approval from both the players and the umpires will not be considered until at least next year, with trapped balls and balls hit down the line will likely be the primary focus. I for one cannot remember when the last trapped ball controversy occurred-anybody recall one?

Google wins at Oracle trial
Any dreams Oracle may have had for a huge payday based on its claims in its patent and copyright trial with Google has not come to pass and the jury sided with Google that it did not infringe on Oracle’s patents.

According to a brief note in the San Francisco Chronicle the jury decision means that Oracle can only collect a maximum of $150,000 in damages. I wonder if that even covers the cost of the case for the company. I doubt it.

No new apps for Windows Phone 7.0
Microsoft Windows Phone users that have not upgraded their operating system from 7.0 to Windows 7.5 are not blocked from adding or upgrading apps on their phone using its Marketplace site. The company released 7.5 last fall.

Google’s Larry Page wears half a glass. Is he an optimist?
Google’s CEO Larry Page wore a pair of glasses (with only one lens) made to support the company’s Project Glass development in a video that was shared on a company web page. He talked about the glasses and did a demonstration with them.

He used the glasses to snap a photo which required using a physical button on the glasses but he was able to share it with a head gesture and a tap of the glasses. It will be interesting to see what features appear in the final project when it finally arrives, and how fast people will seek to ban their use when driving etc…

AMD prepares for tablet space
Digi Times is reporting that when Microsoft releases Windows 8 later this year the AMD plans to insert itself into the mix with a low powered processor that it has designed for this space. The company will have its Hondo processors available and will quickly refresh the lineup in 2013 with a new architecture in its Tamesh line.

Cookoo seeks to follow in Pebble’s Footsteps

Another connected watch; this time from developer ConnectedDevice called the Cookoo Connected Watch has found its way to the land of hopeful investors that is Kickstarter. The offering is less ambitious than what Pebble is seeking to deliver but also comes in what appears to be a much sleeker package.

The Cookoo seeks to strip down the connected device experience to the basics. It connects to either an Android or iOS powered device via Bluetooth and lets you know if you have received a call, text, Facebook notification and a few other settings. Using its app a user can set what information it will alert them to and how, either a buzz or a vibration. The appropriate icon on the watch will flash when a notification is required.

The watch uses a regular watch battery and is not rechargeable but the company estimates that an average user will get a year’s activity per battery. It is expected to have a $99.95 list price when available. On Kickstarter the Cookoo has so far raised $25,094 of its goal of $150,000 with 357 backers. It has 43 days to go before the make or break it deadline.

While many of the emerging class of connected accessories have a sports aspect to them, goggles that show ski terrain, a watch that show the distance to the pin in golf for instance. While Pebble is not designed specifically for that the first apps emerging are sports related.

However the Cookoo may be the validation for this type of endeavor even if it is not sports related. Hauling out your smartphone to look at the time, or check text messages is increasingly frowned on in meetings as management wants your attention. By simply looking at your watch to see if a text has arrived, to check your calendar and the few other functions could really make the device beneficial.

It is interesting in that the runaway success of Pebble’s could have some negative aspects. The products developers were seeking $100,000 and received backing of $10,266,845. Maybe a bit of overkill?

The issue here is taxes. The company’s product is not yet available, and yet it will soon have revenue of $10 million, so it seems that developers using crowd funding had better read up on this aspect of their business plan quickly.

Goodell: Wi-Fi Needed in Every NFL Stadium

At a press conference Tuesday NFL commissioner Roger Goodell left no doubts about where the league stands on Wi-Fi in stadiums: He wants league-wide networks in every NFL venue, so that fans “don’t have to shut down” their mobile devices.

Too bad the video from the NFL isn’t embeddable (hint, guys: sharing is good) but you can view it here to get Goodell’s no-questions-about-it take on Wi-Fi in stadiums as a neccessity. If you listen to the video you hear Goodell talk about all the things the NFL wants its fans to be able to experience digitally while at games — like access to the Red Zone channel, other highlights, and social media.

The devil, of course, is in the details and when asked about how much it would cost to equip every stadium with Wi-Fi, Goodell joked, telling the questioner “you sound like an owner.” While the cost of putting a wireless network will vary at each location, Major League Baseball has a similar impetus and has roughed out the cost at around $3 million per stadium, which is pretty much in line with what we’ve heard and seen.

While some NFL stadiums have Wi-Fi in various areas, like luxury suites, we’re not aware yet of an NFL venue with full blown Wi-Fi, like baseball’s AT&T Park in San Francisco. Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis got a bunch of upgrades for the Super Bowl but that was mostly quick-fix stuff like DAS, small cell antennas that are mainly a band-aid type solution for bandwidth and not something like full-blown Wi-Fi that can handle, say, multiple video streams.

As such Goodell admitted the Wi-Fi initiative wasn’t something that would arrive by the 2012 season, though there might be some test situations where Wi-Fi gets unveiled. Certainly there is no shortage of service providers like AT&T and Verizon who are interested in stadium networking, as are gear suppliers like Cisco, Xirrus, Meru Networks, and possibly others like Brocade, which has apparently signed a deal to be the networking supplier for the new San Francisco 49ers stadium.

The good news is for the industry and for fans — with approval from the top of the league, Wi-Fi in stadiums is now a priority. App developers, integrators and others — start your innovation engines now.

Will Nvidia’s Kai lead to Less Expensive Tablets?

At its annual shareholder meeting Nvidia showed a prototype Android tablet platform that it has code named Kai and that it is positioning as the basis, with its processors, for lower cost family of tablets.

The heart of the Kai tablet would be Nvidia’s Tegra-3 processor that the company seeks to leverage as the heart of a new line of Tablets that will have powerful processing and graphics capabilities but will rival Amazon’s Kindle in price rather than butt heads with Apple’s iPad at the high end.

Nvidia already has a head start in the tablet and smartphone space going forward as along with Microsoft it has been actively seeding hardware vendors with laptops that feature the chip in an effort to create an active ecosystem of apps prior to the release of Windows 8 later this year.

This appears to be taking that a step further. Its executives talked about how the processor, along with an ARM-based chip, could enable a generation of less expensive Android tablets and that its years of experience in this space of developing for Windows will serve it in good stead.

Of course so does rival Intel which is seeking to establish its Atom processor as at least part of any Windows Tablet ecosystem and while it can work with Nvidia it is also seeking to supplant ARM as the heart of these systems so how closely Nvidia is integrated with the various ARM chips out there could be an issue.

We at MSR support anything that will help grow the tablet market, and not because we secretly own stock in the companies involved. Currently I use my phone as a secondary screen quite often when watching sports, particularly football. When the price point drops enough I think I might have several, one just dedicated to sitting next to my remote control, unless I use it as a remote control as well.

I can see not only the second screen market but also as portable screens when visiting friends (in some cases) following outdoor sports and a variety of other uses. Since a household is likely to have more than one person it would make sense to have one dedicated for use in the TV room and another for a any other use that might occur.

Watching Golf this Week: Crowne Plaza Invitational at Colonial

It’s Hogan’s Alley weekend for the PGA Tour, with a better-than-average stop known for many years as simply “the Colonial.” Played in Fort Worth, Texas, hometown of golfing legend and five-time tourney champ Ben Hogan, the Colonial this year has a pretty good field including red-hot Jason Dufner and player of the year candidate Hunter Mahan, among others.

No Tiger, Phil or Rory, though, so press drama will be at a minimum for at least one more week, until the stars reassemble at the Memorial in Ohio. Until then, let the less-known stars shine in Texas.

Here’s where to follow the action:

CROWNE PLAZA INVITATIONAL AT COLONIAL

(all times Eastern)
TV COVERAGE
Thursday, May 24 — Golf Channel, 3 p.m. — 6 p.m.
Friday, May 25 — Golf Channel, 3 p.m. — 6 p.m.
Saturday, May 26 — CBS, 3 p.m. — 6 p.m.
Sunday, May 27 — CBS, 3 p.m. — 6 p.m.

RADIO
SIRIUS XM (Satellite)
12 p.m. — 6 p.m., Thursday-Sunday

ONLINE
The PGA’s Live@ won’t return until next week’s Memorial. All you have this week on your computer is…

PGA SHOT TRACKER
Get your online fix via Shot Tracker for the Colonial.

TOP TWITTER FEEDS TO FOLLOW

Geoff Shackelford — well known golf writer.
Golf Channel — official Golf Channel feed
@PGATOUR — official PGA Twitter feed
@StephanieWei — great golf writer who is a Twitter fiend (though she is taking this week off too)

WHAT’S THE COURSE LIKE?
Colonial Country Club has been the site of this tourney since 1946. Here’s the tour’s brief course-info page. The tourney site itself has a good hole by hole map.

WHO WON THIS THING LAST YEAR?
David Toms. Who looks great in the winner’s plaid jacket. Yep. Plaid.

LOCAL FLAVOR
Bone up on your Colonial history on the tourney’s traditions page.

FEDEX CUP LEADERS
1. Jason Dufner, 1,435 points
2. Hunter Mahan, 1,395 points
3. Bubba Watson, 1,372
4. Phil Mickelson, 1,307
5. Rory McIlroy, 1,290

See the full standings for the FedEx Cup points list.

WORLD GOLF RANKINGS
1. Rory McIlroy; 2. Luke Donald; 3. Lee Westwood; 4. Bubba Watson; 5. Matt Kuchar.
See the official World Golf Ranking list.