Friday Grab Bag: Here Comes Fox Sports 1, Huge ASUS Tablet Hybrid

Fox Sports is seeking to rebound to the national stage once again. While most fans see Fox for MLB or NFL games much of its sports empire is a series of regional deals, but that may change as it is once again pushing for a national sports cable presence that unifies all of its properties.

Now on Aug. 1, 2013 we will see that rebirth with Fox Sports 1, an all sports network that it will be launching. This is a direct shot at ESPN, and who knows, it might drive that network back to talking about sports rather than whatever it is doing now days.

White House supports cell phone unlocking
The recent ruling mailing it illegal to unlock cell phones and tablets may get beaten back as the White House has come out saying that unlocking phones should be legal. The practice of unlocking, which enables a user to use the phone on the network of their choice, was recently declared illegal.

A petition was filed to the White House and R. David Edelman, White House adviser on Internet, innovation and privacy, responded by saying the administration feels consumers should be allowed to unlock their phones without civil or criminal penalties, especially if the phones were purchased secondhand or as gifts. Congress is also starting to weigh in on the issue and a number of bills are being proposed that would make it legal.

Samsung Galaxy Note III to have larger screen
A report from the Korea Times, via Brighthand, says that the upcoming handset release from Samsung will feature a 5.9-inch screen and is expected to be released in the second half of this year.

The handset is seen as a replacement for the current Galaxy Note II, a handset that has a 5.5-inch display and has already sold over 10 million units since last fall.

News Corp. Enters Tablet Space with Amplify
When most people think of News Corp. they probably think of Fox News or the Wall Street Journal but you can now add educational hardware to the mix with the introduction of Amplify, a company that it has created to deliver digital products for the educational system.

The tablet is a 10-inch device that will originally be available only with Wi-Fi but a 4G LTE version is expected later. It will have a $299 price tag but also require a 2-year subscription that will be $99 for Wi-Fi and $179 for 4G. Amplify is not just a tablet but part of a larger program that will include new curriculum offerings that it claims will reinvent teaching and learning and the devices will ship with a host of programs preloaded.

Asus has huge Tablet hybrid
Asus has said that it will start shipping its huge Transformer AiO device in the second quarter of 2013. Designed to be used as either a tablet or as a PC the Transformer AiO is an 18.4-inch tablet that has 1920 x 1080 resolution.

The interesting thing is that in tablet mode it has an Nvidia Tegra 3 quad core processor, 32GB of storage and runs the Android operating system. Attach it to a dock and it now has an Intel Core i5 processor, 1TB of storage and runs Windows 8.