Friday Grab Bag: Firefox Smartphones and No Nook Future?

March 1, 2013 by Paul Kapustka

NFL has Concussion iPad app
The NFL is providing team doctors with an iPad application that is designed to help the doctors more accurately judge weather a player has a concussion or not. It was demonstrated last week at the annual NFL scouting combine.

It has creating a scoring system that can be used to quickly check if there is a large difference between the players’ baseline score and his gameday score. It will be used as one of the tools that a doctor will use to make gametime decisions.

Firefox for Phones
Mozilla has started showing its first commercial build of the Firefox operating system and has unveiled partners as part of its effort to move into the smartphone space, a move that has already garnered support from both phone makers and carriers.

The initial phones are expected to be from Alcatel One Touch, LG Electronics and ZTE, with Huawei Technologies also planning a late in the year release, according to Computerworld UK. 8 operators are also lining up behind Firefox OS, including América Móvil, China Unicom, Deutsche Telekom, Japan’s KDDI, Sprint, Telecom Italia, Telefónica and Telenor, with the operators planning to first launch phones in Brazil, Colombia, Hungary, Mexico, Montenegro, Poland, Serbia, Spain and Venezuela.

Nook on the chopping block?
There has been talk that the founder of major bookseller Barnes & Nobles, Leonard Riggio, who just happens to be its chairman and largest shareholder, is looking at buying back the retail portion of the business.

He filed a plan with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the plan has no mention of its Nook and e-reader business. That portion of the business lost $262 million last year and reported a huge decline in sales over the recent holiday season, with revenue falling 25.9% in its Nook business.

2013 World Baseball Classic Starts Today
Or rather it starts broadcasting on the MLB Network, as teams have been fighting for position over the past several months in qualifying rounds. The first game pops up on the air at 11:30 p.m. ET and the network continues with all 39 games of the tournament including the Championship game that is scheduled to be played on Tuesday, March 19 at 8:00 p.m. ET.

There are four pools of teams playing, each with four nations represented in each pool. The United States is matched up with Canada, Italy and Mexico and the games will be played in Phoenix between March 7-10.

Hewlett-Packard unloads webOS
Lost amid Hewlett-Packard’s announcement of a low cost Android tablet was the fact that the company has sold its webOS mobile operating system to LG Electronics which plans to use it in forthcoming Internet connected televisions.

HP’s current tablet, the Slate 7, is powered by the Android operating system but its first shot at the market was with its TouchPad, a tablet that was powered by the webOS operating system and was met with a very poor reception.

Filed Under: Tablets Tagged With: Barnes & Noble, Firefox, Hewlett-Packard, MLB, NFL, Nook, WBC

Watching Golf this Week: Rory and Tiger Return at The Honda Classic

February 28, 2013 by Paul Kapustka

It’s back to Florida time for the PGA Tour, and the stars are definitely out, with defending champ Rory McIlroy and Tiger Woods heading the full-force field. If you watch on TV or online, get ready for a full weekend of references to “The Bear Trap,” the finishing three holes at the Jack Nicklaus-designed PGA National course in Palm Beach Gardens.

I’m not sure if the full press promo will move “The Bear Trap” into golf lore — personally I think it will take some real history, like a mano a mano showdown over the last three holes with some spectacular shots to really make the Bear Trap something real. But the good news is, with a full field and a high profile tourney we get the return of @Live, the PGA’s own extra online coverage of a couple holes. Good stuff for those of us who watch more on the PC than on the couch.

THE HONDA CLASSIC

(all times Eastern)
TV COVERAGE

Thursday, Feb. 28 — Golf Channel, 3 p.m. — 6 p.m.
Friday, March 1 — Golf Channel, 3 p.m. — 6 p.m.
Saturday, March 2 — Golf Channel, 1 p.m. — 3 p.m.; NBC, 3 p.m. — 6 p.m.
Sunday, March 3 — Golf Channel, 1 p.m. — 3 p.m.; NBC, 3 p.m. — 6 p.m.

LIVE ONLINE COVERAGE

The PGA’s @Live returns this week for the Honda Classic, with exclusive coverage of the par-5 third and par-4 ninth at PGA National. Here is the @Live link.

Thursday and Friday, Golf Channel TV simulcast coverage via PGATour.com and GolfChannel.com; Saturday and Sunday, NBC coverage via the PGA site and from NBC sites, which include Golf Channel. Right now only Comcast cable subscribers can watch live online video on weekdays. NOTE: If you are using the PGA Mobile app to watch the Golf Channel online video, be advised that it only works with iOS phones and with some (not all) Android phones. There is no fix planned for the immediate future.

RADIO
SIRIUS XM (Satellite) 12 p.m. to 6 p.m. all four days. The live broadcasts are also available to subscribers on the SiriusXM Internet Radio App and online at SiriusXM.com.

FACEBOOK PAGE
Here is the Honda Classic Facebook page.

TOP TWITTER FEEDS TO FOLLOW

Honda Classic Twitter feed.
Geoff Shackelford — well known golf writer. If you’re not following Geoff you are missing the online boat.
Golf Channel — official Golf Channel feed
@PGATOUR — official PGA Twitter feed
@StephanieWei — great golf writer who is a Twitter fiend.
Doug Ferguson is the lead golf writer for AP. Good Twitter insights that often aren’t part of your wire-service lead.

WHAT’S THE COURSE LIKE?
Here’s an interactive look at the PGA Resort and Spa’s Champion Course.

WHO WON THIS THING LAST TIME?
Rory McIlroy.

Filed Under: Golf, Golf Channel, NBC Sports, PGA, Tiger Woods Tagged With: Golf Channel, Honda Classic, Mobile Sports Report, NBC Sports, Paul Kapustka, PGA, Rory McIlroy, Tiger Woods

MLB adds Mobile Ticket Upgrade Feature to At Bat

February 28, 2013 by Paul Kapustka

Major League Baseball expands its mobile ticket program that allows for seat upgrades from four teams to 13 as it continues to be at the forefront of utilizing mobile technology to connect with fans.

Last year we reported that Major League Baseball had adopted Apple’s Passbook Ticket technology, a mobile ticket option that enables fans to upgrade seats. At the time MLB was rolling the program out in four ballparks across the nation as a test program.

In its most recent release of MLB AT Bat the ability to support Passbook, first available in Apple’s iOS 6 release, has been expanded to 13 teams. The basic gist of the app is that a fan can use it to get a seat upgrade via a paperless ticket while at the ballpark.

It was initially rolled out at the end of last year with four teams participating: the San Francisco Giants, New York Mets, Boston Red Sox and Kansas City Royals. Additional teams that will now provide the service include the Minnesota Twins, Baltimore Orioles, Milwaukee Brewers, Oakland A’s, Pittsburgh Pirates, Detroit Tigers and Chicago Cubs.

MLB executives, speaking at a fan event yesterday in New York City said that additional teams will be added during the season. It is also working to further integrate its teams with Facebook, Twitter and other social media. Last year’s push with Instagram is an example of that.

Each team will handle the upgrades on an individual basis, allowing for differences in how teams want to upgrade fans. I suspect that this will also help spur teams to enhance their existing wireless infrastructure to handle this type of transaction.

As most fans know the wireless experience at sporting venues is often very unsatisfactory, with slow and dropped connections a commonplace event. The effort to build, maintain and expand a network is complex, but teams are increasingly making the effort due to how necessary it is now in a connected world.

While it has been reported that Apple’s iOS users represent 70% of all MLB At Bat users, MLB recognizes that it will need to support the growing users of Android and other mobile operating systems. Its support for the BlackBerry this year is a sign of that but right now there is no announced cross platform support for this app.

Filed Under: iOS 6 Tagged With: Android, Apple Passbook, AT&T, BlackBerry, MLB

7-inch Asus Fonepad With 3G Slated for March Release

February 27, 2013 by Paul Kapustka

Asus is the latest to get into the multifunction 7-inch tablet space with its Fonepad, a device that functions as both a tablet and a smartphone, something that will go head to head with other devices in this emerging category such as the recently released Samsung Galaxy Note 8.

The handheld is powered by an Intel Atom Z2420 processor running at 1.2GHz and will feature 1GB of RAM, and will be available with either 8GB or 16GB of storage while a microSD slot enables users to add additional storage up to a total of 32GBs.

The 7-inch display has 1280 x 800 HD resolution and it features a 1.2MP front facing camera while an optional rear facing 3 MP camera with 720p HD video recording capabilities is also available. It uses the Android 4.1 Jelly Bean operating system.

The Fonepad has an expected nine hour battery life and comes with built-in 3G with HSPA+ mobile data so that users can browse and download data and apps as well as use it as a telephone. The company has included a set of Asus exclusive apps including Floating App for easy app management and simpler multi-tasking; SuperNote lite for handwritten notes; and WebStorage Office Online for Microsoft Office-compatible document editing on the move. Fonepad users also get 5GB of free lifetime ASUS WebStorage.

It is expected to ship next month and will have an entry price point of $249. It seems that the smaller form factor is heating up as the new place to be, with an increasing number of companies entering the space. I suspect we will see a number of additional offerings in this space over the next few months as handset developers as well as tablet companies seek to carve out some of the market for themselves.

Filed Under: Android, Apps, Asus, Samsung, Smartphone, Tablets Tagged With: Asus, Fonepad, Smartphone, Tablet

HP Enters the 7-inch Tablet Space with Slate 7

February 25, 2013 by Paul Kapustka

Hewlett-Packard, a company that may have experienced the most notorious crash and burn in the tablet space with the TouchPad has returned with a low cost Android device, the HP Slate 7, which it has introduced at the Mobile World Congress.

Unlike the last time when it used technology it had acquired from Palm as the operating system HP has gone mainstream and will be using the Android Jelly Bean operating system. In fact the company goes out of its way to tout the devices relationship with Google, talking about how it is the ideal platform for what it calls the Google Experience in its press release.

The $169 Slate 7 is the first of what appears to be a family of different products HP will be delivering that will target different market segments, according to a company executive. The company’s emphasis on its alliance with Google and promoting Google products and services also indicates a trend for the future, and one that might be a bad sign for Microsoft, which also has a partnership with HP. HP recently introduced a Chromebook, a notebook that run’s Google’s Chrome OS.

The Slate 7 is powered by an ARM dual core Cortex-A9 1.6GHz processor and will feature a 3 MP backward facing camera and a VGA front facing camera. The 7-inch display has a 1024 x 600 resolution and the tablet will feature 8GB of storage that is expandable via a microSD card.

HP already has a high end tablet which competes with the other 10-inch offerings from everybody from Microsoft, Samsung and Apple. Now it is seeking to establish itself against the iPad Minis, Nexus 7 and Kindle Fires. Hopefully HP can establish itself in this space, making the market more competitive.

Filed Under: Tablets Tagged With: Amazon, Apple, Google, Hewlett-Packard, iPad, Micrsoft, Slate 7

Samsung Launches Galaxy Note 8

February 25, 2013 by Paul Kapustka

Samsung’s drive to apparently have a tablet offering at every possible size has taken another step forward as the company has delivered the Samsung Galaxy Note 8, an 8-inch tablet announced just prior to the start of the Mobile World Congress this week.

The tablet is hardly a secret as the company accidentally unveiled a great deal of its details last week at an event in South Korea. It will feature an 8-inch Super Clear display with 1280 x 800 resolution. Android’s Jelly Bean 4.1.2 operating system and will be powered by a 1.6GHz A9 quad core processor.

The company has upgraded its S Pen stylus technology that automatically launches features in the tablet when the pen is removed from its integrated holder. There are a number of pen-specific apps including S Note, S Planner and Email with handwriting integration.

There will be both a 5 MP rear facing camera as well as a 1.3MP front facing camera. It will come with 2GB RAM as well as either 16GB or 32GB storage that can be expanded further via a microSD card that supports up to 64GB. The tablet has phone capabilities, a feature that can be used simultaneously with other apps open and running. There will be both Wi-Fi only and a 3G model. It is expected in the second quarter but pricing has not yet been revealed.

Filed Under: Tablets Tagged With: Galaxy Note 8, Samsung, Tablet