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Toshiba Delivers Excite 10 LE Tablet as Market prepares for War

March 6, 2012 by

Today marks the official start of the ‘Is it an iPad killer’ season, spring edition. Toshiba has the honor of kicking off this event with the release today of its Excite 10 LE tablet, beating Apple’s latest iPad announcement by a day.

Now I do not believe that a tablet has to be an iPad killer, look at the success of both the Barnes & Noble Nook and the Amazon Kindle. Now some might argue that they are e-readers and not really tablets but so what? They found a market segment and are thriving.

There is undoubtedly a huge market segment that is currently underserved by the tablet market in the 10-inch space. Not because Apple’s iPad is not a great product but because not everyone wants an Apple iPad. Some want an Android; some may just not like Apple.

It does not really matter, the issue to date has been that no one has really tapped into that market successfully yet, but that day is nearing. Expect to start seeing available for purchase tablets that were announced last year, at this year’s CES and last weeks’ Mobile

Back to Toshiba, it has a stellar offering in its latest design, originally announced at CES, that at least of today is the lightest 10-inch tablet available and is available in two models starting at $530.

It features a backlit 10.1-inch color display with 1280 x 800 resolution made with Gorilla Glass to help prevent scratching. It is powered by a Texas Instruments 1.2GHz dual core OMAP 4430 processor and is only .3-inch thin (or 7.7mm) and weighs in at 1.2 pounds.

While it currently runs Android version 3.2 operating system the company has said that when Ice Cream Sandwich (4.0) is available the tablet will be upgraded to that OS. The Wi-Fi enabled tablets are available in a 16GB version for $530 and the 32GB version for $600.

The tablets feature a 2MP front camera and a 5MP rear facing camera as well as featuring the ability to record 1080p video. It features a variety of interfaces including microUSB, microSD and HDMI ports. Toshiba said that the 10 LE will have an expected battery life of 8.5 hours.

It is interesting to see how much Toshiba has changed its design philosophy from its last generation Thrive models, which compare very poorly to the 10 LE. It is probably that the company simply rushed the delivery of the first generation and would have been better served to sit back and wait to deliver a better product and let others make the mistake in delivering poorly designed ones. Ah hindsight is such a wonderful thing.

Now that Toshiba is out, with the iPad tomorrow and a number of others expected in the following weeks the drum beat will start about iPad killers rather than asking the more important question of which tablet meets your price range and meets your usage needs.

Filed Under: Amazon, Android, Apple, Barnes & Noble, iPad, Kindle, Tablets, Toshiba, Wi-Fi Tagged With: , , ,

Bloomberg Sports Delivers Front Office 2012 for Fantasy Baseball Fans

March 5, 2012 by

Almost all fantasy baseball players that I know employ a wide range of tools to help them make the selection that will propel them to the winning position in their league and guarantee a full off season of bragging rights. Or at least that is the hope.

Bloomberg Sports, one of the more recent players in the field of fantasy baseball analytics, has just released its third season of “Front Office”, its entrant into this competitive field that includes not only the latest player stats but also an updated suite of tools.

The tool suite in the Front Office 2012 app now allows players that have National or American League only fantasy leagues and it includes a regular season tool that provides instant updates via text and email on players on their roster.

Another key feature is its ability to provide up-to-date lists for roster changes, free agent pickups and other decisions, as well as a customized dashboard which gives players all critical information about their team or teams in one easy to follow location.

After using the program to help select their team a fan can get a customized analysis of their team, comparing it to others in the league and showing head to head comparisons. It also provides customized recommendations to improve your team. Not that I need that of course.

The program retails its ability to sync with the major hosting sites from Yahoo!, ESPN.com, and CBSSports.com as well as a few others. The program is available for PC and Mac computers as well as for Apple iOS and Android tablets and smartphones.

Filed Under: Android, Apple, Apps, Baseball, Bloomberg Sports, Major League Baseball, Yahoo Tagged With: , ,

Mobile Sports Report TechWatch: The Almost iPad III Edition

March 5, 2012 by

Apple is expected to deliver its heavily anticipated next generation iPad later this week. Rather than print all of the massive amount of rumors we are just noting at this point and will fill in the gaps when the company takes the wraps off its latest product.

It is likely that this week will mark the start of a number of tablet releases within the next month or so including a Toshiba offering expected the day prior to Apple’s announcement and we will try and stay on top of all of the noise and news.

Archos aims at kids market with Child Pad tablet
Speaking of tablets, Archos has unveiled the Child Pad, a 7-inch tablet running Android 4.0 that is designed for the children’s market. With a $129 SRP it is significantly lower than most tablets, aside from eReaders; the Child Pad has a number of features designed for the young consumer.

Archos is using what it calls a kid-friendly user interface and it will come preloaded with 28 kids’ apps and will have access to a Kids App Store that has 10,000 apps including games, entertainment and communications. No word on educational apps.

The tablet will feature a 1GHz processor and have 1GB of RAM and will feature parental controls. Archos said that it will be available by the end of March.

RSA Panel suggests enterprise ban smartphone BYOD
If an enterprise wants to truly have secure data it should ban the cost effective method of allowing employees to use their own phones and tablets as work devices. It said that the cost of supplying employees a smartphone that can be controlled by the organization is much smaller that the potential cost to the corporation if sensitive data is lost.

Security officials speaking at the RSA Security Conference in San Francisco last week said that patches and bug fixes are hard to apply to a fragmented phone market and that it makes more sense to have control over the devices but that often execs and other individuals push back on IT.

AT&T caves in on ‘unlimited data’ plans-sort of
After a spate of negative stories around the nation about how its attempt to throttle back the top 5% of data users who had its unlimited plan, AT&T has relented and changed its policy, at least somewhat.

One of the complaints was that users with unlimited plans would get throttled, or have their data download speeds greatly reduced, well before they hit the level that was available to users of lesser plans from AT&T, 3GBs.

While it has retired the ‘unlimited plan’ existing plan members were grandfathered in, and they pay $30 more than the 3GB tiered level, but have often found that they would be throttled as the closed in on 2GB. A recent small claims court award of $850 to a member that had his plan throttled might have had some impact on this deal. However the company said it will continue to slow down data for users’ as they near 3GBs.


Patent News: It was a busy week for Apple, Motorola, Samsung, Microsoft and a host of lawyers

Apple wins latest round in German Patent ruling
Apple has won a preliminary injunction against Motorola Mobility that could force Motorola to recall smartphones that infringe on Apple patents. I think two weeks ago it was the exact opposite-maybe they will open the door to rivals as both companies phones will be banned?

Anyway a German Court has ruled that Motorola has violated an Apple patent that deals with “portable electronic device for photo management” which apparently is something that Motorola uses with its photo gallery implementation in its phones.

According to Foss Patents, Apple has the option of having the injunction enforced which would mean a ban on Motorola smartphones in Germany. Apple has won an injunction against Motorola two weeks ago on a different topic in Germany and won on this won in a Dutch court as well. Be interesting to see if Motorola changes its tune on licensing deals for its technology to Apple.

Apple and Samsung get a split decision
Also in Germany, the Mannheim Regional Court issued a pair of rulings involving Apple and Samsung regarding patents. The court threw out a Samsung vs. Apple lawsuit, the third in a row, which has to deal with 3G/UMTS patents.

At the same time it threw out one of the two slide-and-lock patent disputes that Apple has filed against Samsung, and a decision on the second of the two is expected within a few weeks. Samsung has said that it will appeal the ruling and it is expected that Apple will do so as well.


Microsoft/Motorola ruling to be reviewed
The U.S. International Trade Commission is undertaking a review of a judge’s decision that said that Motorola infringed a Microsoft patent in Android smartphones. The ruling comes from a complaint that was originally filed in 2010 claiming that a total of 9 patents were infringed.

Two patents were dropped from the case and the judge found that one of the remaining seven did in fact infringe on a Microsoft patent. A final decision is expected sometime this spring and both Microsoft and Motorola said that they look forward to the results.

For fans of Futurama only
A group of hackers from the University have broken into the e-voting system in Washington D.C. and gotten their write in candidate to the 2010 school board elected-one Mr. Bender Bender Rodriguez, the robot from the cartoon Futurama.

The effort, from a few years past, was not some group seeking to over throw the will of the people but rather to answer a dare to see if anybody could break into the system and so was engineered by a Professor and a team of students. They found that they could change all existing and future votes in the system.

Filed Under: Android, Apple, Apps, AT&T, FTC, iPad, Motorola, Samsung, Tablets Tagged With: , , , ,

The Big Ten Network expands to Mobile Devices with BTN2Go

March 2, 2012 by

Fans of Big Ten sports who are on the road can now take a piece of the conference with them, a sporting piece as the conference has expanded its Big Ten Network (BTN) presence to cover both mobile users as well as expanding its footprint on the Internet.

The BTN2Go features the live sports feed of the programming that fills BTN, it is simply made available to users of smartphones, tablets or access the site via the Internet. The BTN has done a staged rollout of the program, it debuted with the start of the football season last year as an Internet-only feature and then expanded to the iPad and iPhone quickly afterwards. A version for Android-based phones is expected within the next month or so.

The goal of the effort to provide fans of Big Ten sports access to games anywhere, at any time on any device, said Michael Calderon, BTN’s vice president of digital and interactive media. The network is currently looking at other platforms such as Windows Phone and connected devices including game consoles and expects to launch a new platform with the start of next year’s football season, Calderon said.

Users have to be subscribers of the participating cable or broadband providers, a list that includes Bright House Networks, Charter, Cox Communications, DIRECTV, Dish Network, Time Warner Cable and Verizon.

If you fall into that category then BTN2Go is free with no addition subscription needed and this gives you access to a huge amount of both current and past programming. First and foremost for many fans is the ability to watch live games. However games that are broadcast by BTN’s partners such as ABC and ESPN will be available the following day on-demand.

Calderon noted that a real benefit the program brings is for fans that do not live in the Big Ten area, where a game that are interested might not be broadcast, it will still be available on BTN2Go. Also when an event runs long, say the first of a basketball doubleheader, a user can still go to BTN2Go to watch the opening of the second game if that is the one they are interested in viewing.

The BTN has benefited from its founders foresight. When it was founded five years ago in ensured that it had control of all its digital rights so that the licensing issues that have the potential to stymie a program such as this do not exist.

Then there is also access to archival footage from earlier this season broadcast by both BTN and its partners. Of course there is highlight reels and coaches shows on a regular basis. The BTN also creates home grown series such as Original series such as The Journey, Big Ten Icons, Big Ten’s Best and The Big Ten’s Greatest Games that are also available for viewing.

Going forward the network is looking to add additional features to BNT2Go including possibly a social media module for Facebook and Twitter users, but for the first generation of the platform it focused on delivering a top video experience, Caldera said.

Filed Under: ABC, Android, Apple, Apps, Big Ten Network, ESPN, Facebook, iPad, iPhone, Live sports via mobile, Live Sports Video Consumption, NCAA Football, NCAA Hoops, Time Warner Cable Television Tagged With: , , , ,

Mobile World Congress Wrap-Phones Galore!

March 1, 2012 by

The Mobile World Congress which started earlier this week in Barcelona is finally wrapping up, with thousands of press releases, a dozen or so keynotes and lots of gossip, rumors and even a brief appearance by Occupy Wall Street Protesters.

We are only interested in a few categories of products of the many that were unveiled, primarily the smartphone and tablet platforms as well as some of the programs and apps that have been introduced, so we will only be giving a brief overview of all of this week’s action.

Tablets
Asus has kept its foot to the accelerator and has added another tablet to its growing lineup, this time the Transformer Pad Infinity. The highlight of the product is the 10-inch Super IPS+ touch screen display that has 1920 x 1200 pixel resolution and a 178 degree viewing angle.

It will be available with two different processors powering the Android 4 device- e available running Qualcomm’s 1.5GHz dual-core S4 processor for the 3G/4G configurations or NVIDIA’s 1.5GHz quad-core Tegra 3 CPU in the Wi-Fi only models. The company also added the Transformer Pad 300 to its lineup as well.

Samsung led off with a pair of tablets, the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 and the Tab 2 10.1. The Galaxy Note brings the company’s S Pen stylus to the big screen 10-inch display while the Tab 2 10.1 looks like it will be an entry level offering.

Huawei has delivered what it touts as the first 10-inch quad-core tablet, the MediaPad 10FHD Entertainment tablet that is powered by a Huawei 1.5GHz quad-core processor, runs Google Android 4.0 operating system and has a 10-inch, 1920 x 1200 IPS high definition display screen. It has an 8 megapixel rear automatic-focus camera and a 1.3 megapixel front-facing camera and memory storage of 2G RAM.

Smartphones
One of my favorite items is not even new. Introduced last year, but not delivered and now upgraded in regards to features is the Asus PadFone. I like it because it really seems to adequately serve as two different products, a smartphone and a 10-inch tablet/ small PC computer.


It comes with a 1.5GHz Snapdragon dual core processor, 1GB RAM and an 8 megapixel rear camera. It is its docking ability that separates it from the crowd. T can dock into a -10-inch tablet that resembles the company’s Transformer lineup of tablets, and the resulting tablet in turn can be docked with a keyboard. It seems to have it all. No pricing has been announced but it should be available in April.

Huawei has also moved its quad core processor into the smartphone field with the Ascend D Quad offering that features a 4.5-inch display also running Android 4.0 operating system and using the company’s proprietary power management technology to give it 30% longer battery life.

LG was of course present and making itself known with the quad core LG Optimus 4X HD. Using a Nvidia Tegra processor the phone features a 4.7-inch display (remember when smaller was better in phones?). The company also said that it will be delivering a stylus style phone that will compete with the Samsung Galaxy Note.

Want 3D without needing to wear glasses? Then LG has the phone for you in the Optimus 3D Max which has the ability to record video in 3D. It features a 4.3-inch display with a 1.2GHz dual core Snapdragon processor and a 5 megapixel camera.

Samsung also expanded its offering here with the Samsung Galaxy Beam. The highlight of this phone is in its ability to serve as a projection device, it has a nHD projector capable of projecting an image with a maximum of a 50-inch diagonal.

Intel has gained an ally in establishing its technology in the smartphone space with a partnership with Indian startup Lava. Lava has launched its first Intel-powered smartphone, the Xolo X900. The first two phones in this lineup will use lower end Intel chips including the Atom Z200.

The company, which entered the market as a budget phone provider will move to a higher tier later when it uses Intel’s 1.6GHz Z2460 processor in future offerings. Intel also revealed that Orange will be offering phones powered by Intel’s Atom processors to its United Kingdom and French customers.

Back in the thick of things is Sony, looking to reestablish itself as a player in this space with out its former partner. It had a pair of dual core offerings, the Xperia P and Xperia U. Both are running Android OS 2.3 but should be upgraded in the near future. They have the ability to connect to Sony’s Entertainment Network and are designed for power graphics.

Nokia has been all over the place at the show, with a total of five different phones. The two that we will mention are the Lumia 6100, a mid-market Windows Phone device and one running its soon to be cast off Symbian operating system, the PureView 808, that features a 41 megapixel camera sensor. Aside from the other three entry level phones the company also had a range of new apps for its handsets.

ZTE had a pair of phones, a Windows Phone in the ZTE Orbit and an Android powered ZTE Era.

Elsewhere at the show

In other news Microsoft has teamed with Good Technology have entered into a strategic partnership in an effort to move the Good for Enterprise app from Good onto Windows Phone devices. The program helps ensure security when accessing corporate data by encrypting email.

Nokia, a key Microsoft partner in the smartphone market has already said that it will support Good for Enterprise solution on its Lumia phones that run Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7.5 operating system.

Microsoft also released the consumer preview version of Windows 8, which is available now as a free download. There are plenty of new features including the ability to store settings and files in the cloud, has a feature to speed navigation and a new user interface. Microsoft has also opened its Window Store for apps.

Other security players were also present at the show. Symantec made a big push with a range of announcements including new versions of Symantec Mobile Management, Symantec Data Loss Prevention for Tablets and Symantec Data Managed PKI Services. The company is looking to enhance its position in the Windows Phone, Android and Apple iOS markets.

The show set a new attendance record with 67,000 visitors and 1,500 exhibitors and will be forced to move to new, larger quarters next year.

Filed Under: Android, Apple, Apps, HTC, Samsung, Smartphone, Sony, Tablets Tagged With: , ,

Sprint brings Streaming TV to iPhone –Including Live Sports!

February 29, 2012 by

Apple iPhone users have finally caught up with smartphone users powered by Android and Windows phone users – they can now get a wide package of streaming TV offers that include both free and premium channels from Sprint on their phones, if they are Sprint users of course.

The basic program is free with most data plans and additional packages will range from $4.99 to $9.99 a month and come in wide range of options tailored for everybody from news junkies, sports and comedy fans and also has 20 stations for the Spanish speaking market.

The basic Sprint TV has 15 channels including live sports and news as well as daytime, primetime and kids entertainment channels. Included are ESPN Mobile TV ABC and NBC News, Disney Channel, Entertainment Tonight, Access Hollywood, The Weather Channel and a variety of shows such as CSI, NCIS, The Office, and 30 Rock.

On top of the basic services are a number of premium offerings with Sprint TV Xtra, that includes a number of cable and news programming such as FOX Sports, FOX News, ABC Family, MTV, Discovery Channel, , Nickelodeon and more, all for just $9.99 monthly.

It is servicing the business market with a $5.99 monthly package that includes live and on-demand business and financial news and a $7.99 Spanish language package that has 20 channels including programming from Univision, Telemundo, ESPN Deportes, Azteca America and others. There are a number of additional packages available as well.

Now iPhone users have an additional option for live sports and news streaming to their phones, previously they only had the option of AT&T’s U-Verse app, which comes with a basic fee. There are also carrier specific sports deals available.

The video can be streamed over Wi-Fi or via cellular connections.

Filed Under: 4G LTE, Android, Apple, Apps, AT&T, ESPN, Fox Sports, iPhone, Live sports via mobile, Smartphone, Sprint Tagged With: , , , ,
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