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Get Ready for the PGA Cell Phone Backlash — After the Mickelson Memorial Incident

May 31, 2012 by

You don’t have to be a website called Mobile Sports Report to see this storm brewing: The reported bad cell-phone behavior that might have led to Phil Mickelson’s withdrawl from the Memorial Thursday is almost certain to cause a cell phone backlash from the PGA Tour.

Though phones didn’t used to be allowed at tour events — and special tourneys like the U.S. Open (run by the USGA) are pretty damn clear that you can’t even think of bringing a phone or a camera phone on the shuttle bus, much less at the course — many other tour stops are now allowing or even encouraging folks to bring their mobile devices. Check out what went on at the recent HP Byron Nelson tourney down in Texas, where some savvy social media folks turned the knobs up to 11, based on a lot of on-course fan-phone interaction.

Great for marketing. But is it good for the game? It’s clear the “talent” doesn’t think so. And they’re not going to stay quiet about it.

Phil himself is probably too nice and too media-savvy to come right out and say bad things about fans — patrons — whatever you call folks at a golf tournament — but new Masters champion Bubba Watson has no such restraining bolt, and told anyone who was listening that people taking pictures with cell phones was the main reason why Phil got Phed up (and shot his way to a 79).

I’m going to quote the entire report by AP’s Rusty Miller (which we found on the PGA’s site) because it highlights the big, bad point: Apparently a LOT of people were using their cell-phone cameras whenever they pleased, golfers backswings be damned:

DUBLIN, Ohio — Everyone has seen a golfer swivel and angrily stare at a news photographer who accidentally clicked a shutter during a swing.

Now imagine what it’s like when there are 10,000 or even 40,000 people on a golf course, all with cell phones that take pictures.

With a huge gallery following the marquee matchup of Phil Mickelson, Rickie Fowler and Bubba Watson in Thursday’s first round of the Memorial, the continual distraction of fans with cell phones may have played a role in Mickelson’s withdrawal from the tournament.

“It took Phil out of his game,” Watson said of the continual clicks and snaps of cell phone-camera shutters. “Phil’s a great player and a great champion and it just took him out of his game. It’s sad. It’s sad that cell phones can make or break a championship.”

Mickelson said the reason he was going home in the wake of a frustrating round of 7-over 79 was because he was tired after a recent trip to Italy and France to celebrate wife Amy’s 40th birthday.

“There were a few phones out there,” Fowler said with a laugh. “There were a few times when we had to back off and reset. You could see Phil was a little fatigued and was having trouble blocking it out a bit.”

Mickelson made the turn at 1 over before struggling. Fowler shot a 71 and Watson, who won the Masters last month, had a 75.

Watson blamed a PGA Tour rule which permits fans to have cell phones on the course — if they are on vibrate and are only used in specified areas.

“Yeah, it was bad. But it’s been pretty bad ever since they made that rule,” Watson said. “When they make these marquee pairings, more people are going to follow them and more people want to take pictures. So it makes it very difficult. Ever since they made that rule that cell phones are allowed, it’s just not fun playing.”

Whoa. On one level you might be tempted to say, get a grip, Bubba. You (and Phil) are playing a game for millions of dollars of someone else’s money… and a cell phone noise is making your life miserable? I mean — baseball players have to hit a ball that is coming at them at 100 mph, not one that is lying still on the grass. And they don’t mind the noise. So… why should golfers have or expect complete silence, when they are playing in a very public arena?

Originally this was my argument on this matter — I think if you try to ban phones again you may end up with nobody at golf tournaments other than the Masters… and maybe the U.S. Open. But I think you also have to recognize tradition and what golf is all about. There’s a certain tranquility that most every golfer expects and loves when they are playing themselves. You don’t have to be Bubba to be pissed off at someone talking on a cell phone on a golf course. So in that sense Bubba is more like the rest of us than some pampered star. So I am admittedly confused now over whether I think the players have grown Colin Montgomerie ears, or whether your average fan is a self-important jerk like the people I see texting while they are driving on the freeway. Maybe, some of both.

Our favorite golf blogger/Tweeter Stephanie Wei was following up on this with cascaded Tweets and a good recap post — basically saying that for some reason there were just a lot of jerks on the phones Thursday. She also believed (like several other golf writers) that Mickelson’s withdrawl was done to make a point — that cell phones shouldn’t be allowed near the field of play. Phil is getting some roasting for his move — basically golf purists here, saying that you don’t WD because you are mad and playing poorly — but Wei makes a great point by saying that even at fan fiesta tourneys like the Waste Management in Phoenix the fans are smarter in how they use their phones. Anyone from Ohio who wants to weigh in here, feel free.

What I expect is that by sometime on Friday we will hear from the PGA loud and clear about how anyone seen using a cell phone in other than “designated areas” is going to be ushered off the grounds. And I’m not sure how I feel about that, other than that this is pretty obviously a clash of the magnitude of the topic as to why we started this site: Technology, especially mobile technology, is crashing into sports in ways nobody really imagined. How does it get solved? That’s the story for tomorrow, the day after, and the day after. Stay tuned on this bat channel, because we’ll be covering it. Maybe via our phones or tablets.

(Some of Stephanie’s Tweets embedded below)

Filed Under: Android, Apple, Apps, AT&T, BlackBerry, Facebook, Golf, PGA, Twitter Tagged With: , , , , , ,

GolfGameBook Allows You to Brag in Real Time

May 31, 2012 by

It seems that in the connected world Golf is leading the way. You can get a variety of apps and devices that tell you how far from the ole you are, the course layout and what club you use.

Yet just as there always seems the need for a new club, there is always room for an app that does something slightly different, and that is the space that GolfGameBook is seeking to fill as an interactive online golf community for players. The company has just recently updated the app with several enhanced features.

In some ways the app is similar to others, or at least shares similar basic abilities. You can keep score and get stats on your game using the program, but not just for yourself but you can also include the rest of your group or other friends on that or other courses that use the app.

You can track friends games live at different courses and use the chat feature to comment or use the program to send out invites to your friends for a round. It can design and create leagues and tournaments as well as handle side games. The program stores your game data so you can easily look at past rounds or share them on Facebook.

Available for both Android and Apple iPhones the free app will still face a tough battle in separating itself from the multitude of other apps available relating to golf in the various app stores.

Filed Under: Amazon, Android, Apple, Apps, Facebook, Golf Tagged With: , , ,

Wave of Tablets on the Horizon

May 31, 2012 by

I guess a toy store selling tablets targeted at children is a natural progression of life, and come to think of it after seeing several of my friends’ iPads being hammered on by 7-year-olds, it is now starting to make a good deal more sense.

Welcome to the Kurio7, a 7-inch tablet from Techno Source that will be first seen at Toys”R”Us and then hopefully move into greater distribution at a later point. A key selling point will be the built-in parental controls.

The customizable controls will help prevent children from downloading apps or visiting sites that they should not, and will allow them to surf safe sites on the Internet, read e-books and do the host of other functions that tablets are known for.

The tablet has built-in Wi-Fi and can support eight different logins, each with a different profile, password and controls. It comes preloaded with content that is targeted at children including games, videos and educational material.

Next Generation Transformer almost here
The Asus Transformer Pad Infinity TF700T, a 10-inch tablet that is the latest in this family is expected within the next few weeks as well. The TF700T lineup will come in two basic flavors, ones targeted at gamers and multimedia users and creators and those for communication and more traditional tablet functions.

The gaming version will feature a quad-core Nvidia Tegra 3 chip while for those looking for 3G/4G LTE connectivity it will be powered by a dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4. It will feature an 8-megapixel camera on the back with LED flash, and a 2 MP front facing camera.

Pricing has not been yet released but it will be interesting to see where the company seeks to position the device. Its earlier version of the Transformer had very disappointing sales.

Google’s Nexus stats appear on benchmarking site
The as yet only rumored Google Nexus Tablet has not yet been announced but t appears that the devices abilities have been listed at benchmarking site Rightware. While the fact that Google was developing a tablet has already been announced by the company so far the details have not been made public.

According to the information the tablet will have a 7-inch display, will run the Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean) operating system and will be powered by a quad core Nvidia Tegra 3 processor. The display will have a 768 x 1280 resolution and it appears to be manufactured by Asus.

This is very likely the tip of the iceberg — Apple has a rumored new iPad, there are rumblings of updated offerings from Amazon and then later this year the release of Windows 8 is expected to open the floodgates for a new batch of tablets.

Filed Under: 4G LTE, Amazon, Android, Apple, Asus, Google, Kindle, Microsoft, Nvidia, Samsung, Tablets Tagged With: , , , ,

Fujitsu updates its Stylistic Tablet lineup

May 30, 2012 by

Fujitsu will be delivering its latest tablet sometime in the next few weeks, called the Stylistic M532, and it is not targeting the consumer but rather the mobile professional with the lightweight 10-inch device, a move that to a degree sets it apart from most of its rivals.

When you look at the company’s page touting the device the business approach screams out at you. Rather than a full deck of speeds and feeds, which are present, it talks about the tablets ability to support a company’s Virtual Desktop Infrastructure for secure access to apps. It points out how corporate apps such as exchange mail, calendar and contacts can be used safely while remaining behind corporate firewalls.

This is a refreshing approach and it should be helped by the fact that this is not a repositioning of an older machine, it uses Android’s 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) operating system and is powered by an Nvidia quad-core 1.4GHz Tegra 3.

It features a 10.1-inch 1280 x 800 display and has a 2 megapixel front camera as well as a 8 MP backward facing camera. It has 1GB of memory as well as a 32GB flash internal storage drive and supports one MicroSD slot

Many of the players in the tablet space appear to be making headway into the corporate and government space simply via a semi stealth approach. Employees bring in their own devices (BYOD) and rather than set limits or demand uniformity in platforms the BYOD approach appears to be working.

Cisco was one of the first to take a different approach, trying to position its Cius tablet as a business product and selling directly to professionals through its business channel partners. This approach, and possibly its high price point, failed to catch on and now the company is ramping down the product.

According to a piece on ZDNet, Fujitsu is positioning its slightly older Stylistic Q550 offering, a tablet that runs Windows 7, at the BYOD space, enabling it to approach this market from a personal and corporate position at the same time. In addition it looks to have a new lineup in the fall when Microsoft releases Windows 8.

While we do not focus on the corporate segments of the tablet market this strategy is an interesting one since it seems that rather than an all-in-one approach that Apple takes or the specific niche market that the eReaders are developing, Fujitsu is building slightly different products for multiple segments and it will be enlightening to see how they are all accepted or what factors are inhibiting sales.

The benefit for consumers is that if they are looking for a tablet this might be the selling point to get work to pony up the cash and buy it for you, or at least get approval to being it in the office as work approved device.

Filed Under: Android, Apple, Apps, Barnes & Noble, Cisco, Fujitsu, iPad, Tablets Tagged With: , , ,

Mobile Sports Report TechWatch: Facebook Phone, Dell Tablet Specs?

May 29, 2012 by

Toshiba has announced that it is getting out of the netbook market and will not be offering new ones, at least in the United States. This follows a trend that has been developing for some time as others have already discontinued their efforts, including Dell.

Toshiba said that it will instead be focusing on the ultrabook, an emerging class of notebooks that feature light, sleek form factors coupled with powerful processors, according to Liliputing. I suspect that the netbook category is going to be killed, at least in the US, by ultrabook from one direction and tablets in the other.

Dell Tablet specs leaked?
I am always a bit leery of publishing leaked information unless it was leaked to me personally but the piece over at Neowin looks pretty compelling. It appears that Dell is developing its forthcoming Windows 8 tablet around Intel’s Clover Trail dual core Atom processor and that the device will have a 10.1-inch HD display with 1366 x 768 resolution.

Other features include 2GB of memory and as much as 128 GB of SSD storage. An interesting feature looks to be a removable battery that allows users to choose between one that has a 6-8 hour life and a larger one that has 10-12 hour life.

Apple’s response to DOJ a good read
While I have not read the legal documents the people at Forbes have gone to the trouble and bring out some marvelous quotes from Apple’s filings and some interesting commentary about how they foresee the case progressing.

Not being a lawyer hinders any real objective opinion on my part but I think that the author of the piece, Philip Elmer-DeWitt, makes a pretty compelling argument on Apple’s side. Head over for his piece and a like to the Apple filing.

Crowdfunding site flaws?
I increasingly talk about crowd funding as it is an interesting method for small developers to get the initial funding needed to launch a product. However there is another side to the equation that is clearly brought out by Gizmodo — the failures.

It points out that companies that you see on its front page are ones that are getting funding, while ones that fail, or are on their way to failure, seem to completely disappear from the site, as it only wants to show winning or potential winning offerings.

Since, according to the article, Kickstarter gets a percentage of the amount pledged; this makes sense since only projects that get 100% of their request get anything. To see why some of them might have failed head over to Mashable for a short piece on crowd funding mistakes.

The Patent Wars continue

Microsoft wins round versus Motorola in Germany
Apparently Microsoft owns patents relating to how you splint one log text message into two smaller ones and Motorola has violated those patents. A German court ruled that Motorola’s technology to permit this feature infringes on Microsoft’s patents. It was reported that while Microsoft could ban Motorola products in the country it is instead seeking a license fee.

The two have been going at it tooth and nail for some time in the patent department with both sides scoring what appear to be major victories. I wonder of the license fee is the first step towards resolving their issues.

Apple tops in mobile PCs
The preliminary results are in for the NPD DisplaySearch’s Quarterly Mobile PC Shipments and Forecast Report is in and to the probably surprise of no one Apple is the top dog in this field. According to the report Apple shipped approximately 17.2 million mobile PCs in Q1’12.

This is a 118% increase over the same period from a year ago and of the total iPads represented 80% of Apple’s total, or 13.6 million units. For the industry as a whole the results were nowhere near as good with shipments growing 30% year to year, reaching 76.2 million for the quarter.

Cisco kills Tablet
In a move that surprised me because the product never appeared on my radar in the first place, Cisco is killing its Cius tablet. The networking giant had developed and introduced the tablet a year ago with the stated purpose of pioneering the business market with the product.

The tablet featured a 7-inch display and had a $750 list price. Sold via its channel partners it was obviously hurt by lower cost offerings from rivals that businesses increasingly allowed employees to bring in from home.

Facebook building smartphone?
The New York Times has reported that Facebook is once again dipping its toe into the smartphone market and has a project underway that should see a new product available in the market sometime next year.

According to the article Facebook has been actively hiring hardware and software engineers including a number that had worked on Apple’s iPhone. It had been reported a few years ago that Facebook had a development project for a phone but killed it.

Filed Under: Amazon, Android, Apple, Apps, Cisco, Dell, Facebook, Kickstarter, Mashable, Microsoft, Motorola, Smartphone, Startup, Tablets Tagged With: , , , , ,

Friday Grab Bag: Astrodome doomed, Apple Exec Knighted

May 25, 2012 by

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.

Filed Under: Android, Apple, Apps, Athlete to Follow, Facebook, Golf, Google, Lawsuit, Microsoft, Motorola, Tablets Tagged With: , , , ,
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