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Friday Grab Bag: People buy Kindles to read Books, Who Knew?

January 20, 2012 by

How do people use Kindle- let me count the ways
With all of the great sales news for Amazon’s Kindle platform in recent weeks one might wonder what all of these customers are using the tablets for. Well wonder no more as a survey by RBC Capital, as reported in Business Insider, comes away with a number of details on users needs

Not a huge surprise is that its primary use is as an ebook reader. That seems to show that it is hitting its target market, and by doing so will help Amazon, which reportedly is losing money on actual Kindle sales, make a net profit due to app, ebook and other add-on sales.

The second is that it is not used too much to surf the web. Many reports have shown that rival products such as the iPad are used to surf the web, often while watching television.

Panorama Sports viewing coming to a TV near you-hopefully
Every time I watch an NFL game, or for that matter many different sporting events, I often want to see something that is not in the camera-it could be following a specific receiver run their route or how the defense is lined up.

Well a company named Technicolor is working hard to rectify this issue with a technology it calls Personalized Content Rendering that it publicly showed at CES.

Using a system of six cameras at the sporting venue it can create a moving panorama view of the stadium that enables a user to personalize their viewing experience.

The company has a software program that combines the video feed from all six cameras that when used in conjunction with something like a Microsoft Kinect sensor for the Xbox 360 tracking your eyes and head movement to allow you to look around the field and even zoom in on specific spots. However it is still some time before we see a commercial offering from the company.

ZTE set to focus on US and China markets to grow smartphone sales
ZTE, one of the top handset makers in the world is looking at two of the largest markets for smartphones, the United States and China, as key targets in its efforts to continue its growth as a premium phone provider.

The company has been evolving in the consumer electronics market and this looks like the latest step as it said it will increase its sales efforts to establish its smartphone models such as the Blade and the Skate in these countries.

With a stated goal of doubling sales in 2012 it could lead to an interesting price war if the company bears down and gets serious. It is estimated that ZTE shipped 12 million smartphones last year.

Kupa breaks out its Windows Tablet
Kupa has unveiled the Kupa X11 Lux Tablet, a dual input device that can use either touch or a stylus as its primary input device. It runs Windows 7 OS and is capable of operating for 10 hours on batter power. It comes in two models, one with a 64GB solid state drive (SSD) and the other with a 128GB SSD.

Using its Pen + Touch technology with pen is sensitive to to different pressure levels which can result in different outcomes. It features Wi-Fi, 3G, Bluetooth, USB and mini HDMI connectivity, and has a 2MP front camera and a 3MP rear facing camera.

Recon adds two new partners to lineup
Recon Instruments has expanded its partnerships for its Micro Optics Display (MOD) technology with the addition of official partnerships with Smith Optics and SCOTT Sports.

The two are the latest that have signed with the company to develop ski goggles that incorporate OD technology or are MOD compatible. MOD provides a variety of projected video feedback information for skiers including GPS and an altimeter. MOD Live boasts additional smartphone connectivity and advanced onboard apps.

Apple’s iOS to have integrated Facebook feature?
Reports are starting to surface that when Apple releases the iPad 3, expected in March, it will have an integrated version of Facebook as part of its core feature set according to iMore. The site reported that in iOS 5.1 beta release 3 that there is references to Facebook, but notes that this has happened in the past but apparently the two companies could not come to an agreement to include it.

Windows 8 tablets to have minimum hardware requirements
If you are planning on building a tablet that will run Microsoft’s Windows 9 operating system you will be required to meet some minimum standards for hardware, according to a report from eWeek. Not terrible breaking news since developers of Windows Phones also have to meet minimum requirements.

The reasoning behind this is to ensure that all of the hardware is there for the OS to operate properly. Microsoft wants to avoid an issue that has arisen in the Android space where a user might have very different experiences, and the devices different capabilities, even when running the same operating system.

Among the features that will be required to be included are a both Bluetooth 4.0 and Long Term Evolution (LTE), 10GB of storage, a minimum 1,366 x 768 resolution display and a 720p camera.

Filed Under: 4G LTE, Amazon, Android, Apple, Apps, Barnes & Noble, iPad, Kindle, Microsoft, Tablets

Apple Makes Big iPad Education Push — Sports, Social Media, Hardware Developers to Benefit

January 19, 2012 by

Apple is returning to its roots with its new education push announced today, only this time there will be no floppy drive or large beige computers on students desks with a tangle of wires connecting everything, but rather tablets and wireless communications.

While this will most likely mean great news for education content developers as well as students, it will also be a boon for other markets as well, ranging from Wi-Fi equipment manufacturers and the entire world of sports and sport content development.

The news

Apple is back in the space, but this time as a supplier of educational material, primarily books. It has unveiled iBooks 2 for iPad, and claims that it will lead to a new type of textbook for students.

The key to iBooks 2, which is available in its own section at the iTune store, is that it will enable the creation of materials that will feature interactive animations, diagrams, photos, videos and will provide an easy to use navigational system.

The company has already enlisted several educational publishers including Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, McGraw-Hill and Pearson. Also teachers can create their own books for class using the iBooks Author tool.

For students the advantages are obvious, lighter backpacks since all of their text books can be carried in one small device. The cost, which Apple said will be in the $15 range for many books, will help with their expenses and they can be updated in real time to reflect current events or current ideas on a theme.

In addition to the iBooks 2 Apple has also released the iTunes U app that makes available a huge catalog of free educational materials, 20,000 educational apps as well as a wide variety of books that are used in school curriculum.

This is just the latest step from Apple in its effort to reestablish itself as one of the premier hardware and software players in the education market. It has been courting educators since it released the iPad. Apple has already seen a growing adoption of the iPad as a teaching tool in other areas including the NFL.

If Apple continues to gain share in the education field, as seems very likely at this point due to the poor showing by most of its rivals in the tablet business, this success will have far reaching implications for other companies as well.

Benefits for others

First and foremost it is most likely that the huge bulk of these iPads will only use Wi-Fi, since having two cellular bills is probably a bit much for the average student. I do not believe that most schools are prepared for a huge increase in the number of Wi-Fi users this will represent, as well as the huge increase in volume.

So hardware providers in a number of technologies from Wi-Fi hot spots to backhaul equipment providers will all see increased demand for their products

Secondly students will not just dedicate their time with the tablets to work. Aside from social media sports plays a huge role in many students’ lives. With ESPN, CBS Sports and others now streaming games a student can now be n the library and still watch the game.

The huge amount of options made available by the Australian Open for interaction with remote fans looks to be the wave of the future. Athletic, as well as theater and any other group on campus can now make interactive pitches to students as well as make video of past performances and streaming video of current games available on line.

This should lead to a demand for app and content developers to create interesting and informative programs that will grab and keep students attention. I expect that Amazon and Barnes & Noble to quickly follow suit since no one wants to leave such a huge and potentially lucrative market to Apple.

It will also spur the other Android tablet developers such as Samsung and Motorola to also develop solutions to get a piece of the pie. For customers this is great news because it will likely lead to price competition and a lowering of prices in an effort to grab market share.

Filed Under: Amazon, Android, Apple, Apps, BCS, CBS Sports, ESPN, iPad, Live sports via mobile, Motorola, NFL, Samsung, Tablets Tagged With: ,

Bleacher Report Adds iPad Version of ‘Team Stream’ App to Address Growing Mobile Reader Base

January 19, 2012 by

A screen shot of the iPad version of the Team Stream app from Bleacher Report.


To better address the nearly 40 percent of its viewers who access its content via a mobile connection, Bleacher Report is launching an iPad version of its “Team Stream” app today, giving fans a better mobile viewing experience for the “stream” of news, Tweets, story links and other info that Team Stream helps them create.

Having a version of the app available for the Apple iPad will give Team Stream users a bigger screen to negotiate between articles and content items, and will also provide a “personalized dashboard” on the home screen with national-topic headlines as well as stories about the topics and teams selected by the user.

While the Team Stream app has gained its share of kudos and credits — if you’ve never used it, it’s incredibly simple and powerful, bringing you a mix of professional media content as well as athlete- and fan-generated content on the teams of your choice — what was more interesting to us at Mobile Sports Report was Bleacher Report’s claim that almost 40 percent of the site’s overall traffic is now coming from mobile connections, showing that sports fans are leading the way to content consumption on the go.

Here's what the smartphone version looks like.

“We really saw mobile happen in 2011,” said David Finocchio, co-Founder and vice president of content and product at Bleacher Report, in a phone interview. According to Finocchio, Bleacher Report — one of the top sports websites — started the year with just less than 10 percent of its traffic via mobile. By the end of the year that number was almost at 40 percent, making the “mobile future” something that was here, now.

Inside the mobile traffic number, Finocchio said readers using tablets “grew faster than any [device] segment, and it continues to grow faster.” That fact made development of an iPad version of Team Stream a no-brainer. Now fans who currently use the desktop or phone versions of Team Stream to compile tweets, stories and other info from around the web (curated by Bleacher Report editors) will have a larger screen mobile option, the better to watch video replays or view pictures.

Bleacher Report, which now claims 22 million monthly unique visitors and picked up $22 million in growth capital this past summer, is carving out its own space in the ever-expanding world of sports media with a unique focus, one that Team Stream helps deliver: Finding the best content, which is often local in origin, and then arranging it in one place to make it easy for fans to find.

“Right now it’s just too damn hard to go out and find all that information by yourself,” Finocchio said. “You should be able to go to one place.”

Filed Under: Apple, Apps, bleacherreport, Mobile sports pioneers, Twitter Tagged With: , , , ,

Australian Open 2012 Embraces Social Media

January 18, 2012 by

Do you miss the days of Evonne Goolagong and wooden rackets? Do you have no idea what the first sentence meant but like watching tennis and regret that the Australian Open is half a world away and so difficult to catch much of the action live?

Well the 2012 edition of the famed tournament has stepped up in the digital and social media space and presents a number of methods in which a fan can either catch live action or at least get a steady stream of comments and updates, easily and from a desktop or a mobile device.

As noted in Mashable this could be the most advanced use of social media in a tournament and that there is a wide variety of tournament sponsored avenues in which fans can follow the action, as well as comment on the action as it occurs. This has been a growing tradition at the tournament and one that others sports events can learn from as a tool to heighten fan engagement.

The official site has a range of tools that can meet fans needs on a variety of levels. Want to see video replays of highlights, player interviews or of the most popular players in action? They have that. Want to listen on the radio; there is a feature for that when the matches are being broadcast live.

There is a core feature called Fan Central that brings input from fans into the game. It contains what is called a ‘Social Leaderboard’ that contains a pool of 40 players that were selected due to their popularity. Fans can tweet about one of them using a hashtag that relates to their name, or ‘like’ content on australianopen.com that includes them and with every tweet or like they get points to rise in a leaderboard. You are not limited to just following these 40 as the site enables you to follow any player, popular or not.

The most active tweeters will have the opportunity to become ‘Fanbassadors’ that will be recognized on the tournaments official web site.

But it is not just fan twitters that are available. The tournament has staffed @AustralianOpen, a 24 Twitter feed. For the less serious, or more I guess, there is a feature for predicting outcomes as well as one that enables you to put captions onto photos. You can even submit a short film about the ‘Tennis Essence’ with the winner being played at the tournament.

Of course you can follow on Facebook, but if that is too static there are mobile apps for both Apple iPhones and Android based smartphones. There will also be the more traditional information you would expect-draws, schedules, how to get tickets and an overall event guide.

Filed Under: Android, Apple, Apps, Athlete to Follow, iPhone, Live sports via mobile, Live Sports Video Consumption, Mashable, Smartphone, Twitter Tagged With: , , ,

Mobile Sports Report TechWatch: Samsung’s Note a Tablet-Smartphone Hybrid

January 16, 2012 by

Microsoft Windows will soon have an app that enables Skype, hardly a stunner since Microsoft purchased the company last year. Still this will be good news for users of the popular VoIP technology, even if it is a bit later than originally promised, according to the Verge.

According to the report the first version will not be deeply integrated with the rest of the Windows Phone software but that future releases of the Skype app will be more tuned with future releases of the Windows Phone OS.

Huawei venture into high end smartphones
One of the more interesting corporate pushes at CES came from Huawei, with a range of products and technologies across the show. One of the products that caught my eye was its high end smartphone, the Ascend P1 S.

Touted as being the slimmest smartphone available and with a very clear and precise screen, if and when available it could be the next hot buy. While I only got a very brief demonstration of the device there are a number of good hands on pieces available to get a good evaluation of the product.

Tablet News

Samsung’s Galaxy Note-a bit of everything mobile?
Samsung introduced its Galaxy Note at the CES show and it’s kind of a tweener product, not clearly a phone for some and not clearly a tablet for others. The device has the largest display for a phone at 5.3-inches, or is I one of the smallest displays for a tablet?

It serves as a full smartphone, includes a camera and comes with a stylus for input but also has full touch capabilities. It has a memo app that allows for the taking of notes as in a paper and pen scenario but also has the capabilities to allow a user to annotate any image or screen capture.

Not sure yet how I feel about the product. It has a range of features that separate it from the everyday smartphone including advanced security programs but is its size going to be detrimental? Also if I use my tablet as an e-reader a great deal, is this a step down due to the smaller screen? A lot of unanswered questions and what segments of the market adopt it will be very interesting.

E-Readers spur book sales
Have you written the Great American Novel and yet no one has the vision to publish? A growing coterie of writers is going it alone, and some are finding a good deal of success. The Guardian has a nice piece on some who are doing quite well pushing books using tools from Kindle and other platforms.

It is not all tremendous reviews and instant fortune and the amount that you ear could be nothing or a very small sum, but it does show the impact the e-readers are having on the book business from two sides, publishing and consumption.

More iPad 3 rumors…
The latest rumors about the forthcoming iPad 3 is that it will have a quad core chip that should provide it with a nice performance boost as well as being compatible with LTE a wireless standard called long-term evolution that is just now starting to see widespread deployment by cellular carriers.

The resolution on the screen is expected to match that of the current generation of iPhones and that combined with the new processor is expected to ensure that videos and images are razor sharp. Rumors still have the expected delivery date sometime in March.

The usual legal issues…

Oracle vs Google spat sees trial delay
Ars Technica is reported that the case, originally expected to go to trial by March will now see another delay. The judge, William Alsup, has decided to wait until Oracle can propose a reasonable methodology for measuring damages.

As usual the fight is over patents; in this case one’s that Oracle claims it owns related to Java that is incorporated in the Android operating system’s custom Java runtime environment and compiler

The judge has been impatient with both parties as they have worked to deliver what he views as an appropriate methodology for the damage assessment and seems to have been very critical of Oracle’s most recent efforts. I bet this trial gets another delay.

Filed Under: Amazon, Android, Apple, Apps, iPad, iPhone

Friday Grab Bag: Bud is Back!

January 13, 2012 by

Selig has two year extension in the works-I assume it is guaranteed

The Good people at HardballTalk, among others, are reporting that MLB Commissioner Allan “Bud” Selig will sign a two year extension to remain at the helm of the sports. The deal is expected to be announced at the owners meeting taking place in Az. this week.

It comes as no surprise that he is staying there, who wants to give up an $18.4 million annual salary. I imagine he will dedicate the next two years to keeping players salaries down. Did anyone really think that he planned to retire?

Microsoft notches another win in its patent push
Microsoft and LG Electronics have signed a broad cross patent licensing agreement that gives LG coverage for Microsoft patents for LG’s lineup of devices that run Android or Chrome operating systems.

Included will be LG’s phones, tablets as well as other current and emerging consumer electronic devices. This is the 11th company that has entered into this type of licensing agreement with Microsoft and others include Samsung, Acer and HTC.

Apple gets egg on face, store after iPhone cancellation
After an abrupt announcement that the store would not be selling Apple’s iPhone 4S on the first day of availability in Beijing, the large crowd that had formed outside one of Apple’s stores in China became unruly and started throwing eggs at the building.

According to a piece at IDG a crowd had formed prior to the store opening and when an employee announced that there would be no phones available that day and gave no reason why.

Rams sign Fisher- Dolphins feel used
The St. Louis Rams have signed Jeff Fisher as its next head coach, according to ESPN and other sources. Details have not been released but I think it will be very interesting to see what he managed to squeeze out of them.

This has apparently irritated the owner of the Miami Dolphins, the other major suitor for his services. He had seemed to vacillating between the two and it seems Miami now was just using it for leverage in St. Louis.

I guess that the team learned nothing from its pursuit of Jim Harbaugh last year. Not only did it jack up what Harbaugh earn as a 1st time NFL head coach, Miami then had to salve its current head coach’s feelings.

I cannot wait until Miami goes on a search again- I suspect they will now massively overpay one of the former head coach/announcers out there like Gruden.

3D for Apple iOS
According to Mac Daily News Apple has filed for a patent that shows it will be developing a 3D GUI for its iOS-based mobile products. Apparently this is just one of several 3D products that are/were nder development at the company Will I be able to interface with my phone like they in “Minority Report”?

Mizco delivers cross platform USB charger for phones, tablets
Mizco International has delivered a cross platform charger that it claims will handle a wide range of smartphones and tablets, something that could make traveling with multiple devices significantly easier in the future.

Called the Cross-Brand Tablet and Smartphone Charger it is from the company’s Digipower division and is designed to support USB charging for products from all of the major manufacturers.

The $29.99 charger has a featured called a SmartSwitch that can be set in one of three positions and is capable of optimally charge USB-powered tablets from major manufacturers such as Apple, Samsung, HTC and BlackBerry as well as USB-powered Smartphones.

Filed Under: Android, Apple, Apps, Baseball, iPhone, Major League Baseball, Microsoft, NFL, Smartphone, Tablets Tagged With: , ,
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