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Python S3 Tablet can boot Three Different Operating Systems

May 21, 2013 by

pythons3-panoramica

The Python S3 is a tablet that has been just released by Italian developer Ekoore that has a feature that could help present true differentiation in the increasingly crowded tablet field; it can boot three very different operating systems.

The latest offering from the company has the ability to boot either Ubuntu Linux, Windows 8 or the Android operating system providing a great degree of flexibility for the user that matches the hardware flexibility that the platform presents.

The tablet comes with the option of having just a single operating system installed but if a user wishes the company will install all three. It features an 11.6-inch display with a 1366 x 768 resolution. It has an optional docking keyboard that also sports a second battery. It features built-in WI-Fi, 3G, Bluetooth and GPS.

The tablet is powered by Intel’s Celeron 847 dual core processor and the device will support a maximum of 8GB or RAM and comes with three storage options; 32GB, 64GB or 128GB. The tablet has a starting price of $770 and the optional keyboard runs $179. Moving up to greater storage will of course cost additional as well.

While this tablet certainly will not be the most powerful one on the market, it certainly can meet the developers’ vision of a multiuse, multiuser device.

Filed Under: Android, Apps, Microsoft, Tablets, Windows 8 Tagged With: , , , ,

A Foodfight comes to Minor League Baseball

May 20, 2013 by

milb

For fans of minor league baseball there is now a contest for them to sink their teeth into, a competition that will seek to judge which MiLB ballpark has the best concessions in a social media driven contest sponsor by Major League Baseball’s Advanced Media arm.

The MiLB.com #foodfight contest will include 160 minor league ball yards and will have four different, and pretty clear, categories. They are: Gut Busters, Hogs ‘n’ Dogs, Local Legends and Scrumptious Sandwiches and voting can be done via Twitter or at the MiLB.com web site.

For Twitter users use the #foodfight and include the nickname of the team that is selling the food that you are voting on. You can also visit MiLB.com/foodfight to vote for their favorite food item in each of the four categories.

You can vote early and vote often since there is no limit to the amount of times that you vote. But do so soon since the first round of voting ends next week on the 29th. The next day the final round of voting will start and run for one week with the winner announced on June 6th.

There is the potential for participants as well with a sweepstakes that includes all of the voters. The winner gets a trip to the ballpark with the winning food item and includes roundtrip airfare, accommodations, game tickets and other prizes.

If you like ball park food, visit the MiLB site to see some of the offerings that are eligible for votes. It sure has gone a long way since hot dogs and cracker jacks were the standards.

Filed Under: Apps, Baseball, Contests, Major League Baseball, MinorLeagueBall.com, Twitter Tagged With: , ,

Friday Grab Bag: ESPN Gets US Open, Qualcomm Adds Kaspersky

May 17, 2013 by

The dangers of getting malware and viruses on Android devices could be lessened greatly due to a deal that has Qualcomm preloading security firm Kaspersky Lab’s mobile security products into Qualcomm’s silicon that is used to power over a 1,000 different smartphones.

According to Kaspersky the Qualcomm Snapdragon processor can be found in 770 commercially available or announced products as well as in another 550 products that are in some stage of the product design pipeline.


ESPN Gets US Open
ESPN has once again expanded its tennis coverage with the signing of an 11-year deal with the USTA, taking the coverage away from long time USTA broadcast partner CBS. The $770 million deal will start in 2015.

This deal will move the entire tournament to cable after an over the air broadcast run on CBS that started in 1968. CBS will be broadcasting the next two tournaments before its current contract expires.

Microsoft’s Windows Phone making market gains
Microsoft’s Windows Phone is slowly gaining a stronger position in the overall handset market and according to the latest numbers from market research firm International Data Corp. (as reported by Pocket-Lint) it has now passed the BlackBerry OS and moved into third place.

The leader, by a hefty margin, is the Android operating system, which has a 75% market share in the first quarter of 2013 followed by Apple’s iOS which has a 17.3% market share. Windows has 3.2% while BlackBerry has 2.9%.

Will Microsoft remake Windows RT
PC World has an interesting piece on the future of Windows RT, the alternative to Windows 8 for tablet users in the Microsoft world. Met with at best lackluster acceptance, analysts are saying the OEM pricing has to drop and the focus needs fine tuning.

Microsoft has said that it has no intention of killing the platform, which it is positioning as an alternative to the Android and Apple iOS platforms for users that do not want the Windows option either. However right now Apple still has a great deal of cache in the market while Android is offered for free so developers can easily undercut Windows RT devices.

Google announces streaming music service
In case you were out of touch this week Google held its annual Google I/O conference and there was a host of announcements that burst forth from the event. Probably the one that held the most interest is the unveiling of its streaming music service.

The Google Play All Music Access service is expected to rival an expected one from Apple as well as existing ones such as Spotify. It has many features similar to what Pandora offers including a thumb up or down on songs and the ability to load in your own music. It will have a $9.99 monthly fee.

Windows “Blue” due next month
The upgrade to Microsoft’s Windows 8 operating system, version 8.1 and commonly called Windows Blue, will be previewed on June 26 and will be available for free to over 100 million registered users of Windows 8.

Filed Under: Android, Apple, Apps, ESPN, Google, iOS, Microsoft, Surface, Tablets, Tennis, Windows 8 Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

San Jose Sharks Enlist Wayin for Twitter Hub

May 15, 2013 by

sjsharks


ESPN’s deal with Twitter the other day was an expected development as there is a growing desire to hook into social media by sports franchises and broadcasters and another that is following on that same path is the San Jose Sharks Hockey team.

The Sharks have teamed with a Denver-based startup called Wayin using that company’s social media engagement hub to create a Twitter hub for fans of the team and of the National Hockey League.

The Shark’s Wayin hub, called the Sharks Game Day Hub, is more than just a central depository for all of the twitter activity that naturally follows a team when it is in the playoffs. It serves the fans a central site where they can gain a degree of control over what they are following.

The hub features both team generated content as well as a variety of other information including tab on Tweet volume, Twitter activity from players, coaches, broadcasters and Sharks staff, imbedded broadcast video interviews, and fan Tweets. The hub also supports Instagram so that fans can also follow along on images and photos posted by others.

While the casual fan may not have heard of Wayin, in part because it’s a startup and secondly by being located in Denver it is off the beaten paths for most new tech companies. However it has a prestigious foundation starting with co-founder and Chairman Scott McNealy, former top honcho of Sun Microsystems. Anyone from the Bay Area could tell you that McNealy is a huge hockey fan and that once for April Fools played hockey with former pro hockey players with Sharks players in attendance.

It will be interesting to see how a hub such as this will compete with the emerging class of apps that put fans in connection with athletes. A number have emerged over the years in the app space but none seem to have caught the attention of the mainstream. By bringing a team into the mix fans might be able to connect more directly with players using this type of hub.

Filed Under: Apps, Athlete to Follow, Instagram, NHL, Social Media, Sports Social Media, Stanley Cup, Startup, Twitter Tagged With: , , , , ,

Friday Grab Bag: Unhappy iPad Users? Is Facebook Home Dead Already?

May 10, 2013 by

Will Microsoft buy Barnes & Noble’s Nook Business?
The rumor has once again emerged that Microsoft is looking at buying Barnes & Noble’s Nook business unit, a unit that Microsoft has already invested $300 million. TechCrunch is now reporting that it has internal documents that show that indeed the software giant is pondering such a move.

The cost is approximately $1 billion, which would also include Nook Media and related digital business operations. The documents show that Barnes & Noble is considering discontinuing its Android-based tablets next year.

Apple Patents invisible buttons
As smartphone users seemingly are demanding additional functionality with each new release of their favorite handset product designers are faced with the classic issue of form or functionality. Now Apple has patented a technology that seems to solve the issue by enabling fully functioning buttons and sliders that are not visible.

If you are wondering how you would use invisible items, they are not always hidden from the eye, but would appear when you motion towards them, according to a piece on them in Geek Newsletter.

Is Facebook’s Home burning down?
A few weeks ago amid a great deal of hype Facebook offered its latest and greatest mobile offering, Facebook Home. If you missed the announcement it was the debut of a smartphone, and a related app for owners of alternative Android devices, which made Facebook your smartphone start screen.

The HTC First was the first smartphone to come with the technology as standard and it was available from AT&T for $99. It has been apparently been met by a universal shrug of the shoulders by users, which had led AT&T to drop the price of the phone a bit, to 99 cents! Salon gives a good look at how far and fast this technology has dropped.

Amazon to offer smartphone with 3D display?
The Wall Street Journal is reporting (via C/Net) that Amazon is working on a pair of smartphones and that one of the two will have a 3D capability that will enable hologram like images. However the article made clear that the smartphones might never see the loght of day.

Amazon is increasingly delving into the hardware space starting with its popular Kindle tablet. While the rest is rumor, so far, it sounds like a set top box and the aforementioned smartphones are also in the works.

Google Glass takes another hit.
In case you missed the send up on Saturday Night Live you can look here but real world resistance to Google Glass technology is also continuing to rise. A nice piece in the New York Times outlines some of the major Pros and Cons of the technology.

We have always wondered how Las Vegas would deal with the glasses, and the NYT is of the opinion they will be banned, an opinion backed by Caesars Entertainment statement that they would be prohibited. However it is estimated that the glasses could generate upwards to $#500 billion for Google.

Bill Gates chimes in on iPad
Microsoft chairman Bill Gates recently spoke with CNBC and said that iPad users are frustrated with the lack of keyboard and because there is no Microsoft Office app for that platform that they will migrate to PC Tablets.

As can be noted in the Guardian’s coverage of his statements so Apple has sold an estimated 141 million iPads to unhappy users while the happy Microsoft Surface users have already swarmed the stores for an estimated 2 million units. Of course the Surface is still relatively new so we will see what the future brings.

Filed Under: Amazon, Android, Apple, Apps, AT&T, Barnes & Noble, Facebook, Google, HTC, iPad, Microsoft, Nook, Smartphone, Surface, Tablets, The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Windows 8 Tagged With: , , , , , ,

MLBAM Teams with NDN to Deliver MLB Video to News Web Sites

May 8, 2013 by

mlb

A trip to your favorite baseball news site may soon be enlivened by video that matches up with the stories due to a new deal that has been struck between Major League Baseball’s Advanced Media (MLBAM) arm and Internet video provider NDN.

While it may seem odd that MLB needs a partner on video, it has been producing highlights and videos that are available on the Internet for over a decade, the deal will enable the sports league to hook up with a huge number of online news services.

NDN will enhance MLB’s existing video business by passing it along to its syndicated news partners, with approximately 4,500 online news publishers that have relationships with the company. In addition it often works with its partners to embed content in its partners stories.

The net result will be a boon for baseball fans who now can read a local story about their favorite team and then watch the clinching strike out or the walk off home run rather than forcing them to eave that site to go to MLB’s site to view the action.

This policy shines very nicely when compared to the very restrictive rules of the NFL, which has very strong restrictions of what can be shown, and for how long. It even demanded that top reporters shut down their twitter accounts during the NFL draft.

It seems to us that sports networks need to understand that increasingly fans are looking for information, and videos, on their teams from a growing diversity of media including YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and Internet news sites and rather than fight them they are better off joining with them to make the experience better for the fans.

Filed Under: Apps, Baseball, Facebook, Live sports via mobile, Live Sports Video Consumption, Major League Baseball, NFL, YouTube Tagged With: , , ,
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