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Pac-12 Digital Network Ready for Primetime with help from Ooyala

June 8, 2012 by

The Pac-12 has finally taken the wraps of its pending network effort in time for the advent of the 2012-2013 BCS football season with the revelation of the Pac-12 Digital Network that it created in partnership with Ooyala.

We reported on the early plans of the Pac-12 at the start of the start of the year as the conference started filling out its management team for the Pac-12 Enterprises, the body that will be handling the network and now more details have come forth.

This is part of an ongoing trend in schools as networks that support your sports teams, and academics are increasingly important as a source of coverage and revenue for the institutions and more and more conferences are forming them.

From its inception the goal has been to make the network more than simply a television broadcast arm of the Pac-12 and instead make it a tool to reach fans in a manner that meets their needs. SO it includes capabilities for tablets, smartphones and the Internet as well as the more traditional television broadcasts that we have all come to know and love.

To bring video and broadcast to all of these devices the Pac-12 teamed with Ooyala, a company that develops cross platform broadcast video solutions and also has a great deal of expertise in monetizing the resulting video.

The two will be developing customizable content that users can use to create a platform that meets their viewing needs. The initial plans are to develop for both Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android platforms.
The various capabilities that will be offered to subscribers of any of the Pac-12 broadcast partners and will enable them to view sports, highlights and other content anywhere in the world. There will be both ad-free and ad-supported content.

The network will broadcast an estimated 850 live games in both men’s and women’s sports and all of the men’s football and basketball games that are not carried nationally. Its broadcasting team will feature celebrities Ronnie Lott, Rick Neuheisel and Summer Sanders.

The Big Ten Network recently expanded to provide a very similar service to its fans with the development of BTN2GO and I suspect that when I take a look at other conferences around the legue we will see similar efforts. What sets this one appart is that it was part of its basic concept and built-in from the ground up rather than added later.

I wonder if this means that there will be a big build-out in wireless networks at stadiums around the league. Once you provide the capability on video I am sure fans will want to see replays and highlights of plays at events they are attending.

Filed Under: Android, Apple, Apps, BCS, Live sports via mobile, Live Sports Video Consumption, NCAA Football, NCAA Hoops, Pac-12, Smartphone, Tablets

Intel Predicts a Wave of Windows 8 Tablets with Intel Inside

June 7, 2012 by

Intel started talking about a potential major move in the tablet space at January’s Consumer Electronics Show when CEO Paul Otellini took the stage for his keynote, but most of the hype that day was centered around its ultrabook slim form notebooks.

Now fast forward several months and a half a world away and the company is making some bold pronouncements in the tablet space at the Computex show in Taipei and the center of attention is on tablets, specifically ones powered by Intel’s Atom Z2760 chips that were formerly code-named Clover Trail.

According to IDG, Intel said that its OEM partners have a total of 20 tablets in the labs and in various stages of completion that are based on its processor. The big beneficiary of this, aside from Intel of course, appears to be Microsoft and its forthcoming Windows 8 operating systems that is expected sometime in the fall. Intel has had other offerings in this space but they have been a non-factor so far.

Acceptance of these tablets will be important for Intel because Windows 8 will also be designed to run on ARM-based processors and these chips now dominate the non-Apple side of the tablet market. There is expected to be compatibility issues with older Windows apps on ARM, however.

Next week we will deliver a wrap up of the tablets that were unveiled at the show this week and it looks like there are some interesting ones including hybrids, ones for Android and some of the first Windows 8 offerings.

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

Google Snaps up another Startup-This time QuickOffice

June 6, 2012 by

Google has once again used its pocketbook as an extension of its research and development division and has now purchased QuickOffice, a developer of technology that enables the interoperability of popular file formats and other productivity software.

The terms of the deal were not disclosed, but it marks the second purchase in as many days by Google, this one following its deal to buy Meebo yesterday. QuickOffice has had at least four rounds of funding according to Crunchbase, starting with a $7 million Series A and has raised a estimated total of $28.5 million since its founding.

It is the very ability to open a wide variety of apps created in an array of file formats that led to the deal, according to a blog post by Google. The company intends to integrate the technology into its existing Google Apps suite, it said.

This deal will not directly enhance Google’s Google + social environment but it should be a boon to a wide range of mobile users that receive a file that they cannot open because they do not have the proper software that was used to create the file.

In addition any office that is migrating away from an office suite such as Microsoft Office but still need to either open existing or older files or ones received from outside will benefit from the inclusion of this technology. I suspect this will help give Google Apps greater acceptance in the corporate environment both as a mobile and a desktop technology

Filed Under: Apps, Google, QuickOffice Tagged With: ,

Pocket TV Seeks to Turn your TV into a Giant Android Device

June 6, 2012 by

A new crowdfunding effort has caught my eye this week with a project to turn your television into an Android tablet. It does seem a bit counterproductive at first since I can buy quite a few tablets for the cost of my TV but on looking at the details it seems that if it is priced right it could make a very solid tool for people on the go, work wise and for vacation.

However the Pocket TV is an interesting device. The builders have created a computer on a dongle powered by a 1GHz Cortex A9 processor that runs the Android 4.0 operating system and is designed to plug into a TV’s HDMI port. Once connected it permits you to display your Android environment on the big screen.

The dongle enables you to bring the environment with you wherever you go so that you can use it in say a hotel room and it would give you video conferencing capabilities if you so wanted. It also allows you to access data and videos that you have stored in the cloud, giving a traveler even more flexibility. Included with the dongle is a standard IR remote that enables you to control the device while using the big screen since it does not convert it to touch screen capabilities

The funding process is going quite well for the effort. As of this morning it had a bit over $94,000 pledged of the $100,000 that it is seeking and it still has 33 days to go, so it looks like it will reach its goal with time, and possibly money to spare.

The more I learned about the device the more interested I was in Pocket TV. I can really see this as a boon when you have short trips and just need something to respond to check social media, play a game or two or respond to email but dislike carrying a notebook or tablet, and with the large screen it can be much more convenient than a smartphone in some environments.

The Pocket TV is the first from a startup called Infinitec, a technology developer that is based in Dubai, making it the first high-tech project I have seen from that country. It has been around for some time, having opened its doors in 2008 and was founded by Ahmad Zahran and David McKern and got its start developing USB memory drives.

Filed Under: Android, Apps, Infinitec, Kickstarter, Startup

Ericsson Study Shows Mobile Will Rule Internet

June 5, 2012 by

People always say that it’s a small world, and with the Internet it seems smaller as everyone appears to be connected in one manner or another. Now Ericsson has taken the time to quantify how well connected everybody is in a recent report.

The company has just released its second annual “ Traffic and Market Report-On the Pulse of the Networked Society” that shows how connected the world is now and makes some predictions as to where it is headed.

There is way too much information to provide any sort of thumbnail here but I will mention a few interesting factoids, at least ones that are interesting to me. Not too surprising is the growth of mobile subscriptions which will grow to 9 billion in 2017. How many people will there be at that time I wonder?

Anyway a few other interesting facts is that 50% of the world’s population will have access to 4G and 85% access to 3G by 2017, with 3 billion smartphone users in that year as well. Mobile data traffic is just booming and double from Q1 2011 to Q1 2012, with primarily video driving the growth. The report estimates that mobile data traffic will grow by 15 times between 2011 and 2017.

The overall conclusion of the report is that mobile is the wave of the future and that it s being driven by users that want anywhere, anytime connectivity to video, music and the Internet. This is great news for developer of mobile apps that are targeting sports fans. I suspect that in many ways sports fans are at the foprefront of this move and expect to see a growth in the number and quality of apps as opportunities in this space appear to be growing at a very good rate.

Filed Under: 4G LTE, Apps, Ericsson, Live sports via mobile, Live Sports Video Consumption, Smartphone Tagged With: ,

Google Buys Social Chat Developer Meebo

June 5, 2012 by

Google has moved to enhance its Google+ social media site with the purchase of Meebo, an instant messaging and communications company that will bring a host of tools and capabilities and users to Google.

The terms of the deal have so far not been announced although numbers in the $100 million range have been bandied about by TechCrunch and others. Meebo, a seven year old company has raised $70 million in funding over the course of its history. From the post on the Meebo blog it appears that much if not all of its team will be moving over to Google.

A key feature will be the Meebo Bar, a feature that permits users to chat that sits on a number of web pages. This enables advertisers to sit just below an audience of prospective customers. Meebo has a number of other capabilities that will likely find their way to Google+ such as the ability to customize content streams to meet your interests.

The addition of the Meebo audience, estimated at approximately 100 million users, will also be a big boost if many come over to Google +, which has an estimated 170 million users, still a far cry from rival Facebook’s almost 1 billion users.

Google+ has been growing steadily since it was introduced but when we talk to or visit sports teams they only have a focus on Facebook. Rarely do I see a site that also promotes Google+ as well, although this is occurring more frequently. Hopefully this and additional efforts by Google will fix that issue since with more competition I believe we will see better apps and web pages.

Filed Under: Apps, Facebook, Google, Meebo, Startup Tagged With: , ,
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