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Friday Grab Bag: Microsoft talks Windows 8 Tablet

February 10, 2012 by

The top Windows exec at Microsoft, Steve Sinofsky, has published a huge blog entry that details Microsoft’s plans for Windows 8 on low-powered platforms driven by processors built around the ARM processor technology.

Since that is the primary chip technology driving most tablets, this blog entry shows how the company sees the space and what it believes it can bring to the market that its rivals cannot, or are not doing well.

A few of the key talking points are that versions of Windows for ARM platforms will carry a Windows for ARM branding; there will be a special version of Office for this platform and there will be a major effort to have the hardware and software tightly integrated, much like Apple does with the various iOS products.

Phoenix Suns latest to grab tablets as in-game tool
If you happen to watch closely the next time you are viewing a Phoenix Suns game expect to see branded products from Samsung and Verizon Wireless on the sidelines in place of the old school chalkboards.

The team has signed a deal that will provide the players, scouts and coaches with Samsung Galaxy 10.1 Tab tablets and Verizon 4G wireless service. The team plans to use them for a winde variety of tasks including in-game play calling by head coach Alvin Gentry.

While the NFL and Major League Baseball have been very aggressive in developing and deploying tablets as part of a training regime the NBA has lagged behind. This is probably going to be watched very closely and probably imitated by a number of other teams in the off season.

Asus admits bug in Transformer Prime
Asus has released a firmware update that will fix the random boot problem that has plagued some but not all owners of its Eee Pad Transformer Prime Tablets. The move comes after a flow of negative comments on line and at least one retailer, UK’s Clove to cease selling the product.

The tablet has had several flaws since it was debuted last year including simple lack of product available and a GPS accuracy issue. In the past the company has denied that there was a reboot issue but has now finally admitted it.

Patent Wars
Apple continues to battle and seems to be losing ground at a slow and steady rate. Its latest setback was a German court ruling that Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, called the Galaxy Tab10.1N in the German market does not appear to be a copycat version of the iPad.

Apple had won an initial ruling preventing Samsung from selling n the German market last September and the 10.1N is a work around that has been found acceptable by the court, reopening the market to the Apple rival.

Apple has been particularly aggressive pursuing Samsung in both the iPad but also iPhone space claiming that it carefully copied its devices. So far its success has been lackluster in courts but that does not seem to have changed Apple’s determined drive in the patent space.

Google’s bid for Motorola Mobility likely to be approved next week
Multiple sources are reporting that the $12.5 billion purchase of Motorola Mobility by Google will get antitrust approval from the United States Justice Department sometime next week. Among other assets that Google will acquire is a patent portfolio that is 17,000 strong in the mobile phone area.

This patent portfolio is likely to be used for both offensive and defensive purposes by the company. It is aggressively seeking huge payments from Apple over all iPhone and other iOS devices, but will likely also be used to simply be leverage in cross patent licensing agreements.

At the same time the Justice Department is likely to approve of the purchase of Nortel by a consortium of Apple, Microsoft Sony, Research in Motion, EMC, and Ericsson AB. This deal will include 6,000 wireless patents.

Filed Under: 4G LTE, Amazon, Android, Apple, Google, iPhone, Microsoft, Motorola, NBA, NFL, Samsung, Smartphone, Sony, Tablets, Verizon Wireless Tagged With: , , , ,

Does Cisco Have the Inside Sponsor Track for Niners’ New Stadium?

February 9, 2012 by

Fair warning: This is all conjecture, and not based on any interviews or inside information. But based on some cognizant observations as well as just sheer geography, it is our guess that networking giant Cisco might have the inside sponsorship track for the new football stadium being considered for the San Francisco 49ers.

Now with $200 million in NFL money in hand, it appears that the Niners’ planned move south to the Silicon Valley burb of Santa Clara is as close to a done deal as possible. For the moment, our question is, what corporate name will grace the concourses of the soon-to-be-built temple of football from among the many choices in cash-rich Silicon Valley?

At the top of the guess list you can put Cisco, whose main corporate campus lies just a few blocks down Tasman Drive from the new stadium site. Though Cisco’s historic bent has been to pursue sponsorship of a new baseball stadium for the Oakland A’s (first a failed attempt to build one in the East Bay town of Fremont, and now with hopeful plans for a new stadium in San Jose), the company’s Connected Stadium business would have some serious egg on its face if it couldn’t win the big deal just down the street. But we haven’t heard any rumors that Cisco is even the front runner, so which other companies might be in the race?

How about cash-rich Apple, which has nearly $100 billion stuffing its corporate wallet, or nearby search king Google? Though neither company has a history of sports sponsorships a “Google Stadium” or an “Apple Field” could be an international jewel of a marketing vehicle, acting as a base for either company to demonstrate devices, applications and other innovations in a setting that would regularly draw lots of foot traffic as well as national media attention.

Other candidates could include Oracle, whose leader Larry Ellison has been more involved than any other Silicon Valley in sports sponsorship — both via Oracle’s existing name sponsorship of Oakland’s Oracle Arena, home of the NBA’s Golden State Warriors, and in Ellison’s out-front leadership in bringing the America’s Cup boat race to San Francisco Bay. And how about the idea of “Facebook Field,” a place where fans could “like” just by showing up. With a huge IPO on the way, Facebook might want to use some of that cash to show up its older Silicon Valley neighbors by sponsoring the Niners’ new home.

What’s your guess? Chime in via the comments. Gratuitous new-stadium video follows.

Filed Under: Apple, Cisco, Facebook, Google, NFL Tagged With: , ,

Super Bowl Online: 2.1 Million Uniques, Lots of Room for Improvement

February 7, 2012 by

The stats are in and as expected, the live Internet streaming of Sunday’s Super Bowl game was by far the biggest online audience ever for a sporting event with 2.1 million unique viewers, according to a press release from the NFL.

Broadcast both on the NBC Sports website as well as to smartphones via Verizon Wireless’s NFL Mobile app, the online showing of Super Bowl XLVI racked up some impressive numbers, according to the NFL:

Online Traffic Data
Unique Users – 2,105,441 (live stream online)
Live Video Streams – 4,589,593 (live stream online)
Total Minutes Streamed – 78,624,422
On-Demand Clips – 1,838,812 VOD clips viewed
User-Generated Camera Switches – 1,835,676
Engagement – More than 39 minutes per visit.

Verizon Wireless also confirmed that the Super Bowl was the “most viewed” game on the NFL Mobile platform all season (what a surprise!) but the company’s weak press release didn’t reveal any actual numbers. We’ve asked Verizon PR for more info but have not gotten a reply as of yet.

We also find it hard to agree with the canned quotes in the NFL’s release from Kevin Monaghan, senior vice president, business development & managing director digital media, NBC Sports Group, who claimed the online show lived up to fans’ expectations. This fan for one didn’t like the fact that the online show was 3 to 4 plays behind the TV show, making it nearly impossible to use as a “second screen” device since it was so far behind what was happening in front of you. Monaghan had a different view, according to his quotes in the press release:

“Increasingly, sports fans are looking to digital coverage as a complementary ‘second screen’ experience, and we delivered on that promise with unprecedented robust coverage. The record traffic that grew throughout the event, as well as the record high engagement numbers, underscores the complementary aspect of digital as an enhancement to our exceptional television coverage.”

With no way to question Monaghan (we tried tweeting @NBCSportsPR asking why the broadcasts were so far apart but got no reply) we’ll just have to stomp our digital feet a little bit louder to hope for a closer sync in the future. And others around the web didn’t think too much of the limited screen choices and sometimes skippy transition process — and the fact that getting Silverlight installed on a Chrome browser for a Mac was a chore (we got it done on the laptop Sunday but it took two tries because the download screen hung the first time).

But all in all those are some small problems to what will likely be viewed as a watershed moment in sports broadcast history, when we all switched from thinking, “Wow, cool, it’s online — I never expected that!” to something more like “how many different online options to watch do I have?” Especially since Sunday’s TV broadcast was the latest Super Bowl to win the “most watched program ever” award with 111.3 million viewers, it’s obvious that having an online choice — even one that attracts 2.1 million viewers — doesn’t detract from the live TV audience.

For all other promoters the question now becomes: What are you going to do to get your event online, and to make it more competent than the Super Bowl? Getting the broadcast at least close to the same time as live TV would be a start.

Filed Under: 4G LTE, Live sports via mobile, Live Sports Video Consumption, NBC Sports, NFL, NFL Mobile, Super Bowl, Verizon Wireless Tagged With: , ,

AT&T: Super Bowl Crowd Breaks Wireless Data-Sending Records

February 7, 2012 by

It was expected to be one of the biggest wireless-data events ever, and according to AT&T the folks attending Super Bowl XLVI in Indianapolis Sunday didn’t disappoint, with AT&T’s customers breaking company records for wireless communications from the big game.

According to statistics provided by AT&T, customers using AT&T smartphones, tablets and other devices inside Lucas Oil Stadium accounted for a total of 215 GB of wireless data traffic, an increase of almost 40 GB from Super Bowl XLV, even though there were almost 35,000 fewer fans at the game this year. Customers also uploaded more data to the network than they downloaded by a wide margin Sunday, 125 GB to 90 GB, likely signifying that AT&T users were busy sending photos, videos and messages out from the stadium to Internet sites or to friends who weren’t in attendance.

The surge in data traffic doesn’t even include any data sent over the Wi-Fi or DAS networks AT&T put in place in downtown Indy outside the stadium to ensure that fans had access to a good connection no matter where they were in the vicinty of the game. According to AT&T’s math the data represent an 82 percent increase in data use per person in attendance, a staggering amount of growth for a practice that even just a couple years ago was basically unheard of.

Given the data surge it’s perhaps no surprise that voice calls, voice minutes and text message totals all dropped from the previous year’s game, perhaps also due to the fact that Cowboys Stadium had 103,219 in attendance for Super Bowl XLV while there were just 68,658 in attendance at the smaller Lucas Oil Stadium Sunday. According to AT&T there were only 722,296 text messages sent by its customers Sunday, down from 2,090,099 sent the previous year. Voice calls and voice minutes were down 59 percent and 57 percent respectively, from 183,216 calls to 75,204 calls and 181,606 minutes to 78,133 minutes. The stats here are only for AT&T’s 2G, 3G and LTE networks inside the stadium itself, over a 7-hour window around the actual game.

In addition to the wide array of technical enhancements AT&T made in and around the stadium over the past year AT&T said it also had an on-site “command center” as well as street-team employees helping customers find the best way to connect. Verizon Wireless, Sprint and T-Mobile also beefed up their cellular operations in and around the stadium, and so far no reports of bad service have surfaced so all the preparations must have been enough to handle the game-day wireless crush, which was probably at least three times AT&T’s total if not more. AT&T’s Super Bowl enhancements are just part of a wide-ranging strategy from Ma Bell to cover stadiums with additional wireless assets.

AT&T’s stats from the game, however, should give pause to stadium operators, teams, schools and other big-event area hosts, because it’s almost guaranteed that wireless tsunamis of demand are coming your way next. As AT&T senior executive vice president of technology and network operations John Donovan notes in a blog post, mobile devices have become “integral to our lives,” and even more so for special sporting activities that we will want to share with friends not present via the Internet. Provided the wireless network allows it.

While the Super Bowl is a special case where providers will send extra resources to ensure performance, not every event can expect such an influx of assets. The question for game hosts then becomes how will you ensure that your customers get the wireless coverage they expect? For the answers, keep following Mobile Sports Report as we cover the news and provide the business analysis for this interesting intersection of mobile, social and sport.

Filed Under: AT&T, iPad, iPhone, Live sports via mobile, NFL, Super Bowl, Wi-Fi Tagged With: , ,

Super Bowl’s Social/Mobile Angles Don’t Move the Needle

February 5, 2012 by

My quick post-game take on the whole “social Super Bowl” angle is that I don’t think any of the ad campaigns really moved the social-networking needle. Though I missed part of the first quarter I didn’t see any ads that asked for an online audience interaction, which might have been fun. And the mobile game platforms, both NBC’s website broadcast and Verizon’s NFL Mobile app, were so far behind the live action they were useless as a “second screen” for viewers also watching the television.

A quick kudo to Twitter for not crashing in what was probably the most-active day ever on Twitter (which is kind of a meaningless stat since every big event for the foreseeable future will become “the biggest” as Twitter becomes more mainstream and adds more users). But I have to give a conditional “fail” to NBC’s online broadcast of the game, which was anywhere from three to four plays behind the live action, even showing commercials while the “real” game was live.

Though I understand why technically the online show might be slower, the wide gap made it impossible to keep the laptop (or tablet) open while watching the game on TV, eliminating the whole “second screen” thing that the online broadcast was supposed to enable. Plus I was underwhelmed by NBC’s multiple-choice camera views — they were uninteresting and pretty much blah compared to the rapid-fire screen switching you get from watching professional broadcasters produce a game live. So maybe that whole viewer-choosing-the-camera thing is overrated.

And Verizon’s NFL Mobile app, while glitch-free over in-house Wi-Fi and a 4G cellular signal, was still anywhere from 23 to 28 seconds behind the live action, also rendering it useless except maybe for trips to the bathroom. But with all the commercial breaks that’s hardly a concern during the Super Bowl. Maybe these alternative platforms will be more important for events with multiple things happening at once, like the Olympics or a golf tournament like the Masters. And maybe advertisers will become more bold and try more live interactive ads in the future. But for right now the “Social Super Bowl” didn’t live up to its advance billing.

UPDATE: As we thought, the Twitterers were out in force:

In the final three minutes of the Super Bowl tonight, there were an average of 10,000 Tweets per second.

February 5, 2012 8:43 pm via Twitter for iPhoneReplyRetweetFavorite
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Filed Under: Facebook, iPad, Live sports via mobile, NBC Sports, NFL, Super Bowl, Twitter, Wi-Fi Tagged With: , , , , , ,

NFL Stars Steven Jackson, Stevie Johnson Will ‘Hang Out’ On PlayUp for Super Bowl

February 3, 2012 by

Fan-interaction app PlayUp has recruited NFL stars Steven Jackson and Stevie Johnson to “hang out” during Sunday’s Super Bowl, when fans can message and follow the stars’ take on the big game between the New England Patriots and the New York Giants.

Rams running back Jackson, owner of seven straight 1,000-yard seasons, can be found Sunday on PlayUp under the username “sj39,” while Buffalo’s electric reciever Johnson can be found under the username “StevieJohnson13.” According to PlayUp, both players will create their own public virtual rooms in the PlayUp app to chat with fans, and will also visit other public virtual rooms to further interact with fans using PlayUp to chat, talk and share smack about the game.

“We are thrilled that both stars are choosing PlayUp to engage with passionate football fans over the Super Bowl,” said Dennis Lee, PlayUp USA CEO, in a statement. According to PlayUp, both players are already active in other social media forums: Jackson has more than 138,000 Twitter followers and almost 48,000 Facebook fans, while Johnson currently has more than 78,800 Twitter followers and 17,400 Facebook fans, according to PlayUp.

Filed Under: Apps, NFL, PlayUp, Super Bowl Tagged With: ,
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