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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: , , ,

Garmin Connects Athletes with Ant +

January 17, 2012 by

Looking at the growing number of fitness devices available there is a thread that is increasingly running through all of them, they feature a low powered wireless technology called Ant + from Ant Wireless, that enables the athletes and others to get real time feedback from sensors such as heart rate monitors.

It is no real surprise that the technology has caught on in the market; it was designed specifically for this use by Dynastream Innovations to provide feedback from its power meters. When Garmin purchased the company in 2006 it took Ant + to a much wider market.

A look at Garmin products shows a strong presence of the technology, but it has also become firmly entrenched as a standard technology in a wide range of products from other developers in the sports market with support from an estimated 25 million devices.

The growing importance of the technology can be seen in one of its most recent partners, Sony Ericsson, which has a family of Ant + enabled phones including two that were announced earlier this month. Both the Xperia S and the Xperia ion will have native support for the wireless technology when they are released later in the first half of 2012.

Using one of these phones, which include a feature that enables the user to be always connected to the Internet a serious athlete can not only check their vital signs but have a remote trainer also get the data and so be in a position to provide important feedback. You can use Ant + with other phones but need a dongle.

At the recent CES show there was a range of fitness developers showing technology in the Ant + booth aside from Garmin. 4iiii, a developer of audio and display feedback systems incorporates it, no real surprise since 4iiii CEO Kip Fyfe was CEO of Dynastream when it developed the technology and sold it to Garmin.

Others in the fitness space that use the technology include Wahoo Fitness, Pioneer, Garmin, Nordic,CardioSport, and Fatigue Science to name a few partners.

Not just for sports
ANT+ has gained widespread adoption as the interoperable standard in ultra low power wireless communication in sports but also as a technology that is gaining ground in medical applications. It was recently adopted by Qualcomm Life’s 2net hub technology that is designed to provide wireless communications between medical devices.

There are other medical users such as Dexcom, a company that develops glucose monitoring systems and A&D Medical which develops wireless blood pressure monitors and other equipment. There are also companies developing games, bridges and hubs and other mobile applications that use the technology.

The technology is a 2.4GHz wireless network protocol and is used in wireless sensor networks that require low cost, low power, small form factor and flexibility such as being able to form ad hoc mesh networks. The devices that feature the technology have a small battery that can provide years of operational life.

It is interesting how well this, a privately developed technology has found acceptance while rival technologies such as ZigBee seemed to have struggle to find a niche, while offering much the same features.

Filed Under: Android, Apps, Cycling, iPhone, Live sports via mobile, Smartphone, Sony Ericsson Tagged With: , , ,

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: , ,

Intel Aggressively Pushes Smartphone, Tablet Vision at CES

January 11, 2012 by

CEO Paul Otellini brings out Lenovo, Motorola as first smartphone partners

Intel president and CEO Paul Otellini used his keynote speech at the International Consumer Electronics Show to roll out new partners, products and reference designs as the chip company ramps up an aggressive push into tablets, smartphones and ultrabooks.

Paul Otellini

While the company has been participating in all of these spaces, with varying degrees of success for years, this is one of the biggest concentrated pushes from the company and one that appears to be ready to bear some immediate fruit.

Smartphone partnerships
Two key players came on stage to show prototype smartphones that they said will be shipping later this year, possibly by the end of the summer, powered by the next generation Intel Atom processor Z2460 platform, formerly code-named “Medfield,” Atom processors.

The first on stage was Liu Jun, Lenovo senior vice president and president of Mobile Internet and Digital Home where he showed the pending Lenovo K800 smartphone, using the Atom processor. That will run the Android operating system. Expected to ship in the second quarter of this year the phone will run on China Unicom’s 21Mbs network and includes support for HSPA+ the Lenovo LeOS user interface for a localized experience in China.

The second is with Motorola Mobility and is a much more complex relationship. The two have amulti-year, multi-device strategic partnership that will also include tablets. Otellini said “Our long-term relationship with Motorola Mobility will help accelerate Intel architecture into new mobile market segments.”

Atom Processor Z2460

Motorola will be building Android devices using Intel’s Atom processors in both the smartphone and tablet space. The companies will collaborate across hardware, software and services, according to Sanjay Jha, chairman and CEO of Motorola Mobility.

Intel has made several products aimed at establishing itself as a provider of core technology in the cellular handset market over the last decade, with very poor results. However it has never had two major partners like Lenovo and Motorola not only on board but ready to ship products in the near future.

Strategic Reference Designs
Aside from the two key partners Intel has also delivered a pair of reference designs, one for tablets and one for smartphones, in order to help customers quickly build a phone that can also accept any innovation the partner may have internally.

The Intel Smartphone Reference Design features a 4.03-inch high-resolution LCD touch screen for crisp text and vibrant images, and two cameras delivering advanced imaging capabilities, including burst mode that allows individuals to capture 15 pictures in less than a second with 8-megapixel quality.

There is also a tablet reference design. A demonstration on stage had a Clover Trail processor running a tablet that had Microsoft’s Windows 8 operating system and Intel said that Clover Trail-based systems would support the Metro user interface from Microsoft as well as be compatible with millions of Windows applications.

Reference designs have long been a staple in Intel’s arsenal, providing a quick easy way for OEMs to enter a new or emerging space using Intel technology. The company faces an uphill climb in this market due to the firm establishment of ARM-based devices in the market already.

It appears that Intel’s long push for energy efficiency, and renewed push on advanced graphics will help it in this space but the battle here will be an interesting one, and one that for the most part Intel has lost the previous encounters.

Ultrabooks Galore
Ukltrabooks, for those that do not know, is a new and emerging class of notebook computers that closely resemble the shape and form factor of tablets but bring much more to the market. While smartphones, and phones in general, is a space Intel has struggled to enter and tablets are still a relatively new market, ultrabooks are right in the company’s wheelhouse.

The concept was introduced just over half a year ago and the company said that there are already 75 models in the pipeline, with virtually all of its major notebook partners involved. Dell showed one that it will be shipping next month, the new XPS 13, a sub-3lb system, that is less than half an inch think at its thinnest point and is powered by Intel’s i7 processor.

However Intel said that future ultrabooks will be powered by its future 22nm 3-D processor codenamed Ivy Bridge, due later this year. If you are wondering what advantage Intel gets by pushing processors down to smaller sizes, one is that they are faster because the signals have shorter distances to travel.

Intel showed a pair of prototypes on stage, one that really caught my eye was the one that allowed a user to flip the display over and turn it in to a tablet system. While I am sure this will not be for everyone I believe that people that need a full keyboard sometimes and want tablet functionality the rest this will be a strong selling point.

I will be very interested to come back to CES next year and see how well Intel has succeeded in getting the tablet and phone OEMs to adopt its technology. We will probably get a good feel for its acceptance later this year at the company’s annual developer forum.

Filed Under: Android, Apps, Lenovo, Motorola, Smartphone, Tablets Tagged With: , , , ,
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