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In Time for the Masters: Garmin’s S3 Golf Watch

April 3, 2012 by

OK, so you are not playing the course but Garmin International has timed the release of its latest golf watch, the Approach S3 a touchscreen golf watch, to capitalize on the desire to golf that the Masters Tournament seems to inspire in players year after year.

The sleek looking entrant comes at a time when golf watches are increasingly adding a host of features that just a few years ago golfers would have given their pitching wedge for and this offering shines with the best of the them from the looks of it.

The Approach S3 touchscreen GPS golf watch comes with 27,000 courses from around the globe preloaded so that walking onto a new course a golfer always has information at their fingertips. There is no fee or subscription for this feature and it includes course updates as they are available.

One of the overriding uses for the watch is as a virtual caddie and it has a host of features that help a golfer from a downloadable scorecard to a round timer for slower players to more specialized features. One of these is called Green View that shows the shape and layout of the greens, with the ability for the user to drag the pin to match that day’s location.

Other key capabilities include Layup Distances that include distances needed for doglegs and hazards; Precise Yardage for front, middle and back of green distances; and it has the ability to measure shot distances.

The watch is waterproof, which s good if your game resembles mine, and it supports an 8 hour charge for game play but four days as an everyday watch. A small charging cradle is included. The Approach S3 is expected to be available in April 2012 and will have a suggested retail price of $349.99.

The release is two weeks or so after Motorola Mobility released the next generation of its MotoActv family with a golf edition watch, the MotoActv Golf Edition. However Garmin has been in this game for a while and has a well respected track record so Motorola and others that are entering the field will need to show that they are not just as good as Garmin but have features that will differentiate their offerings.

I expect that with the increasing ability to cram a huge about of data into a small form factor such as a watch the features in this space will likely continue to grow, something that will put pressure on developers but will likely make the chance of breaking par a bit easier- if only you can get that hitch out of your swing.

Filed Under: Garmin, Golf, Motorola, The Masters Tagged With: , , ,

Mobile Sports Report TechWatch: BlackBerry still in the Red

April 2, 2012 by

Research in Motion has revealed in its quarterly earnings call that revenue for its current quarter was down 19%, $4.2 billion compared to $5.2 billion in the previous quarter, for a net loss of $125 million. The results that have resulted in a management shift and a change on corporate focus. For the quarter the company shipped approximately 11.1 million BlackBerry phones and 500,000 tablets.

Out is former co-CEO Jim Balsille who has resigned from the board of directors. Also gone are COO of Global Operations Jim Rowan and CTO David Yach. This coincides with a much stronger emphasis on developing and delivering products focused on the needs of the coporate IT department and the corporate user.

So security, reliability, manageability and messaging services will be the keywords going forward as it seeks to leverage what it views are corporate strengths-enterprise services and devices that handle them. On the flip side areas such as consumer oriented capabilities such as media consumption will be placed on a backburner.

The key to all of this, and for the company to successfully rebound, will hinge on the BlackBerry 10 launch, executives said. The release is due at some point later this year and will finally give the company a high end smartphone to compete with the Android and Apple devices that are already so prevalent. It has been working hard to develop a strong app ecosystem as well.

Nano-SIM standard vote delayed
The European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) after dueling proposals caused a rift. On one side is Apple, and select allies, and on the other is Nokia, Research in Motion and Motorola Mobility. TechWorld reports that a vote was scheduled last week but was postponed for at least a month due to strong differences between the two camps. The purpose is to develop a new, smaller form factor SIM card, officially called 4FF or fourth form factor.

Slow Tablet sales not Google’s fault?
An interesting piece from the good folks at The Motley Fool, or at least from Evan Niu, ponders why Google has not been able to transfer its tremendous success with its Android operating system in the smartphone market to the Tablet market. There are a variety of reasons mentioned but much of it boils down to the fact that many of the apps are simply slightly altered smartphone apps. It then ponders how Microsoft will do when it makes its big splash with its Windows 8 OS.

Google to sell self-labeled tablets?
An interesting sidebar to the while Android tablets are not doing well is the current rumors that not only will Google sell its own line of tablets, but will do so from its own store. Originally reported by the Wall Street Journal, the story is that Google will turn to partners, possibly Samsung and Asus to build tablets that Google will then sell under its own label.

In addition to selling under its own label it will also be selling them direct, much like Amazon does with its Kindle offerings and Apple with its iTunes store, among others. It is also expected to subsidize the cost of the tablet, a move that could alienate some of its hardware OEMs.

Google has already gone down the co-branding path once with HTC Nexus One a few years ago. Know anybody that has one? Well Google execs have said that the company plans to double down on Android tablets this year so it will be an interesting time. According to eWeek Google admitted that it has 300 million Android smartphones but only 12 million tablets in customers’ hands.

EU antitrust about to step in on Apple/Motorola Mobility/Microsoft patent issue?
Reuters is reporting that the head of the EU’s antitrust agency said that the group is considering opening an investigation into the patent disputes that are ongoing between Apple, Microsoft and Motorola Mobility.

While the EU has given the Motorola/Google $12.5 billion purchase a thumbs up it also said that it retained the right to investigate ongoing issues including the patent problems that have been a source of considerable litigation.

The group is already investigating if Samsung’s tactics in this area against Apple are a violation of EU antitrust rules. Google has said that it will offer Motorola patents on fair and reasonable terms once the deal is completed.


More Money = Less Entertainment apps on phones
The research firm The Luxury Group has done a study that shows that the wealthier an owner of a smartphone is the less likely to use it to play games or send tweets. It studied app usage among wealthy consumers, ones with income over $150,000.

The news is not really that startling as the users that fell into this area tended to have families and demanding jobs and tended to select apps that met those needs rather than ones for personal entertainment. Still it is sad on which side of this discussion I fall.

Hi-Tech a boon to local bookies
Automation has led to efficiency in so many areas since the days of Henry Ford, and now it looks like local bookies are getting in on the action, according to the New York Times. Rather than stand on street corners singing ‘Luck be a lady tonight’ all they need do these day is set up a web site, post odds and then direct the locals to it to place bets. Must make it real easy at tax time to see what you owe the government, and yes I know that is not where the song was sung in the movie.

Filed Under: Amazon, Android, Apple, Apps, Asus, BlackBerry, Google, iPad, Kindle, Lawsuit, Research in Morion, Samsung, Smartphone, Tablets, The New York Times, Wall Street Journal Tagged With: , , , ,

Friday Grab Bag — Come for the Red Sox Game, Stay for the Bootmobile

March 30, 2012 by

For Red Sox Fans & L.L Bean Aficionados: Two venerable institutions are celebrating their 100th Anniversaries this year and what could be more natural than L.L. Bean teaming up with Fenway Park to celebrate that event? A lot you say, well quiet down.

Of the most interest to the average fan I believe will be the display of a large and unique collection of baseball artifacts that were collected by the founder of L.L. Bean, including letters between Leon Leonwood Bean and Babe Ruth and Ted Williams.

The L.L Bean Bootmobile will kick off the festivities when it drops by Fenway for the 2012 Season Opener, prior to the Bootmobile leaving on the 2012 Bootmobile Tour. It will be your chance to get your photo taken with the iconic vehicle, I kid thee not. There will also be ticket giveaways and a variety of other events centered on the joint anniversary.

Want to develop for the Windows Phone? There is AppCampus!
Of course it might help to speak Finnish. Microsoft has teamed with its partner Nokia and to continue their strong push of the Windows Phone platform with the creation of AppCampus, a venture that is designed to fuel development of apps for the platform.

The effort will be managed by a third partner, Aalto University School of Science and Technology, which was formed in 2010 in Helsinki with the merging of The Helsinki School of Economics, Helsinki University of Technology and The University of Art and Design Helsinki.

The three year venture, which will see Nokia and Microsoft invest approximately $24 million, seeks to garner thousands of applicants developing along a range of mobile apps. Aside from Windows development the effort will also encompass development for Nokia’s Symbian operating system.

Miss your Android apps on your PC? Look for that to end
BlueStacks, a developer of technology that is designed to allow Android apps to play on a PC has released the beta-1 version of its technology that should enable that feature. Called the App Player, the release is the second from the company.

A quick visit to its site confounded me on more information since it had a hot button to download the app but none to give me general information about the program, such as minimum system requirements etc… Maybe I just looked in the wrong place, would not be the first time.

According to PCWorld the app emulator runs on Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7 and enables you to use apps from a variety of Android app sites and run them on your PC, which would be cool, and lead to an even greater loss of productivity on my part. In the future the company is reportedly aiming at also allowing Macintosh users to play Android games. I wonder what Apple will try and do about that?

The Patent Wars
TiVo sues Time Warner & Motorola Mobility
TiVo, not wanting to be left on the sidelines in all of the lawsuit fun after ending a suit against Microsoft that apparently ended in a draw has filed a lawsuit against Motorola Mobility and Time Warner Cable, Venture Beat has reported.

The company is an experienced hand at this game, and a successful one, winning or resolving cases against several foes in the past including a deal that called for AT&T to pay the company at least $215 million. It also has a suit pending against Verizon.

In the most recent case TiVo is claiming that the two companies are violating three of its patents including ones that cover “multimedia time warping system,” and “system for time shifting multimedia content streams.” I do not envy the judge or jury in these cases.

Dell kills smartphone development — for now
Dell is once again rethinking its mobile strategy and this time I is its smartphone effort that is on the chopping block. It has already killed its tablet offerings, although the company is expected to return with a Windows-based offering by year end.

The company is killing in the United States its Venue Pro which runs a Microsoft OS and its Venue line that runs Android operating systems. It said that it will continue to sell the phones in Europe. The company did indicate that it intends to return to the U.S. market with new products at some point in the future.

FTC looking at establishing a “Do Not Track” option for consumers
The Federal Trade Commission has said that it is developing a “Do Not Track” option for consumer data and that the agency will seek to encourage the industry to adopt this as a standard feature that companies will be encouraged to adopt across the board.

At the same time it has indicated that it would like Congress to enact a law that would allow consumers access to the data that has been collected on them, much the way that you can access your financial standings.

Will this kill Facebook and Google? I am being facetious but they are top data harvesters, but I imagine they will simply provide an option to opt out and many, possibly most will not. Of more real interest to me is when I start hearing from sites I did not know where tracking me. I wonder what this will mean for the cookies market, if anything- any ideas?

NFL passes new rule changes
I sort of tune out the NFL right after the Super Bowl hype dies down. Sure there is free agency signings but it takes a while for the dust to settle and you can get a feel for how your team was helped or harmed. Possible aside from the Jets this year.

So while I knew that the NFL had changed some rules I did not realize that they changed 5 and that at least one more may be altered before all is said and done. Some of the changes were no-brainers like making the overtime rules the same in regular and post season and making the 12th man n the field penalty a dead ball foul.

The other moves include having Replay Officials initiate reviews on some types of turnovers, adding the recipient of a crack back block being added to the growing list of defenseless players and adding loss of down to kicking a loose ball. Was the last one really screaming to be added? There were a couple that was not approved as well, but it is still early in the offseason. Head over to SB Nation for a look at what did and did not pass.

Filed Under: Android, Apps, Baseball, Boston Red Sox, Dell, FTC, Microsoft, NFL, PCWorld, SB Nation, Smartphone, Tablets Tagged With: , , , , ,

Verizon Updates IndyCar App

March 23, 2012 by

Verizon Wireless announced an update to its exclusive IndyCar Mobile app, which gives Verizon subscribers with Apple iOs devices or Android devices the ability to now watch races live from the driver’s viewpoint, or to see a live view of the track and where racers are, among other features.

The new app has a long list of features, but here are the ones we like best: the ability to “see the real-time position of every car across the track during every race,” and to “watch the race from the driver’s seat and see the intensity first hand.” The driver’s view screen could be a great “second screen” app to fans watching the races live on TV.

Free to Verizon subscribers with qualifying high-end phones or tablets, the IndyCar Mobile 3.0 app is available for download now, in advance of the IndyCar season opening race Sunday in St. Petersburg, Fla. As usual, any data downloads you incur will count against your monthly data package. To see the official press release go here, or you can get more info from the Verizon promotion page. Official download instructions are:

To download the latest version of INDYCAR Mobile, customers with an active data plan on their Android or iOS devices can dial “**INDY (**4639).” Customers with Android tablets such as the Motorola XOOM™, DROID XYBOARD tablets by Motorola or the Samsung Galaxy Tab™ 10.1 or 7.7 can search for “Indycar” in the Google Play Store (formerly known as Android Market™).

Filed Under: 4G LTE, Indy 500, Verizon Wireless Tagged With: , , , , ,

Friday Grab Bag: Global Signs 5 More NFL Teams to iPad Program

March 23, 2012 by


Velocomp’s iBike Coach App has won the Communication Arts Magazine’s 18th Annual Interactive Award in the Information Design category. The app enables an iPhone user to convert the phone into a multifunctional training tool.

The phone becomes a GPS-based bike computer that enables a user to not only track cycling speed, distance, and time, but also includes social media features, videos, and maps, as well as access to music and the phone capabilities of the device.

The app was only just released and was a winner in a contest that drew a total of 1,194 entries. It is available for download at the Apple iTunes store.

Apple develops new SIM — will others support it?
Apple has proposed a new SIM card technology for adoption by the mobile industry but it will be interesting to see how, if at all, the mobile industry adopts a technology that would push out their competing efforts

The new technology is called a nano-SIM and is smaller than the micro-SIMs that is common in current cell phones. This one will have increased functionality as well as the tradition job of holding a users personal information such as contacts and phone number.

That sounds great until you consider that Motorola Mobility, Nokia and Research in Motion all have rival efforts. However Apple has presented it to the European Telecommunications Standards Institute to get accepted as a standard and has some carrier support. It will be interesting to watch this fight.

Toshiba provides peek at 13-inch tablet
Toshiba has provided a peak at its next generation large screen tablet, and yes it will be large with a 13.3-inch form factor. The prototype, going by the name AT330 has an Nvidia Tegra quad core processor, 32GB of storage, a full sized SIM card slot and it has an HDMI connector. It may have a high end 1920 x 1200 LCD panel but that is unsure at this time.


Facebook bolsters patent defense with IBM patent purchase
Bloomberg is reporting that Facebook has purchased 750 patents in areas such as networking from IBM as part of an effort to strengthen its position in its looming case with Yahoo. Yahoo has sued Facebook over the alleged misappropriation of Yahoo patents by the social media giant.

NFL use of iPad continues to grow
Global Apptitude has added five NFL franchises to its list of customers for its Playbook for iPad technology. The company has announced that the Dallas Cowboys, St. Louis Rams, Seattle Seahawks, Indianapolis Colts, and Detroit Lions for their Playbook for iPad and other related player development tools.

Global is adding content to its Playbook series which are designed to be used as player preparation tools and said it expects to sign additional teams in the near future.

The iPad has also been a hit with other major league sports teams including most recently Major League Baseball, with team executives, players and scouts all using the tablet for a variety of reasons.

Ads a threat to your data?
A report from North Carolina State University casts additional concern about the security of the data stored in your Android phone. Researchers at the school have found that adverts, those annoying in game or application apps that are often the price to pay for free apps. They found that one example, MobClix, a 3rd party ad exchange company gains access to calendaring, contacts and call logs. These programs get permission when you provide permission to their host app.

Ematic delivers sports focused MPS/Video player
Ematic has delivered the eSport Clip, a small formfactor portanble media player that is designed for the active lifestyle. The eSports Clip features a 4GB of storage and has the ability to play MP3 files ad well as play back video.

The 1.8-inch device easily clips to clothing and it can store as much as 3200 songs or 20 hours of video for playback on its color display. It includes a 5MP Digital Camera and comes with a video and voice recorder.

China delays Motorola/Google deal approval
Motorola Mobility has reported that China has extended its examination of the proposed $12.5 billion purchase of the company by Google. It reported in a regulatory filing that China’s Anti-Monopoly Bureau has expanded the second phase of its investigation.

This is one of the last regulatory approvals needed for the deal to be finalized, with it having already gained approval around the globe including in the United States and in Europe. There has been no reason given for the extension of the investigation.

Are Kindle sales falling?
Chad Bartley, an analyst with Pacific Crest has said that the company believes that sales of Amazon’s Kindle “is significantly weaker than expected” in the first quarter. He reported that Amazon has slashed component orders by 75% from levels in January.

He attributed the decline to slower adoption as well as market cannibalization caused by the Kindle Fire. The Kindle family is the second most popular tablet, after Apple’s iPad.

Apple loses Android info motion
Judge Richard Posner has denied Apple’s request to have Google and Motorola Mobility hand over information on the development of Android.

Filed Under: Android, Apple, Apps, Baseball, Cycling, Google, iBike, iPad, Major League Baseball, NFL, Tablets Tagged With: , , , ,

Mobile Sports Report TechWatch: Mostly Apple Edition

March 19, 2012 by

Flush from releasing its latest iPad, its stock price hovering near $600 and with billions in cash in the bank, Apple has announced plans to launch a dividend and share repurchasing program. The two programs will result in the company spending approximately $45 billion in three years.

The plan calls for Apple to spend $10 billion in a share repurchase program that will begin in September 30, 2012. Its goal is to help neutralize the impact of dilution from future employee equity grants and employee stock purchase programs. This program has already been approved by the company’s Board of Directors.

The second program calls for a quarterly dividend of $2.65 per share sometime in the fourth quarter of its fiscal 2012, which begins on July 1, 2012. This is still pending approval by Apple’s BoD.

Apple loses key ITC ruling
After a strong winning streak in its patent battles Apple is starting to lose a few again. The latest comes with an Administration Law Judge at the International Trade Commission ruling that Motorola Mobility did not infringe on three Apple patents. Apple had appealed an earlier ruling on the topic, and will now likely take the issue to court, so it is far from over.

Conde Nast to give advertisers viewer data
Conde Nast is finally relating the information it has been harvesting from readers of its iPad edition of its magazines. For the last 2 years a variety of its publications have been available on the tablets and I has been tracking a variety of information including basic data such as how many readers it has, the breakdown between paid and single issue sales and how long readers view articles and ads.

I would love to hear what some of this information and home the publisher will reveal some details to the public about what impact tablets have had on its business model, both pro and con. Publishers will start receiving data on specific issues 10 weeks after it hits the stands.

Windows 8 Tablets on the Horizon.
There seems to be a lot of breathless talk that when Windows 8 is released a slew of tablets will be released and crush Apple’s iPad, returning the tablet market to the righteous. Who cares? I hope that the tablets are good and have the options I want, not how they compare to Apple. But I digress.

There is a lot of talk about who is going to have tablets when Windows 8 is available, and a list of probables and a few features is included in this piece by the International Business Times. No real surprises, Hewlett-Packard, Nokia, Dell and some others but worth a look so you have an idea of what is on the way.

Kindle and Nook in for a fight from new Nexus tablet?
The site Android and Me is reporting that a Nexus tablet from ASUS is a done deal and expects that the tablet will come in at a very nice $149. It is reporting that Google has selected ASUS to produce the next generation Nexus tablet and that it will have a 7-inch form factor and that all other details are unknown at this time.

However this will go directly against the two popular e-readers out there, from Amazon and Barnes & Noble, which currently are the second and fourth most popular selling tablets. A good price war is always popular with consumers and I am looking forward to what they do if this turns out to be true.

Americans willing to pay for tablet content aside for news
A recent Nielsen study on tablet content purchases found some interesting facts about European and American users. Americans are willing to pay for almost all types of content, with 62% having purchased music, 58% purchased books and 51% have purchased movies, but only 19% paid for news.

That is not too far out of line with the European countries surveyed about news, aside from Italy which had 44% purchasing news content. The Europeans showed they were much less likely to buy books, movies and music than Americans.

Filed Under: Amazon, Android, Apple, Apps, Barnes & Noble, Dell, Google, iPad, Kindle, Lenovo, Motorola, Nielsen Ratings, Tablets Tagged With: , , ,
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