Xbox One gets Fox Sports Go’s streaming app
Fox Sports Go is basically on every major streaming platform already, including Apple TV, Chromecast, Roku and Fire TV. And now you can add a gaming console to that list, with the app now available on the Xbox One. To give you a refresher, Fox Sports Go lets you watch live and on-demand videos from the NFL, MLB, NHL, UFC, NCAA football, UEFA Champions League and many more competitions. The only caveat is that you need a cable subscription to access it, but this shouldn’t come as a surprise — the cord-cutter life is rough.
Today’s announcement comes only a few weeks after Fox Sports Go launched on Chromecast, and right before that it was the Apple TV. It is, however, still missing from the PlayStation 4, though that may have something to do with Sony not wanting to overshadow its PS Vue offering.
Source: Fox Sports Go
MLB’s At Bat app now plays highlight videos on your lock screen
With iOS 10, Apple has expanded its devices’ 3D touch applications from gimmicky afterthoughts to quick feature accessibility. It’s also opened up what kind of interactions are possible from the lock screen. Some savvy developers have already combined the two, like those working on MLB’s official At Bat app. Its latest upgrade pops up videos as notifications on your locked screen, which play with just a bit of 3D touch pressure.
You’ll still have to unlock it to view them, but that’s easier than completely opening your device and go into the app to watch baseball clips. It’s a good example of the newfound freedom developers have with the latest iOS to add new functionality to existing concepts, like 3D touch and iMessage. While adding stickers to text conversations is an ignoble start, there’s a lot of functionality we’ve yet to see app makers take advantage of. But at least we have lock screen highlights for the lucky few among us whose teams will advance to the playoffs.
Via: The Verge
Source: MLB At Bat app (iTunes)
BMW partners with a Formula E racing team
BMW has already dabbled in Formula E between an i3 medical car and an i8 safety car, but it’s ready to commit to the electric racing league in a much bigger way. The German brand has unveiled plans to “cooperate closely” with the Andretti Formula E team over two seasons. It’s primarily promising engineering and resource sharing, but BMW has greater ambitions: it’s studying the methodology of the league to consider the possibility of “works involvement” (that is, direct operation of a team) in the 2018-2019 season.
Naturally, this isn’t just about getting the BMW roundel in front of more eyeballs. The company hopes that its racing and standard production groups will learn a thing or two from each other, shaping its long-term plans. It’s not hard to see what could happen from there — BMW could learn more about developing high-performance EVs and expand its eco-friendly lineup beyond a couple of niche models. Think of this team-up as a hint at the automaker’s long-term future.
Via: The Verge
Source: BMW
Japan’s LED basketball court looks like a Skrillex fever dream
Japan and high-tech go hand in hand, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that its newest basketball court follows that theme to a tee. The hardwood LED court surface is the world’s first to be used in professional league play, according to Japanese publication 47 News (Japanese). That makes it a bit different from Nike’s similar practice court in Shanghai from a few years back. As you can see from the tweets embedded below — spotted by Kotaku — the production is pretty nuts. Going all out for the halftime show might be expected, but even the pre-game run is crazy, with pyro, strobe lights and more. Good game, Yoyogi National Gymnasium.
コートがLEDになっとる！ pic.twitter.com/j9k6W06oga
— 井手康博（ニューワールド） (@yasuide) September 22, 2016
超満員のBリーグ開幕戦、演出とLEDコートがとにかくすごい。
こんな環境でバスケの試合が行われてるのを観れて嬉しい🙌#Bリーグ #開幕戦 pic.twitter.com/uFuT26bYtW— Kento (@kentobento77) September 22, 2016
LEDビジョンコートやばすぎww pic.twitter.com/OvuHwLh0FL
— しゅう (@baskeone1) September 22, 2016
Via: Kotaku
Source: 47News (Japanese)
WatchESPN’s live and on-demand streaming arrives on PS4
Rejoice, sports and console gaming fans: ESPN’s self-titled streaming app WatchESPN is now available on the PlayStation 4. According to the network, subscribers can now access ESPN’s live and on-demand content on every major streaming device, and non-subscribers can use the app to browse short-form clips and highlights. So now you can switch between a heated game of Call of Duty and the drone racing championships without putting down your DualShock 4.
“Gaming consoles have historically attracted significant engagement in minutes consumed for WatchESPN,” ESPN/Disney Senio VP Sean Breen said in a statement, “and with today’s launch, the app increases its distribution footprint to reach fans on the most widely adopted platforms.”
Unfortunately for cord-cutters, users will still need a cable subscription to access the majority of ESPN’s streaming content, but those with an authenticated subscription will have access to all of ESPN’s subsidiaries including ESPNEWS, ESPN Deportes, SEC Network, ESPN Goal Line and more.
While WatchESPN is also available for computers, smartphones and tablets, users on older PlayStaion consoles will have to wait a bit longer for a PS3 version of the app. That said, ESPN promises it will arrive “in time for the remainder of the college football season.”
Source: ESPN
Dutch sports authority may track hooligans by fingerprint, GPS
When football fans get violent and charged with “hooliganism,” they wind up getting prohibited from their team stadiums for a time to prevent more mayhem. But the current system of manually checking these blocked citizens in on game day is cumbersome. To counter that, the Netherlands’ governing football association KNVB will roll out a device soon that tracks banned fans using GPS and biometrics. While it could be a technologically convenient for offenders and authorities, it’s a solution with privacy concerns.
The phone-size device is supposedly simple to use: Offenders simply put their finger on its scanner, and its internal GPS makes sure they’re nowhere near the stadium during a match. Banned fans have to ensure it’s charged and check in when prompted before, during, and after the match. But it’s seemingly easier on everybody than what’s used now: Forcing them to sign in at police stations, which takes time and manpower.
The KNVB has already tested the device at two football clubs, with positive results. No wonder: Fans who volunteered had their bans shortened by two months. When it might be fully rolled out is unclear, as they are still in discussions with teams and authorities.
What’s still up for debate is where to store all that biometric and GPS data. According to G4S, the security firm that built the devices, the fingerprint itself isn’t transmitted elsewhere and stays on it. It only checks whether a person is inside the designated area (in this case, around a football stadium), which is sent on to a public prosecutor in charge of the offender.
The technology is there, says the KNVB, but they have still yet to reach agreement with the government. Instead, national authorities would prefer to leave it as a local decision between football clubs and local police, the Ministry of Security and Justice told Vice sports in an email.
Source: VICE Sports
ESPN will air a drone race series starting October 23rd
ESPN’s first experiment with drone racing coverage must have been successful, as it’s committing to robotic sports in a big way. The TV network has unveiled a multi-year broadcasting deal with the Drone Racing League that will have both ESPN and ESPN2 airing races in the Americas, starting with the 2016 season. The series broadcast kicks off on October 23rd at 9PM, and will spread five races over the course of 10 episodes. It all comes to a head with two DRL World Championship episodes on November 20th.
Drone racing TV is crossing the Atlantic, too. Sky has landed its own deal that will bring DRL competitions to TV this fall through the Sky Sports Mix channel, with a race coming to London in 2017. Austrian, German and Swiss fans will want to either tune into 7Sports’ channels or attend the first-ever DRL event in Germany next year. All told, drone races are about to get much more exposure — they’re not truly mainstream, but they’re getting much closer.
Source: DRL (PR Newswire), ESPN MediaZone
Twitter counted over 2 million viewers for Thursday Night Football
Twitter’s first big splash in TV arrived with last night’s NFL simulcast, and now the numbers are in. According to the stats, the livestream averaged some 243,000 viewers that it says watched an average 22 minutes of action, with 2.3 million people watching at least 3 seconds of the game or pregame show. Despite being mostly well received by viewers, those numbers are quite a bit lower than the 2.36 million average / 15.2 million unique Yahoo noted for its stream of a London NFL game last year.
This Jets/Bills game was also a national simulcast on CBS and NFL Network, with a viewing audience across platforms that had an average audience minute basis of 15.7 million. Another difference is that Yahoo had a number of international viewers, and featured the game on its homepage which still gets a lot of traffic.
Oh hey, how’s the #TNF Twitter livestreaming goin… dammithttps://t.co/QKDpn8nAgP pic.twitter.com/RkmbvJ9KFf
— Richard Lawler (@rjcc) September 15, 2016
I checked out the stream last night and found it on point in terms of the technology. Twitter relied on Bam Tech (formerly MLBAM) for a stream that was high quality and didn’t drop, although it was anywhere from 30 seconds to a minute or so behind the TV broadcast. I had trouble starting the Twitter app on Xbox One, but on Apple TV it worked reliably, and displayed the Tweets next to the broadcast, mostly filtering out any trollish or unrelated #TNF conversation.
Thanks for watching #TNF LIVE on Twitter! Catch the @Patriots vs. @HoustonTexans next Thursday right here 👇 https://t.co/eCsgy1y604
— Twitter (@twitter) September 16, 2016
Twitter proved itself as a capable platform for distributing this type of media, however at least from my view, it didn’t do enough to make the conversation a part of the experience. The tweets didn’t bring much more to the game than watching with my phone or laptop, and most people weren’t really replying to or reading one another. It did help make viewing at home seem more lively, and the company has nine more games this season to figure out what works and what doesn’t.
it doesn’t seem like anyone’s actually reading or interacting with the Twitter stream. Although, it makes viewing more “live.”
— Richard Lawler (@rjcc) September 16, 2016
We’ve seen plenty of smart TVs try to build in Twitter integration and fail, as well as apps that tried to bring social aspects to TV. Since Twitter already has the audience, it’s a natural fit for hosting broadcasts, but it still has to prove that people will come to Twitter to watch and engage at a higher level than they would on other platforms. Facebook apparently turned down the streaming package, while trying a different approach to pump up sports talk on the platform. Real-time conversation around TV broadcasts is coming, but it’s still hard to see exactly what that will look like.
Source: NFL, CBS Press Express
VR documentary puts you inside the 2016 NBA Finals
The National Basketball Association began experimenting with virtual reality last year, when it used the medium to stream the first game of its 2015 season. Now, the league has teamed up with Oculus on a VR documentary about last year’s championship matchup, between the Golden State Warriors and Cleveland Cavaliers. Titled Follow my Lead: The Story of the 2016 NBA Finals, this 360-degree video experience aims to take you where traditional TV can’t, giving you a first-person look at the action on and off the court.
The 25-minute story, created by Brooklyn-based production company m ss ng p ecess (“missing pieces,” get it?), is narrated by actor Michael B Jordan (Friday Night Lights, Creed). And it doesn’t just focus on Game 7, which Cleveland won at Oracle Arena in Oakland, but rather the entire series. I had the chance to check it out and walked away fairly impressed. The best part about it is that, unlike watching a film on my TV or phone, the VR headset gave me the option to explore and focus on whatever I wanted to.
I spent most of the time paying attention to highlights of the basketball games, but it was nice to also be able to spin my head and watch how fans in the arena celebrated a LeBron James dunk. In general, though, that’s the beauty about virtual reality experiences — they’re different for everyone. Here’s a perfect example of the value of this kind of storytelling: remember that cameraman who, during Game 6, fell down as he followed LeBron to the locker room? Well, here you can see it actually happening, whereas on TV you only knew because of the botched camera shot.
So whether you want to see crowd reactions or something else entirely, chances are your experience won’t be the same as mine. At first, I was worried about the length of the documentary, thinking by the end of it I would have a massive headache. You know, after “coming back.” But, thankfully, that wasn’t the case. If you have a Samsung Gear VR headset, you too can watch Follow my Lead: The Story of the 2016 NBA Finals starting today. Better yet, it’s a free download from the Oculus Store.
Twitter comes to the Xbox One, Apple and Amazon TV boxes
Much like Shia LaBoeuf declaring that he isn’t famous anymore, Twitter is now out and proud about not being a social network. No, instead, Twitter is now a broadcasting platform, which means that it needs to put itself in the sort of places you use to watch TV. That’s why the company has announced that it’s launching apps for Apple TV, Amazon’s Fire TV and Microsoft’s Xbox One. It’ll be on these that you can watch some of the new video content that’s coming to the service, including Thursday Night Football.
Twitter isn’t just for NFL nuts, and has signed deals with other sports outfits including MLB Advanced Media and Pac-12, which covers college sports. If you’re more into current affairs, then you’ll be able to view footage from Bloomberg News and tech/finance/video for millennials startup Cheddar — which does two shows a day from the floor of the NYSE. Twitter’s ace up its sleeve is that it also has video platforms of its own: Vine for edited comedy clips and Periscope for live events.
In addition, those using the app on Apple TV are entitled to watch video and have Twitter’s video clip service running alongside. At least, that’s how the release reads, although it’s not clear why people would necessarily want to be distracted from gripping sports events with Harambe vines. What’s more valuable is that Twitter will offer-up a commentary overlay from members of the public that’ll run alongside live events. Company CFO Anthony Noto is quoted as saying that “Twitter has always been a great complement to TV, and now fans can enjoy even more premium video with live Tweets.”
Back in the day, there was an online service called Zeebox that took Twitter’s social component and used it exclusively for adding commentary to live TV. Twitter (and broadcasters) would eventually cotton onto the same idea, turning the service into a real-world peanut gallery that went alongside big name reality shows. But being the most beautifully created peanut gallery doesn’t earn you much money — which is why Zeebox transformed into a beauty blog called Beamly and then became a marketing agency.
Twitter needs to get more eyeballs pointing at its product, because it’s got something of a user growth problem. It has a core audience of passionate tweeters, but that appeal hasn’t translated across to the broader mainstream. Its monthly active user count has remained roughly stable at just over 300 million, putting it well behind services like Snapchat, Instagram and Facebook. Wall street has often punished Twitter for not being as popular as its rivals, even though Twitter’s cult appeal deserves preserving.
Live video, especially sports video, could be the magic bullet that Twitter needs both to invigorate its user base and broaden its appeal. It’s not the only tech firm that’s come to this conclusion, with Amazon reportedly ramping up its interest in bringing sports to Prime. Twitter will also have to fight with Facebook, which considered buying those same Thursday Night Football rights and is also making forays into live sports. Unlike those other companies, however, Twitter doesn’t have a huge war chest that could be used to buy such rights. But given that the big networks can earn up to 21 million viewers for a single game, it may be worth the risk.
Of course, Shia LaBoeuf’s still famous and Twitter’s still a social network, albeit one which is attempting to be many different things to different people. That’s why, in addition to making a big push into broadcast video, it’s encouraging people to come to Periscope with notifications and turning DMs into a WhatsApp-esque chat service. The company is also hoping to make some sort of progress in counting its toxic atmosphere through algorithmic-based abuse removal.
The new apps are launching today, with each platform offering a slightly different global footprint. Twitter for Apple TV is launching wherever you can purchase the device, while the Fire TV edition is only available in the US and UK. If you’re a rocking an Xbox One, you’ll be able to get at the goodies in the US, UK, Australia, Brazil and Mexico.
AIVAnet 