Intel To Join The Android Wear Party With New Innovations In Wearables

Intel and wearables. Two names that you best get used to seeing together, as the aforementioned company is diving into the wearables sector in a major way. As part of the broader Android Wear rollout announced this week, Intel has made a point to emphasize its role in the coming explosion of wearables. The company has stated that it’s “excited to be a part of Android Wear,” which will bring a fork of Android to an entire sector that’s poised for huge growth in the years ahead.

Intel isn’t revealing any products just yet, but it — along with Broadcom, Mediatek, and Qualcomm — are going to be powering some of the products that you see emerge over the next while. Watches, head-worn devices, and items we haven’t yet conceived are likely going to be running atop of Google’s Android Wear platform, and Intel hopes to be the circuitry behind some of it. As desktop and laptop sales slow, Intel has a very real need to replace that revenue with new streams.

Breaking into the tablet, phone, and wearable sectors makes complete sense, but it remains to be seen what kind of margins exist for wearables. At any rate, it’s great to see a name like Intel pushing the sector as a whole forward. For any serious innovation to occur, we’re going to need broad, industry-wide recognition of a movement. With wearables, we’re certainly seeing it.

Intel isn’t revealing any products just yet, but it — along with Broadcom, Mediatek, and Qualcomm — are going to be powering some of the products that you see emerge over the next while. Watches, head-worn devices, and items we haven’t yet conceived are likely going to be running atop of Google’s Android Wear platform, and Intel hopes to be the circuitry behind some of it. As desktop and laptop sales slow, Intel has a very real need to replace that revenue with new streams.

Breaking into the tablet, phone, and wearable sectors makes complete sense, but it remains to be seen what kind of margins exist for wearables. At any rate, it’s great to see a name like Intel pushing the sector as a whole forward. For any serious innovation to occur, we’re going to need broad, industry-wide recognition of a movement. With wearables, we’re certainly seeing it.

Source: Hot Hardware

MLB and Qualcomm Team Up to Improve Wireless Connectivity in Stadiums

In a few years, Major League Baseball stadiums could have some of the strongest cellular connectivity around. Qualcomm is working with MLB Advanced Media, the technology focused partnership of club owners, to plan and optimize mobile connectivity in the 30 club ballparks. Qualcomm is focusing on Wi-Fi, 3G, and 4G access (although it’s unclear whether this will be HSPA+ or true LTE), which MLB Advanced Media intends to use to provide fans in the crowd with digital content to accompany the game.

Surveying of the ballparks will take place over the next two years, but that will only be the planning phase of MLB Advanced Media’s connectivity enhancement efforts. Qualcomm will ultimately recommend a course of action for best implementing thorough connectivity in each park. Though the timeline won’t have this completed until at least 2015, MLB has been quick to adopt mobile connectivity in other areas. In January, the MLB announced a partnership with T-Mobile to move its bullpen-to-dugout connectivity from landlines to cellphones this year. Of course, it’ll take more than that to outdo the high-tech infrastructure of the Barclays Center, one of the most technologically impressive stadiums in sports.

Source: The Verge