NBA gives casual fans and armchair GMs access to the league's entire statistical history

HOUSTON and NEWTOWN SQUARE, Pa., Feb. 15, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- The National Basketball Association (NBA) and SAP AG (NYSE: SAP) today announced the launch of NBA.com/Stats, a new unprecedented statistical destination on NBA.com providing fans with interactive access to unlimited amounts of official NBA statistics and analysis.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20110126/AQ34470LOGO)

Powered by the real-time SAP HANA® platform and free to all fans and media, the NBA's unparalleled statistical offering will feature the league's entire official statistics history, previously only available to league and NBA team personnel, including:

Every NBA Box Score: Dating back to the inaugural 1946-47 season, every NBA box score will be available including memorable games such as Wilt Chamberlain's 100-point game in 1962 and Kobe Bryant's 81-point game in 2006.
Advanced Shooting Charts: Comprehensive shooting charts for offensive and defensive performance providing visual shot displays, "hot spots," and more.
Top Lineup Combinations: The best two through five man lineup combinations over the last six seasons. Combinations can be sorted based on a variety of statistical breakdowns.
In-depth Statistical Breakdowns: Per possession, clutch, efficiency, player/team comparisons and additional in-depth statistics with many breakdown options.
Player Pages for Every NBA Player: Complete individual statistical pages for every player in NBA history.
NBA.com/Stats will allow users to interact and analyze official league, team, and player statistics in real-time via an intuitive, highly visual interface. In addition, content from NBA.com/Stats can be easily shared with others via social networks Twitter, Facebook and Google+.

"NBA.com/Stats provides our fans and media with the definitive tool for accessing our entire up-to-the-minute history of official NBA statistical information," said NBA Deputy Commissioner Adam Silver. "Working together with SAP, a global leader in providing innovative software solutions, this groundbreaking offering brings big data to the NBA allowing fans, broadcasters and the media to run unlimited statistical breakdowns of NBA players and teams, past or present."

"Sports fans have a passion for statistics because it brings them closer to the game, their favorite teams and players," said Steve Peck, senior vice president, Global Strategic Initiatives, SAP. "The new NBA.com/Stats goes beyond the numbers by offering a dynamic, comprehensive and statistical experience like never before. As a proven business platform, SAP HANA will help the NBA provide an experience that allows millions of fans to find insights in the numbers that had previously only been available to NBA teams and selected members of the media."

SAP will be the presenting partner of the new NBA.com/Stats destination. In July 2012, the NBA and SAP announced a new multiyear marketing partnership that made SAP the Official Business Analytics Software Partner of the NBA. The partnership includes the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) and the NBA Development League (NBA D-League).

Along with SAP HANA, the NBA will utilize SAP® BusinessObjects™ business intelligence (BI) solutions for advanced analysis with SAP BusinessObjects Explorer® and SAP® Landscape Transformation software to power official NBA statistics on NBA.com/Stats.

In addition to unlimited statistics, NBA.com/Stats will provide special editorial features that highlight innovative NBA.com/Stats findings, in-depth analysis on historical box scores, a look "Behind The Numbers" and regular contributions from NBA.com's statistical expert John Schuhmann. A special "Glossary" section will provide a complete breakdown and explanation of innovative and new statistics.

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By: Unknown On 9:29 PM

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Intel confirms new internet-based television streaming product, 'working with entire industry' to launch this year

Welp, the rumors are true. Erik Huggers, Corporate VP & GM for Intel Media, just sat down here at D:Dive Into Media 2013 in order to confirm that Intel's getting into the set-top / TV provider business, and everything will be delivered to your home using your existing broadband internet connection. Straight from the man's mouth:

"We have been working for around a year now to setup Intel Media -- it's a new division that includes a lot of people from outside of the company. We've hired people from Apple, Netflix, Google, BBC, etc. We're aiming to develop an internet television platform. My opinion is that not many of those rivals have cracked it -- have truly delivered.

For the first time, we'll deliver a few things to consumers. We'll deliver a new consumer electronics product under a new brand. It's associated with Intel, but you'll have to wait to hear what exactly that is. It'll be an Intel-powered device with beautiful industrial design. Where it really gets interesting is here -- we're working with the entire industry. It's an over-the-top service, delivering network channels, pay-TV channels, catch-up television, on-demand, and a host of applications."

He also affirmed that the box (and service) would launch "this year," and while the box won't provide Intel's "entire vision" at launch, a fair amount will be. That should include live television, on-demand, and catch-up. We're guessing it's the app ecosystem that'll take some time to truly develop.

Host Walt Mossberg asked Huggers if the bundles that people are saddled with today through existing pay-TV carriers will remain in Intel's service. Huggers chuckled a bit, noting:

"I agree that consumers want choice and convenience, but I think there is value in bundles. If bundles are bundled right, I think there's real value in that, and opportunities to create a more flexible environment where end-users have more choice than they do today. I don't believe the industry is ready for true à la carte."

In other words, those hoping that Intel's venture into the pay-TV would be the first blow in destroying bundles, you can casually keep dreaming. That said, it does sound as if Intel's aiming to give its users more choice over what channels are bundled -- something of a compromise. You may be forced to buy bundle packs, but at least you'll get the chance to select some of what goes into that bundle.

Oddly, Huggers confirmed that there will be a "camera" on the box, to which Mossberg responded fairly negatively. He brought up (reasonable) concerns of privacy and creepiness, and that's where things got truly weird. It sounds as if Intel's box will rely on a camera (at least) to target advertisements to users. Naturally, marketers are likely licking their chops -- and Intel's doing everything it can to play up the "social and sharing" aspects of all of this -- but it'll be interesting to see if consumers buy into that pitch. And moreover, if allowing Intel into your home in such a way will result in cheaper access to programming. In response, Huggers set up a situation:

"When my family uses Netflix, we have a household account. My kids may watch programming geared towards them, and I'll watch programming geared towards me. If there's a way to distinguish who is watching what, advertisers can then target ads at the proper parties."

Curiously, this actually sounds similar to what Dish's Charlie Ergen said last night, noting that marketing companies are just blindly shooting ads at whoever is watching the screen, instead of specific demographics. We're assuming that Mossberg's thoughts are correct -- he told Huggers to "expect a lot of skepticism from consumers" regarding the plan. We're guessing "a lot" really means "a truly overwhelming amount."

In response to a question from TechCrunch's Ryan Lawler regarding Intel's choice to build a completely new piece of hardware instead of just building a software piece that would interact with existing platforms, Huggers replied:

"If we want to deliver the experience that we want to deliver in the living room, there's no platform out there today that'll do it. You need to control everything. You need to control the app layers, the sensors, the chip, everything. If there were platforms out there where we could deliver everything we have in mind, we'd go there -- but there isn't. I believe in a world where there's a 'good, better, best' experience, and ours will be in that 'best' category."

In closing, Huggers confirmed that this "wasn't a value play," and told co-host Peter Kafka that users shouldn't expect to save money by using Intel's service. So, let's recap: it'll look great, perhaps the UI will be superior, but you won't actually save money (or stick it to any of those greedy content providers), and you'll be duly freaked out by targeted advertising. Oh, and you may get a lot closer to breaking through your broadband bandwidth cap. Good luck, Intel.

We'll be reporting live from D:Dive Into Media as it continues on February 11-12. You can follow our coverage by using the "dmedia2013" tag.

More Coverage: TechCrunch

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By: Unknown On 1:23 PM

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PSA: Nintendo Wii U day-one patch now live, includes entire online infrastructure

It's well past midnight, you're home with your brand new Nintendo Wii U -- now what? Well, you've got yourself a hefty firmware update to download should you wish to do anything other than play disc-based Wii U games. Say, for instance, you wanna check out Nintendo's Mii-based social network, Miiverse? You're gonna need that update. Or you want to check out the digital storefront, the eShop? Update. Browse the internet? Up ... you get the picture. The file download clocks in at just over an hour (at least on our retail units ahead of launch), and the install takes another five minutes, so we'd suggest you grab it ASAP before the rest of the world is trying to hungrily snap it up as well. Remember: your brand new Wii U can do literally nothing outside of build Miis and play disc-based games before the update, so don't go freaking out when your console seems to be missing a few key functions out of the box.

And no, this doesn't include Nintendo TVii, which Nintendo says won't arrive until some time in December. We'll update this post with more specifics as we explore the update further, so keep an eye out!

Update: The update includes, from what we've seen thus far, the entire eShop, Miiverse, an internet browser, and access to Netflix. Hulu Plus, Amazon Instant Video, and YouTube remain conspicuously absent, but should be available "in the coming weeks" (per Nintendo's update earlier this week). Backwards compatibility is also packed in the update, in form of the entire original Wii menu (which makes us feel like we just downloaded the entire Wii console to our Wii U -- the future!). The Wii U actually fully resets to launch the Wii menu, and can only be navigated using a classic Wii remote control. Kinda bogus, but it sure is nice having a full Wii built in to the Wii U.

Update 2: Netflix is a separate download required (an update) for use.

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By: Dilusha On 3:33 PM

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