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Monday, June 3, 2013

Roger Federer is still a magician

Despite losing two of the first three sets to Gilles Simon and taking an awkward tumble on the Roland Garros clay, Roger Federer was still showing flashes of magic in his fourth round match at the French Open.

Watch as the No. 2 seed rips a forehand from beyond the sideline that goes around the netpost and lands for a winner.

Roger Federer rallied to defeat Gilles Simon 6-1, 4-6, 2-6, 6-2, 6-3 [Recap]

Roy Hibbert’s unfortunate news conference

The Indiana Pacers beat the Miami Heat in Game 6 of the Eastern Conference Finals to tie the series at 3-3. Center Roy Hibbert was fired up — maybe a little too fired up. Here’s his response in his postgame news conference when asked why he came in 10th in defensive player of the year voting, despite the impact he has had in this series:

(WARNING: THIS VIDEO CONTAINS NSFW LANGUAGE)

On the one hand, Hibbert has a point. The process for awards voting is very flawed and often skews towards players from bigger markets, leaving players such as Hibbert out of luck. The idea that there are nine better defenders in the NBA than Roy Hibbert is laughable.

On the other hand:

Hibbert might get fined for the profanity, but he didn’t say anything out of line. At least, not in that part of the news conference. However, there also was this:

Hibbert is far from the only NBA player ever to say “no homo” or “pause” in an interview or on Twitter, but it’s very disappointing nonetheless. Hibbert probably didn’t mean anything by it, and it shouldn’t be a referendum on his entire character. But maybe pick something else.

Dog rushes field during NCAA baseball tournament

A dog rushed the field during Cal State Fullerton and Arizona’s NCAA tournament game Saturday night, strolling across the entirety of the park before allowing humans to restart the game. The dog first tried to escape through the right field wall.

Eventually, the dog wandered over to left field, and play resumed.

Garrett Jones hits monster home run into the Allegheny River

Pittsburgh Pirates first baseman Garrett Jones completed a late-game rally with a monster two-run home run in the bottom of the eighth inning against the Cincinnati Reds, launching the ball clear out of PNC Park and into the Allegheny River. Jones became the first Pirate to hit the water on the fly and the first player since 2002. According to MLB, his ball traveled an estimated 468 feet.

The blast tied the game at 4-4, and Travis Snider hit a pinch-hit walkoff single in the bottom of the 11th to win the game, 5-4.

Sony Ericsson and LG veteran Sudhin Mathur joins Lenovo as smartphone biz head

Telecom Lead Asia: Sony Ericsson and LG veteran Sudhin Mathur has joined Lenovo India as smartphone business head.

Lenovo’s main aim is set to increase focus on smartphone business. Phone business is becoming a life line for Lenovo because its PC business is facing challenges due to shift to tablets and high end phones.

In a 25 March 2012 note, IDC said that Chinese vendors, including Huawei and ZTE as well as Coolpad and Lenovo, have made significant strides to capture new users with their respective Android smartphones in the first quarter of 2013.

In the worldwide smartphone market, vendors shipped 216.2 million units in Q1 2013, which marked the first time more than half (51.6 percent) the total phone shipments in a quarter were smartphones. The market grew 41.6 percent compared to the 152.7 million units shipped in Q1 2012, but 5.1 percent lower than the 227.8 million units shipped in Q4 2012.

For Lenovo, Indian smartphone market – dominated by Samsung – offers tough challenges. One Lenovo is a new entrant to the smartphone arena. Second, Lenovo is yet to become aggressive comparing with Samsung, Nokia, Apple, Sony, BlackBerry, etc.

As director – Smartphones at Lenovo India, Sudhin will be responsible for steering the company’s growth strategies for smartphones in India.

Besides Sony Ericsson, Sudhin also worked with LG Mobiles.

At Sony Ericsson (now Sony Mobile), Sudhin significantly contributed for setting up and launching the Sony Ericsson brand in India.

During his tenure at Sony Ericsson, the businesses grew consistently and the brand emerged as a leading player in the high end mobile devices and services space.

At LG Mobile India, as the business head, he spearheaded the company’s overall business operations for mobile phones in India.

One of the core strategies was to reposition the LG mobile brand image and establish it as a leading player in Smart Phone segment. He restructured the distribution by bringing in regional partners who provided flexibility and created value for retail partners.

US trade panel delays decision in Apple-Samsung patent fight

The U.S. International Trade Commission, which hears many patent fights, on Friday extended its deadline for ruling on whether Apple Inc infringes patents owned by Samsung Electronics Co Ltd in making the iPod Touch, iPhone and iPad.

The ITC had said it would make a decision on Friday but delayed it until Tuesday, June 4. It gave no reason for the extension.

An administrative law judge at the ITC had said in a preliminary ruling in September that Apple was innocent of violating the patents. The next step is for the full commission to weigh in.

Apple has waged an international patent war since 2010 as it battles Google Inc's Android mobile-device operating system. The fight has embroiled Samsung, HTC Corp and others that use Android.

Samsung is the world's largest smartphone maker, while Apple is in third place, according to the research company Gartner. Many experts consider Samsung's Galaxy touchscreen tablets the main rival to the iPad, although they are currently a distant second to Apple's devices.

Samsung Galaxy Note III listing spotted on the company's Kazakhstan website

The highly anticipated Samsung Galaxy Note III was recently spotted on the website of Samsung Kazakhstan. The page talked about special VIP services for several Samsung products that included already existing devices such as the Galaxy S4, Galaxy S III, Galaxy Grand and Galaxy S II Plus along with unannounced products such as Galaxy S4 Zoom, Galaxy Tab 3 10.1 and the next iteration of Galaxy Note Phablet.

The page however seems to be updated after these devices were spotted by Techtastic and Galaxy S4 Zoom, Galaxy Tab 3 10.1 and Galaxy Note III are now removed from the listing.

The Galaxy Note III is expected to be launched at the IFA in September. The device is also known to have a 6-inch full-HD AMOLED display and a 13-megapixel rear camera.

The phablet is also rumoured to be powered by a Snapdragon 800 chipset. The chip targets top-end smartphones and has 75 percent more horsepower than Qualcomm's old fastest model, enough to record and playback Ultra HD video as per the company. However, as per Qualcomm's own benchmarks, it doesn't consume more power so battery life is not an issue. The chip also offers built-in support for LTE unlike Samsung's own chipset. So the company won't need additional hardware to enable support for 4G connectivity.

The Snapdragon 800 chipset has a quad-core Krait 400 processor that supports clock speeds of up to 2.3GHz. The phablet is rumoured to support Bluetooth 4.0, 802.11a/b/g/n/ac (2.4/5 GHz), GSM (GPRS, EDGE), W-CDMA/UMTS (HSDPA, HSUPA, HSPA+, DC-HSPA+ cat.29), MBMS, LTE cat.4, CDMA2000 connectivity options. Other phones that are said to use the same chip include LG D801, Xiaomi Mi3, Sony Xperia Honami and ZTE Grand Memo V9815.