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ESPN+ offers a first look at Disney’s big plans for streaming
Disney has been relatively open about its plans to carve out a name for itself in the video-streaming wars, as it readies to compete with the likes of Netflix and Hulu. Although the company isn't launching its flagship service until the end of 2019, we now have an idea of what it might look like. This is where ESPN+, the long-awaited standalone streaming service from Disney-owned ESPN, comes in. The new $5-per-month offering, which launches today featuring both live and on-demand content, is the first service to arrive from the Walt Disney Co.'s direct-to-consumer division.
This is what Kobe's 20-year career in basketball looks like
Information is beautiful, none more so when data is combined with the power of the web to let us visualize the previously unseen. It's one of the reasons why data journalism is so engaging, since it helps show things that you would have otherwise had to trawl through mountains of spreadsheets to understand. This is one such example, the L.A. Times' breakdown of almost every shot Kobe Bryant took during his two-decade tenure with the Los Angeles Lakers. Head on over to the Times' website and you'll be able to delve into the stats, with each type of shot, the game and the distance all included. Oh, except for two shots from the 2012-13 season which got missed by the NBA's shot tracking data. But hey, nobody's perfect.
Kobe Bryant decides to announce his retirement online
Kobe Bryant announced his retirement at the end of the NBA season through the web and social media -- not by press conference. Sure, Twitter retirement announcements aren't a new thing: Shaq did so in 2011, not to mention David Ortiz and Steve Nash. It wasn't a completely Twitter-specific announcement. He linked to his farewell message / poem in full on The Players' Tribune (a site launched by fellow former-athlete Derek Jeter). The site, which allows pro athletes to self-publish (and say what they want to), meant Bryant gets to say his piece -- although it's not specific. That said, it's already been retweeted over 70,000 times, and half an hour later, the NBA followed up itself on Twitter. The response was so strong that Jeter's site crashed under the strain. It's back online now, so if you'd like to see a portrait of Bryant whispering his farewell sonnet into a basketball, here's where to go.
The After Math: The (homemade) hammer of Thor, Virgin space flights and an atomic movie
Welcome to The After Math, where we attempt to summarize this week's tech news through numbers, decimal places and percentages. This week's After Math appears to have taken on a comic book theme. Want to make your own Thor hammer? How about your very own Atomic Watch -- rather than those radio-wave-based excuses of a timepiece? We've also got the very real prospect of civilian flights to outer space and, er, Kobe Bryant advertising Lenovo smartphones. Stranger things have happened, right? Join us after the break.
Lenovo P780 teased by Kobe Bryant, boasts a 5-inch display with 4,000mAh battery (video)
Lenovo sure likes to tease, and apparently so does Kobe Bryant. In a recent "behind the scenes" video of Lenovo's upcoming P780 ad campaign, the NBA star is seen bouncing a basketball around for a while before he eventually starts talking. "Are you prepared for a new style smartphone? Say hello to the Lenovo..." At that point, the video -- embedded after the break -- awkwardly fades into a still showing Kobe holding the P780, and that's all there. Luckily, more details of this WCDMA device have been trickling out of Sina Weibo since then. Most notably, a few official Lenovo accounts mentioned a 5-inch display (our money's on 720p resolution) and a generous 4,000mAh battery, thus making the P780 a natural progression from the 4.5-inch P770 that came with a 3,500mAh cell. MyDrivers' source also tipped a 9.9mm thickness, along with the presence of "super sensitive touch" technology -- as featured on Nokia's Lumia 820 and Lumia 920, plus Huawei's Ascend Mate and Ascend P2 -- that supports glove and non-capacitive stylus input. Having gotten up close and personal with a working P780 (photos after the break), Sina Weibo user Lisancha added that said phone features dual-SIM with dual-standby, a quad-core MediaTek chipset (likely the Cortex-A7-based MT6589) and a launch date set for the second-half of May. We're assuming that like many other Lenovo phones, this one may only be made available in China; but we'll be keeping an eye out for its official launch, anyway.
Hello? McFly 2015 Nikes to be resurrected as Nike Hyperdunks
Remember those cool Nike high-tops that Marty McFly wore in Back to the Future? The ones that laced themselves and you wished you had a pair just like them? If so, listen up: Nike is releasing the Marty McFly 2015's as the Nike Hyperdunks. They won't lace themselves, unfortunately, but will be made of Nike's super light-weight materials. They'll be shilled by Kobe Bryant in black, and we'll be surprised if the Back to the Future roots of these shoes will be shown the light in order to keep the cool young'ns interested, but we all know the truth behind these bitchin' kicks. Hoverboard sold separately.
HDTV Listings for April 7, 2006
What we're watching: NBA, NBA, NBA. The Western Conference stars continue to shine tonight with Tim Duncan, Dirk Nowitzki, Steve Nash and Kobe Bryant all showing out in a doubleheader on ESPN. If you like your round balls slightly smaller size, theres always MLB action on INHD as the Rockies face the Padres at 10 p.m.Of course if the dramatics of basketball players arguing foul calls and major league managers arguing foul balls just aren't enough, please consider Discovery-HD's offering of Puccini's Tosca, "a fiery Roman melodrama of lust, betrayal and revenge". Sounds like the Lakers to me.Our traditional high-def listings continue below.
