Patriots Coach Bill Belichick on Microsoft Surface: 'I Just Can't Take It Anymore' (techcrunch.com) 187
New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick is not happy with the Surface tablet provided to him via a deal between Microsoft and the NFL. Not only has he physically thrown the tablets at things, but he has verbally expressed his negative opinions of them. TechCrunch reports: When asked about the Patriots' headsets malfunctioning during last weeks game, Belichick instead took the time to let everyone know he's "done with the tablets." While he didn't go into too much detail on the tablets, Belichick essentially said that Microsoft's surface tablets are too "undependable," and there "isn't enough consistency in their performance." In terms of the rest of the sideline technology like headsets, Belichick is essentially fed up with the fact that everything always malfunctions and is impossible to fix during games. So why is the sideline technology so hard to get right? The tablets (as well as the headphones and all other sideline technology) are owned and maintained by the NFL. That means it gets delivered to teams literally hours before the game and taken away when it ends. This makes it hard for teams to test for issues before a game and to troubleshoot when something goes wrong. Belichick's full rant can be read here, which reads in part: "As you probably noticed, I'm done with the tablets. They're just too undependable for me. I'm going to stick with (paper) pictures, which several of our other coaches do, as well, because there just isn't enough consistency in the performance of the tablets. I just can't take it anymore..."
Hilarious (Score:5, Interesting)
How much did Microsoft pay the NFL to force them to use Surface tablets? And how many times have they malfunctioned and been insulted by players and coaches? A LOT.
To top it off, the first year of the deal before all the negative press, the announcers (and players/coaches) kept calling them iPads.
This is one of the worst deals ever, for both parties.
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Yes, yes, with the obvious exception of replay footage to double-check what refs can't necessarily see.
Re: Hilarious (Score:5, Insightful)
When you have a tablet, you can do things like punch in what defense the other team just used to provide statistical analysis of what the next best play is, or what kind of defense to run if your opponent is doing X often. These are things a coach can know, or have on paper, but the ability to quickly look things up for an effective response or plan is probably very beneficial.
What I don't know, however, is why they would need "connectivity." Why do you need wi-fi operating your iPad or Surface if you have all of the relevant info on the device? If they don't have all the relevant info on the device, what do they need it for?
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When you have a tablet, you can do things like punch in what defense the other team just used to provide statistical analysis of what the next best play is, or what kind of defense to run if your opponent is doing X often. These are things a coach can know, or have on paper, but the ability to quickly look things up for an effective response or plan is probably very beneficial.
What I don't know, however, is why they would need "connectivity." Why do you need wi-fi operating your iPad or Surface if you have all of the relevant info on the device? If they don't have all the relevant info on the device, what do they need it for?
Um... Live replay, maybe.... Oh, forgot, the NFL is the No Fun League so "No replay for you....." Actually, they are using it for downloading photos and drawing up plays, same as the paper copy.
The NHL has gone to live reply on tablets this season. Saw it being used during the Pittsburgh game a couple of nights ago.
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When you have a tablet, you can do things like punch in what defense the other team just used to provide statistical analysis of what the next best play is, or what kind of defense to run if your opponent is doing X often. These are things a coach can know, or have on paper, but the ability to quickly look things up for an effective response or plan is probably very beneficial.
What I don't know, however, is why they would need "connectivity." Why do you need wi-fi operating your iPad or Surface if you have all of the relevant info on the device? If they don't have all the relevant info on the device, what do they need it for?
Um... Live replay, maybe.... Oh, forgot, the NFL is the No Fun League so "No replay for you....." Actually, they are using it for downloading photos and drawing up plays, same as the paper copy.
The NHL has gone to live reply on tablets this season. Saw it being used during the Pittsburgh game a couple of nights ago.
The San Jose Sharks coaching staff has been using tablets at the bench for probably 8-10 years now.
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Where are my mod points when I need them to upmod someone, even if that someone is an AC....
Re: Hilarious (Score:4, Interesting)
When you have a tablet, you can do things like punch in what defense the other team just used to provide statistical analysis of what the next best play is, or what kind of defense to run if your opponent is doing X often. These are things a coach can know, or have on paper, but the ability to quickly look things up for an effective response or plan is probably very beneficial.
What I just heard is "coaches shouldn't be allowed tablets". Or binders.
Seriously, it's game/sport. Chess grandmasters aren't allowed to consult Watson in between moves. The players play the games. The role of coach mid-game should be more or less limited to deciding when to swap players, and arguing with referees over decisions. Coaching should be happening in between games. During the games it's time for playing.
But that's just my opinion.
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Seriously, it's game/sport.
Don't be so naive. It's a business.
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Don't be so cynical. It's both.
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When it comes to football I disagree. Football is one of the most complex sports there are. You would never know it though because playbooks and even an entire view of the field (known as "All 22" video) has traditionally been kept from fans and viewed as Intellectual Property. They seem to be getting more open with All 22 if you are willing to pay for it, but don't think you have anywhere near the access that teams and the NFL have. That's why they focus on the line of scrimmage. You don't see the g
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why they would need "connectivity."
Do they get the same devices back every game? Even if they nominally do, by best practice you would not want to leave anything "strategic" on a device you don't fully control. Ideally they should be wiped clean regularly, both by users and the NFL. Not sure if the users are allowed or the NFL bothers.
Anyway, it is a stupid idea all around but I guess the NFL makes money off it. Might as well just call the games from the local public library PCs.
Re: Hilarious (Score:5, Informative)
If you have good connectivity and the right software. Also if you're used to using a computer with a touchscreen. The latter is probably a bit of an issue for many coaches. Given a concerted effort, I'm sure they'd get it but they are supposed to be paying attention to the game, not the technology.
For the most part, they're a solution looking for a problem as far as the coaches are concerned. What they were using before was working for them.
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When you have a tablet, you can do things like punch in what defense the other team just used to provide statistical analysis of what the next best play is, or what kind of defense to run if your opponent is doing X often.
Then why have a coach at all? Just have two teams call each play based purely statistical chance. Then we don't need humans to play the plays either we could just watch a computer generated image of what the likely outcome of each play would've resulted in. In fact I think you can do this now on a Playstation. You watch a demo NFL game on a Playstation and I'll go to a real game with humans and pens and paper and we'll see which one is more enjoyable to watch.
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When you have a tablet, you can do things like punch in what defense the other team just used to provide statistical analysis of what the next best play is, or what kind of defense to run if your opponent is doing X often...
You could, but not in the NFL. These tablets are locked down to a single app provided by the NFL [cnet.com] to show still photos of earlier plays in the game. The photos are sent to the tablets during the game, thus the need for connectivity.
The tablets, the app, the connectivity, and the photo feeds are all provided by the NFL. Probably hard to fault the tablet hardware itself for any complaints Belichick may have.
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Candy Crush Saga!
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When you have a tablet, you can do things like punch in what defense the other team just used to provide statistical analysis of what the next best play is, or what kind of defense to run if your opponent is doing X often.
I'm guessing this is another case of a solution in search of a problem.
The reason this happens is that as a technologist faced with helping someone solve a problem you have no choice but to imagine what you would need to do that person's job. But if you want to have a better than random chance at success, you have to really understand the people who will use the system and what they would need.
I'm guessing Belichick of all people doesn't need a computer to give him a statistical analysis of what the best n
Bill's smart (Score:3)
Re: Hilarious (Score:5, Informative)
When you have a tablet, you can do things like punch in what defense the other team just used to provide statistical analysis of what the next best play is, or what kind of defense to run if your opponent is doing X often.
None of this should be done on the sidelines. This should be done in the team's viewing booth where weather is kept outside. A good connection can be provided for the team's cadre of wonky strategists to use up in the booth, and they can confer without the distractions on the sidelines. Much of this can also be done half a continent away at the team's headquarters. The sidelines are not the place for a data entry team and a data analysis team to do their work.
Weather is also a complication. For much of the American football season, the weather will be a major factor in trying to use touch screen based technology.
One of Belichick's complaints, in particular, was that they could not get the series of overhead photographs of the previous play down to the sidelines quick enough via the tablets. A few years ago someone would print them up in the viewing booth and a runner would take copies of the photographs and deliver them to the sidelines. Sometimes a printer would be set up near the sidelines. The older methods were faster than the tablets, probably due to poor connectivity on the field.
Besides the speed of delivery, the tablets introduced a slew of usability issues that physical photographs did not have. The photographs would be viewable in bright sun, rain and in snow. It was also easier for multiple people on the sideline to view the same set of photos at once (no darkness when looking from acute angles). It was also easier to view multiple photographs at once, as opposed to one at a time using the tablet.
The tablets are a solution to a problem that did not exist and are acting like an anchor instead of a sail.
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What I don't know, however, is why they would need "connectivity." Why do you need wi-fi operating your iPad or Surface if you have all of the relevant info on the device? If they don't have all the relevant info on the device, what do they need it for?
This is easy to explain: even though everyone's devices now have many gigabytes of storage built-in (terabytes now for PCs and laptops), no one actually wants to use that storage for anything, and they want to stream everything from "the cloud".
Why? Because
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Security updates? :-)
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But why? Why use something other than a grease pen on a white board?
At a minimum, a football team at least also needs a Xerox machine [youtube.com].
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But why? Why use something other than a grease pen on a white board? .
One key benefit of tablet usage is being able to take a picture of the lineups of the two teams during the game and show that whilst drawing some plays. In the past they'd print out pictures during the game, having them all on the tablet should make everything easier. (I suppose they take video as well). But as another poster said, its useless when there are connectivity issues. Microsoft should consider some sort of local syncing of the content.
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Google "Belichick cheating". Team communications are monitored by the NFL during games.
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Because it's technology! It's the cool thing to do because everything is better with technology.
Stop trying to hold us back. Technology is the answer to everything. Didn't you see the trouble the guy in England had to go through to get his wi-fi tea kettle to work [slashdot.org]? Think of how much easier putting a pot of water on the stove would have been rather than the 11 hours he spent fiddling with technology. The horror!
Don't forget the polished turd which is Ford's infotainment system [slashdot.org] is known by engineers. Think of how much better it is to look away from the road to figure which part of a screen needs to be pressed to change the song rather than reaching out and touching a physical button. Technology for the win!
And don't get me started on the Internet of Things. It's the greatest. Why, devices hooked to the net, such as refrigerators or toasters, can be used as part of massive botnets [slashdot.org]. Isn't that great? Who wants, or needs, a refrigerator which isn't connected to everything? Think of how much easier it is to take down a web site you don't like when everything's connected to the internet.
Woo hoo! Three cheers for technology.
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Don't forget the polished turd which is Ford's infotainment system [slashdot.org] is known by engineers
That applies to Sync 1&2. I did take a look at 3, which is powered by QNX and it looks pretty stable - even handles AAC and FLAC files on USB well. In fact, I would have bought a vehicle with it if it didn't add $4,000 to the base model price. I went with Hyundai, where infotainment comes standard (but without native AAC/FLAC support) and has both Android Auto and Car Play.
But they're shooting themselves in the foot, because not all models will have the new version. They're still putting the buggy v
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No regrets
Re:5ghz? (Score:2)
Has the NFL heard the good news about the 5ghz band? It's less crowded and more reliable than the in-stadium 2.4. Maybe they should check it out.
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Maybe the dumb jocks should stopping bullying the nerds and treat them a little more nicely if they want their high-tech toys to work right for them ;)
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Because the people that make the rules and the decisions play golf with the people that own certain teams.
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Why?
He sells tickets to the games and generates enough controversy to keep the NFL in the spotlight, that's why.
Re:Hilarious (Score:5, Interesting)
My aunt went on a long rant about how much slower her ipad ran after Windows 10 updated. To be clear... she is actually talking about her Apple iPad. But everything wrong in the world, including her slow iPad is because of the windows 10 update.
I agree with your sentiment, it's almost certainly a wifi issue. Because Wifi sucks... a lot. I developed a wireless device that delivered wifi video to devices and it was a huge pain in the ass. You just had to accept that reliability and range would be shit, especially in a busy environment. How many times has Steve Jobs chastised the audience that they wouldn't get to see a demo if they didn't turn off their wifi?
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I agree with your sentiment, it's almost certainly a wifi issue. Because Wifi sucks... a lot.
WiFi works ok for me, whether it's low latency gaming or high volume HD streaming, maybe you are doing something wrong?
I developed a wireless device that delivered wifi video to devices and it was a huge pain in the ass. You just had to accept that reliability and range would be shit, especially in a busy environment. How many times has Steve Jobs chastised the audience that they wouldn't get to see a demo if they didn't turn off their wifi?
Congestion problems can be solved if you design your solution to fit the application, rather than what most people get wrong, they run a consumer grade AP for their industrial app then wonder why it's drops out all the time.
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I agree with your sentiment, it's almost certainly a wifi issue. Because Wifi sucks... a lot.
WiFi works ok for me, whether it's low latency gaming or high volume HD streaming, maybe you are doing something wrong?
'Low' latency is still higher compared to cable and might be ok for you, but that really depends on your definition of low latency gaming, too. But this is not why WiFi sucks big time.
I developed a wireless device that delivered wifi video to devices and it was a huge pain in the ass. You just had to accept that reliability and range would be shit, especially in a busy environment. How many times has Steve Jobs chastised the audience that they wouldn't get to see a demo if they didn't turn off their wifi?
Congestion problems can be solved if you design your solution to fit the application, rather than what most people get wrong, they run a consumer grade AP for their industrial app then wonder why it's drops out all the time.
This is not a problem of consumer grade or industrial ap. The problem is the shared medium. And it doesn't distinguish between consumer grade and business grade. If the spectrum is overused the connectivity degrades fast as more and more collisions happen. That is not a problem if the only reachable access point is yours and h
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If your application relies on solid Internet connectivity while on a field, you're doing it wrong.
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What exactly does the tablet need a network connection for? It's used to draw some pictures on it and get a text-based data feed. It has inconsistent performance drawing a picture on the screen, doing its basic "tablet" functions. Yeah, I've used the Surface Pro 1, 2 and 3, it's a piece of crap desktop OS pretending to be a tablet interface. I still have to connect a keyboard and mouse to do anything useful with it.
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As long as the handling is in the way it is there's no solution to the problem.
Nothing that can't be fixed with an axe though.
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No. These are definitely MS tablets.
There's your problem right there, don't blame someone else.
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The problems that have been announced almost invariably revolve around the connectivity provided in the stadium, rather than the tablets themselves. This is an NFL problem.. iPad, Surface, Galaxy Tab, whatever.. not going to be different until the NFL forces teams and stadiums to provide adequate connectivity.
This is the NFL. They aren't exactly poor, so the simple solution would seem to be to use 4G enabled tablets. I can't imagine that cell service is so terrible from within stadiums (indeed, I'd expect cell companies to target stadiums for better reception. Nothing worse for your brand than having a venue that supports 40 000+ people who can't use their devices to tweet pics of themselves wearing a foam finger because your service sucks in a (typically) downtown stadium.
Yaz
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I look at it this way, MS had to PAY the NFL to take and use the Surfaces, that alone tells you how bad they are.
If they were any good, the NFL would've had to actually buy them themselves...
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Shouldn't it be obvious in this situation to make the software local instead of depending on a network?
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The problems that have been announced almost invariably revolve around the connectivity provided in the stadium, rather than the tablets themselves. This is an NFL problem.. iPad, Surface, Galaxy Tab, whatever.. not going to be different until the NFL forces teams and stadiums to provide adequate connectivity.
Fair point, but somehow, I have noticed that the iOS devices - be it iPad or iPhone - do a better job at picking up signals than laptops, or Android devices. That said, the Lumia happens to be pretty good at picking them up - almost at par w/ the iPhone.
Are these NFL Surfaces cellular tablets, which can pick cellular signals if the WiFi is less than optimal, or are they WiFi only? It would seem that Microsoft should have given them the best if they wanted them to be so high profile. On FNC, I've seen
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Forget connectivity. Belichick is going back to paper. How much "connectivity" does that have?
Reading through his rant he barely mentions any specific problem with the tablets other than alluding to a problem shooting video. I'd suspect this is yet another problem with overselling and under delivering on what the technology - in this case tablets - were supposed to do. If the tablets were used to display the same info as the paper he's going back to, plus having additional things like perhaps archives o
This rant left me feeling...deflated (Score:5, Funny)
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Funny thing is that he's the reason why the NFL maintains control of the equipment. The Patriot's have been caught before spying on other teams using that same tech. As for the MS Surface crap that's just part of a very lucrative deal where MS basically pays the NFL to use it so they can advertise how great it is. Bill isn't the only one caught throwing the shitty things around. Several players and coaches have been seen tossing, smashing and stomping on them. Somehow I'm sure MS isn't happy about the
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Funny thing is that he's the reason why the NFL maintains control of the equipment. The Patriot's have been caught before spying on other teams using that same tech. As for the MS Surface crap that's just part of a very lucrative deal where MS basically pays the NFL to use it so they can advertise how great it is. Bill isn't the only one caught throwing the shitty things around. Several players and coaches have been seen tossing, smashing and stomping on them. Somehow I'm sure MS isn't happy about the negative image they're getting from this. I think it's funny as hell.
There has been no "spying" using headsets or WiFi technology. The NFL controlled the wireless technology from the beginning prevent teams from intercepting the radio transmissions from the other team. There have been instances where teams have been able to hear the other team, but this has always been due to configuration or headset issues caused by the NFL tech team. Some like to blame other teams, but the whole thing is controlled by the NFL.
The biggest problem, as I see it, is that the NFL spends as m
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You don't understand Marketing.
(don't worry, that's normal)
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>> The NFL controlled the wireless technology from the beginning prevent teams from intercepting the radio transmissions from the other team.
AHAHAHAHA
That's a good one.
Nobody else has "Wifi technology", for sure.
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And it's hardly "spying" when the guy holding the camera is standing out in the open with a Patriots sweatshirt. Filming, yes. Spying? That suggests secretive to me.
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Standing out in the open is one of the better ways to spy without being caught. If you look like you're doing something wrong, people will pay more attention.
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Talking about headsets. For many years teams have had many suspicious incidents in Foxboro. A bunch of coaches talking about headsets that worked fine in every stadium in the NFL.....except the one the Patriots inhabit.
Your own fault (Score:2, Insightful)
Maybe, just maybe, if cheaters like Mr. Belichick didn't exist in this league, the NFL wouldn't need to lock down their equipment.
can't cheat with a Surface (Score:2, Funny)
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how is it for games?
Re:can't cheat with a Surface (Score:4, Funny)
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Hmmm...windows is pretty good for games usually.
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Ah...I thought the big thing was the surface was a tablet that runs windows. Still, if it wont play games then it's pretty useless.
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You need to quit sucking so much dick, it's robbing your brain of oxygen keeping that lip lock going so long.
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Re:can't cheat with a Surface (Score:4, Funny)
Steve McGarrett disagrees: (Score:3)
They always work great on Hawaii-Five-0. The Lumia phones too!
Support Time? (Score:2)
If the IT team grabs the equipment after the game, they have a whole week (at least 4 days) to reconfigure and test. And I imagine, given how much the NFL spends on things, they have their "Field communications equipment IT Team" to deal with the Surfaces alone, never mind the headsets and such which fall under the "Field Audio Equipment Team". There's always a chance they've skimped on IT and spent it on extra gatorade bottle holders, but that would surprise me.
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I would guess that the NFL IT team's only responsibility is checking the devices to make sure they haven't been tampered with. Configuration and testing is likely each team's responsibility in the few hours they have before game time.
I want to love the Surface, but... (Score:2, Interesting)
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Clippy (Score:4, Funny)
"It looks like you are trying to tamper with the ball. Would you like help?"
Old ways work (Score:3, Interesting)
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They should definitely keep using the old stuff until they figure out how to build something that is actually a useful replacement. I've never managed an aircraft carrier flight deck, but I imagine it would be pretty useful (and probably have some good knock on effects) if you could see more than just the deck RIGHT NOW. What if you could see it ten minutes ago, yesterday, trend out what moves where and when, have pre-loaded configurations (including least cost pathfinding) to respot equipment...
Yeah, I d
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But that's because they used government contractors to develop it. THIS was developed by Microsoft, so it's so much better...
Man, I hate to defend MS . . . BUT . . . (Score:2)
---
* dwiw() - Do What I Want (null function - a return code should be unnecessary)
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Not sure I'd blame the coach here (though that's probably part of the issue). But as the summary says and several other posters have pointed out: the equipment is owned by the NFL and handed to the coaches at the games. That means little time for the coach to practice using the equipment and no control over it. I also suspect that the software is probably implemented as some abortion of a webapp that runs somewhere in the cloud so that the NFL can keep 100% control over it (and any data that it uses). So so
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Sounds like an opportunity to develop an opensource app. Import and export from some format. Plenty of highschools and colleges would move to the right app.
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Except that they wouldn't be allowed to use the open source app.
The league owns the equipment (Score:4, Informative)
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Bottom line (Score:2, Insightful)
Whiney Bill Bellicheat is having trouble receiving a WIFI signal from both the legal league feed and the illegal installed cameras and mics in the visiting teams locker room. Get over it.
First it was a sport, then it was a business, now it is a joke.
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Actual Audio about 12:38 (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.patriots.com/news/2... [patriots.com]
Re:Actual Audio about 12:38 (Score:4, Insightful)
Not much of rant either. Logical complaints that he wants the crap to work.
I hate football (Score:4, Insightful)
but I have to say that coaches like Belichick are the reason why the NFL feels the need to take such precautions. If they didn't, some coach would get the idea to use spotters and/or directional mics to eavesdrop on opposing teams and send the information to the coach, who would then relay it to the men on the field.
LK
As the French say (Score:2)
In other words (Score:2)
I'd like to know more about these problems (Score:2)
Are they really the tablet's fault? Is it a networking issue, buggy client/web software?
If the teams only have access to the tablets for 5-6 hours during game day do they really know how it's supposed to be used? Have they been tested thoroughly?
because they're using the wrong criteria... (Score:2)
So why is the sideline technology so hard to get right?
Because the criteria for selecting all of the equipment was solely which manufacturer paid them more to use it as opposed to who had a product suitable for the purpose? When your selection decisions don't include end users, or even an evaluation of their needs, nor do they compare the product to those needs, it's not a surprise when it doesn't do what your users need.
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Glad to see it isn't just the cubicle drones that have to put up with this crap.
Yeah but the drones aren't allowed to abuse/distroy the hard/software or equipment in a fit of rage. I know some systems I would like to do that with. (especial the f#cking automation software that shits itself every daylights savings time change, Oh sure the firm that makes it claim they have fixed for reals this time, twice a year.) but I digress...
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