Before logging on to Amazon to wrap up your Christmas shopping, you’ll want to flip through The Art of Negotiation. It could save you a few bucks.

Last week Amazon unveiled “Make an Offer,” a new feature which allows customers to negotiate lower prices with more than 150,000 items. For the initial rollout, Amazon has limited the experience mainly to collectibles – sports, entertainment, coins, history and political memorabilia – and fine art.

The sports category easily lists the most items featuring the Make an Offer opportunity. Photographs, uniforms, balls and trading cards are some of the most abundant memorabilia available, with Major League Baseball and the National Football League represented the most.  There’s even a pair of wrestling trunks signed by Hulk Hogan.

First, the seller must enable the option on an item’s listing. The customer can then either purchase the listed item at the available price or click the Make an Offer button and enter an offer. Amazon sends an email to the seller, who then responds within 72 hours. The seller can accept the offer, reject it or submit a counter offer. Now, this is when that copy of The Art of Negotiation comes in handy. Because now it’s on. Negotiations continue via email. Should the customer pull off their best Donald Trump impersonation and the seller accepts an offer, the item is placed in to the customer’s shopping cart at the negotiated price for checkout and purchase.

For example, check out this Derek Jeter clubhouse chair listed by Steiner Sports, used August 24 when the New York Yankees hosted the Chicago White Sox. The Yankees won 7-4 and Jeter went 0-for-5. It’s listed at $2,500. Now, I’m not a Yankees fan, and while I respect The Captain, I’m not obsessed with him, and I certainly don’t have a disposable income that would allow for such a purchase, though I do need a new office chair. So I made an Arte Moreno-esque take-it-or-leave-it offer of $500 with the ultimatum that my offer will stand for 72 hours. I can’t imagine Steiner Sports accepts my low-ball offer, which is 80 percent off the asking price. But if they do, I think I can sell it to the wife, seeing as I was ready to drop $175 on an office chair from Ikea. Knowing her, she’ll use Lysol wipes to clean off any Hall of Fame lingering germs and drop the value of the chair by 40 percent.

Steiner Sports is looking forward to a better shopping experience between customers and sellers utilizing the Make an Offer service.

“The ‘Make an Offer’ experience gives customers more control and better deals than they may have received prior to this program,” said Steven Costello, Executive Vice President of Steiner Sports Memorabilia, Inc. “The negotiation experience will hopefully get more communication between us and our customers to help us better gauge the price for certain items. We love the ‘Make and Offer’ program, and it is only going to get bigger. Once customers know this is an available feature more offers will come, leading to more sales.”

Amazon emailed me confirmation of my offer within a few minutes. Other customers can still purchase the item at the current list price. So there is risk involved. However, if a customer is looking for value only in the Amazon market place, this shouldn’t be much of a concern.

Amazon said it plans to expand the number of Make an Offer eligible items in 2015. So there’s time to hone those negotiating skills.

Though the Major League Soccer season ended not even a week ago, the league has wasted no time looking ahead to next year. Partnering up with long-time sponsor Adidas, MLS has announced their new official match ball for the 2015 season. Called the NATIVO, it will feature the six identically shaped panels, continuing the move away from traditional pentagonal or hexagonal designs.

Sponsoring leagues and competitions with match balls is a well-trodden road for Adidas, as they also use a new ball for the Women’s World Cup 2015 as well as Euro 2016 qualifiers. Competition is rife among Adidas and Nike for official match balls, or OMBs, and both companies are eager to put their respective designs on the field. Nike holds an edge in number of leagues — though many countries and leagues aren’t listed of course — in Europe, including inarguably the two best, Premier and La Liga.

For international leagues both at the county and club level, Adidas has locked up OMB status in a clean sweep, though Nike does sponsor the 2015 Asian Football Cup 15 with their new Ordem 2.

Between 12-panel vs six-panel designs to the thermal-bonding or fuse-welded discussion, there is no shortage of differences of balls in league matches. Factor in the chance for a player to potentially use three different balls in a 12-day period — league fixture, UEFA and national team call up — the lack of standardization is odd. It isn’t a question of quality, merely continuity. The old saying “different strokes for different folks” rings true in many aspects, but when millions of people (not to mention millions of dollars) are involved in these matches, perhaps the saying “can’t we all just get along?” would be better.

(Header image via Facebook)

Though the technology is a little outdated, GIFs are still the de facto method for sports fans and writers to share quick videos for entertainment and analysis. There is no shortage of methods to create GIFs, but it’s often a time-intensive process. Usually a minimum of two programs are needed to capture and convert the MP4 or FLV files. But now, online video giant YouTube is slowly pushing out a tool to help ease that process.

The tool is only available on a very select collection of videos at the moment. Clips on the PBS Idea Channel are some of the few to get the feature as of this writing. The tool is baked in right into the sharing function already found in YouTube. Right next to the direct link and embed options is one labeled GIF. The user can choose up to six (consecutive) seconds to be converted with some simple visual sliders. The option to add text to both the top and bottom of the image is also available.

If the feature gets adopted on a broader scale, it would obviously be great for those of us who love to bombard our friends with cat clips and Russian dash cam videos, but it could also be very useful for the sports fan. The NBA leads the way in YouTube compatibility with their laxer rules regarding fan postings and their own prolific uploading practices. This new YouTube option would make it much easier for folks to post monster dunks and buzzer beaters to Twitter or their own blog pages. The NFL and MLB are getting better about YouTube postings, though they seem to only tolerate the heavily-curated videos they post themselves. This may be less handy for the budding analysts out there, but it would still be great to be able to send around a snippet of, say, this amazing Bo Jackson clip:

GIFs will most likely be phased out in the coming years in leu of better technology, but the fact that the biggest player in online video is at least testing a way to better create the easily-sharable file is an interesting development.

(Header image via Rego Korosi)

Hockey is seemingly always a fun event to watch live. Even if your favorite team isn’t performing so well, the speed of the game, the always-present chance of a fight, and the overall live experience of live NHL hockey is an enjoyable one. Fans seem to agree, as — at least in the short term — NHL attendance records are growing. Some teams are not resting on their laurels, however, and are instituting even more ways to engage fans that make it to the arena.

That bit of visual mastery can be found at The Prudential Center, the home of the New Jersey Devils. It comes courtesy of a dozen high-powered 1080p projectors that are mounted to the rafters of the arena. The company behind it is Quince Imaging. They have set up similar systems for other NHL teams as well as a few NBA clubs. The company was profiled recently by Wired.

And according to Quince COO Scott Williams, it doesn’t have to stop at fancy pre-game theatrics. There are possible plans to integrate interactive games — even some controlled by fans’ mobile devices.

The detail of the graphics is impressive in both the GIF above, and the video below of the Calgary Flames’ intro. We are only a few years removed from HD scoreboards over center ice, and now arenas are tricking us into thinking people can freeze fire with their skates. I’m sure the addition of similar systems in other arenas would be a welcome change for fans.

(Header image and GIF via Quince Imaging Vimeo page)

The header above is just a sample of a recent and instant classic photograph. The raw file size was only 45.1 KB, but what if we could make that load even faster? If you’ve never heard of Fabrice Bellard, a mistake that can be forgiven, don’t be surprised if his name pops up more frequently in the near future. The brains behind QEMU — a way to run different operating systems on non-native hardware, e.g. a “hackintosh”  — as well as other projects, Bellard’s latest feat is a new format for photos which he dubs Better Portable Graphics or .BPG.

Bellard is aiming to replace the .JPEG file type — among others — as he claims the BPG format is smaller, offers lossless compression and can be supported by most browsers with merely a JavaScript decoder. Displayed below is a photo in both its standard format as well as in BPG. The size of each is displayed along the mouse cursor line. Note the massive difference in size versus the nearly identical image quality. For more photos to compare, go here.

Obviously the biggest gains here are for mobile users. Imagine using a convertor to replace a phone or tablet’s .JPEG or .PNG files with .BPG. Rather than using massive amounts of storage in one’s device, why not shrink the raw file size down and save space? The loading time on mobile devices not connected to Wi-Fi would be drastically reduced as well. Given the demand for iconic moments in sports and in life, the way we store our precious photos could be changed for the better.

(Header via the New York Giants Facebook page)

Working with fitness apparel giant Under Armour, NBCUniversal has launched their new Radius brand, a multi-platform workout regimen. As it stands, Radius is limited to iPhone and iPad users as a $10 monthly service, or the videos will be aired on from 6 am to 9 am Eastern Time each weekday on the NBCSN channel.

The mobile version of Radius will produce content in an on-demand format from the television show. For the workouts themselves, there are levels of fitness ranging from beginner to high intensity. As time for workouts — and free time in general — becomes a premium in our everyday lives, Radius also offers a series called “10acious” designed to give a full body workout in just 10 minutes. A recent study showed the significance of mixing a high intensity spurt into a normal workout, specifically even a short workout with a minute or two of sprint-esque action grants significant dividends.

For now the Radius app is cheaper than just about any local gym membership, however it is limited due to its iOS device restrictions. Undoubtedly, Android users will soon be able to join in the workouts though the idea of paying an additional sum to work out, even one backed by Under Armour and digital personal trainers, seems a bit foreign. With free apps such as the Scientific 7-Minute Workout already available for both Android and iOS users, forcing potential customer into spending more money may not be an ideal way to reach mobile users. For now, Radius offers promise. However, even with the offer of two free months with a purchase of a six month package or four free months with an annual subscription, it may not be enough.

(Image via Wikipedia)

Staying in good shape and good health is hard enough — though with the new year approaching we all get to hit the reset button on our diets and workout discipline — so anything to make it easier and a more enjoyable time is welcome. Cycling has become the go-to option for many health-minded folks and the makers behind COBI, are aiming to make road cycling enthusiasts not only more eager to maintain their routines, but safer, too.

Though still in Kickstarter phase, COBI offers an all-inclusive option and mounting system for navigation, music (including Spotify, podcasts, turn signals and braking lights all while charging your phone rather than running it down. Their Kickstarter page boasts of over 100 intelligent features to any bike and comes with a variety of mounting systems for different bikes and different phones.

Like many hardware/app combinations, COBI has the basics of tracking, popular routes as well as Buddy Radar, a way of locating nearby friends who are also working out. The brains of the system is controlled by a what is basically a directional pad with a center button that mounts on the handlebars, never making you take your hands off what is important.

What COBI does differently is packing so much into one clean package, from music to heart rate monitors and calories burned calculators to security features. The lock feature boasts motion sensitive alarms plus the system will only respond to your phone with plans for allowed friends and family to also unlock and share your bike.

The COBI system offers a built-in case/screen protector combination with an IPX6 certified rain and mud cover guard, allowing you to take to the streets or mountains in less than ideal weather. COBI integrates with bluetooth 4.1, ANT+ and CAN for making to taking calls while working out or even simply commuting to and from work. Already compatible with Google Fit and Apple Fit, COBI is aiming to hit the ground running in the second quarter of 2015.

It was always the big paradox. Whenever a new rendition of a sports game came out you had two choices: upgrade and get all the new graphics and features, or stay the course with your current version and continue to build on the sports empire you had created. Well, luckily, MLB 15 The Show is making it so you don’t have to make such harrowing choices. Finally, FINALLY, you will be able to carry over your progress from the previous version of the game to the next.

According to both the official trailer and the list of new features over at GamesStop, if you have given your blood and sweat to crafting an unbeatable juggernaut team or your perfect Steve Nebraska-type player on MLB 14, you can take that progress with you if you procure MLB 15. It’s not 100% clear how the Franchise or Road to the Show game saves will be transferred — I suspect an Internet connection will need to be involved — but the mere fact that it’s being mentioned should cause fans of the game great relief.

This feature would be welcome in any sports game, but even more so in a baseball offering. The seasons are so long and the process to get created players to the majors is so exhaustive that it always brought me a tinge of heartache to leave a game behind for a shiny new one. The prospect of trying all over again always brought some excitement, but I found myself wondering whatever happened to the lefty knuckleballer I made or the unstoppable Mets team I curated just a few years back. This new feature will be celebrated a great deal in my living room, certainly.

You can check out the other new features — including some sort of radio show implementation — at the GameStop link above. The game is set to be released (friendly reminder: PlayStation systems only) on March 31st.

 (Image via Youtube)

Major League Soccer, in conjunction with ESPN and ChryonHego, debuted a new player tracker graphics package in yesterday’s MLS championship game between the New England Revolution and the Los Angeles Galaxy. The tracker shows the player’s club, number and highlights them with a gold colored circle during important moments of the game.

In the first half of play, the Galaxy won a corner kick. The system highlighted Omar Gonzalez leading up to the set piece, as the central defender is listed at an imposing 6’ 5” and an ideal target for headers.

While the system was use sparsely during its unveiling game, it manages to hold plenty of intrigue and possibility. The realm of soccer statistics hasn’t yet matched the level of baseball analytics, though there is no shortage of reading material to study the topic. Last year MLS signed a deal with Match Analysis to utilize their system of data collection and video to present things perhaps unseen by the naked eye. Among Match Analysis’ list of current or previous clients is the national teams for the United States, Mexico, Canada as well as 2014 World Cup winners Germany. While the Germans team used a different system en route to their win in Brazil, a system called Match Insights, there seems to be no shortage of demand for soccer analytics, as well as a way to bring them to the viewer at home.

Much like any proprietary system, the analytical side of the beautiful game may be kept close to the vest by the clubs and teams who pay for it. If MLS’ new system can highlight players — or even set pieces, attacks and counter-attacks — by using data collected, all the better for the game. A different option would be for the system to display offsides while the commentators simultaneously explain to potentially novice viewers what an offside consists of , thus avoiding any embarrassing Ted Lasso-esque situations. From the now standard and expected yellow first down line in football to the digital strike zone in baseball, technology has rooted its way into sports broadcasts. MLS is attempting to bring that same level of integration to their product.

(Image via Wikipedia)

The 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup groups will be drawn tomorrow at noon eastern on the Fox Sports 1 channel plus a live stream via Fox Sports Go. Joining the host nation of Canada is 23 other nations that qualified to make a run at the title of World Cup champion.

How to view the games themselves on television was decided years ago. FIFA gave all broadcasting rights in the United States from 2015 through 2022 for English TV and radio to Fox and their affiliates. Spanish TV rights went to Telemundo Media, owned by NBCUniversal. The Fox Soccer 2Go stream does not appear to have any streaming rights to the Women’s WC, however with a digital converter box, anyone with a TV — even without a cable subscription — should be able to see a limited number of fixtures. Lou D’Emilio of Fox Sports quoted World Cup Coordinator David Neal saying “Fox or Fox Sports 1 will carry all 52 WWC matches live in 2015.” Without a definite distinction of how the games will be split among the two channels, it remains unclear how many games a cord cutter will be able to see.

A possible option is the Fox Sports Go app is available for Windows, Android and iOS devices. Unfortunately Fox Sports Go currently depends on having a particular cable subscription. Despite producing a strong Fox Soccer 2Go app (where no TV packaged is necessary as it is a standalone price), the Fox Sports Go leaves much to be desired. One of the current issues is that despite having access to a Charter Communications login, complete with Fox Sports 1 and 2 in the channel lineup, Charter is not a selectable option. Given Charter services almost 28 million subscribers across 29 states and is the fourth largest cable provider in the nation based on revenue, one would assume compatibility with Fox Sports Go. Fox Sports Go is also not available to subscribers of either of the two major U.S. satellite providers — DirecTV and Dish. Apparently I am not missing much from not having access to the app, though. Among the three platforms, the highest rating is three stars on the Android version versus two on iOS and a 1.8 stars rating for Windows devices. Not to put faith in internet reviews, after asking around the only worse streaming platform than Fox Sports Go was the NBA’s League Pass, notorious for issues and bugs.

While the games are still over six months away, Canada will play its to-be-determined opponent on June 6, the accessibility of the matches is in doubt. This year’s men’s World Cup broadcasting rights was owned by ESPN and still have matches available to be re-watched via WatchESPN, though that does require a cable package. Whether or not Fox allows streams — both live or after the match — remains to be seen. Trusting major telecoms, let alone FIFA, to make the right decision for viewer accessibility is a nearly impossible dream.

(Header image via FIFA.com)