The Lady Geeks Topic of the Day: Olympic Tech

Tales of the Lady Geek

The Lady Geek's Topic of the Day: Olympic Tech

Greetings dear readers, the Lady Geek here with today's topic of the day. As many if not all of you are aware, today marks the end of the 2012 Olympic Games.  This Geek girl has been following the ups and downs of the games, hoping to see our gold mount higher and higher.  I am extremely proud to say that as of this writing America holds the number one position of Gold medalists! I am also going to take the time to thank our teams for their effort, talent, dedication and perseverance in competing.

Before we say goodby to the 2012 Summer Olympics, let us see why this year's games have been labeled by many as the most technologically conscious games of this century.

Okay, let's begin with the actual Olympic preparations. As we all know, the games are in London, England and as always, it began in grand style.  Yet even before the July 27, 2012 commencement, there was a lot of groundwork and IT firsts not only for the Olympics themselves, but also for the infrastructure, business' and neighborhoods surrounding the Olympic Village.  I'm here to give you a little insight into what went into making this year's games so remarkable.

Olympic Prep: UK Tech:

London's Olympic Village

The 2012 Olympic Games posed a lot of technological problems and innovation in solving them.  For one thing, internet connectivity was a major worry. In the four years since 2008's Olympic Games in Beijing, there's been an explosion of smartphone technology that's allowed mobile access to the internet and social media like never before. Just to put it in perspective, in 2008, according to the IDC, there were an estimated 139 million smartphones sold. From October of 2011 to March of 2012, there were 636.3 million smartphones sold. This twenty-four seven global interconnection was a definite consideration in preparing for the 2012 Games in London.  

So to prepare for worst case of the telecommunications over burden on London, Internet Service Provider, BT, outfitted the the Olympic Village - completed in March and slated to become a new East London neighborhood soon after the closing ceremonies - with enough fiber optics to power an entire city.   Also, for the rest of the summer, Virgin Media is offering free Wi-Fi at over 80 underground stations, planning to incorporate the service into their mobile and pay-a-you-go plans afterward.  All this and more have been designed to keep fans connected and existing business' telecommunications up and running during the games.

London itself, as well as many of the English towns connected to the Olympics through the special events like the boat and bike races, spent the better part of the year implementing business strategy preparations.  The worry, of course was that with all the anticipated travelers, street clogging and other communication and commuting nightmares, was that existing business' would have to shut down or lose important data during peak times.  There was also a high risk of the internet itself reaching such a low point as Bandwidth rationing as well as losing productivity due to the Olympics (and employees using company time to follow the games) themselves.  

As a result,many business' took the steps of moving their business critical systems, such as corporate email and financial information, to data centers and distributed laptops for millions of workers to simply telecommute.  Quite simply, the expected never came to be.  Of all the plans and backup plans business' made, apparently the UK business's forgot one thing about themselves...they already have the biggest proportion of any workforce anywhere working mobile and from home. Offices routinely accommodate less than 80 percent of the full workforce in any one working day.  So what's the takeaway? One legacy of London's games will probably  be permanent increase of mobile and home-working employees. 

Olympic Torch Technology:

The technology used in the Olympic games themselves, the ones that give you the best view of each dive, jump and fall and help keep technicalities and results in check are amazing! Starting with the Olympic torch and going on to all other aspects of the events themselves, months and sometimes years of preparation have gone into the development of the these games.

Since 1964, all Olympic flames have been lit in Olympia, Greece before journeying by air, land and over the sea - although the 2000 Sydney Games had the torch traveling through the sea and over the Great Barrier Reef. The torch, supported by several torch bearers and with a few 'backup' torches also lit in Olympia, is a very remarkable piece of technology in and of itself.  It's been designed to be light enough for the torch bearers to carry it and sturdy enough to carry its own fuel supply and internal burning mechanism. Of course, since the Sydney Olympics, the preferred power source is a mixture of propane and butane because they found that it gives the torch a desirable yellow flame without the accompanying smoke. 

2000 Sydney Games

 Olympic Game Technology:

Omega Contact Pads

Another example of the awesome technological advances involved in the games themselves lies with a Swedish electronic time keeper company, Omega. In swimming races, with all the splashing and 'in-water' action, it's extremely hard, if not impossible to simply eyeball the winners.  Thanks to Omega, the judges no longer have to. As swimmers reach the end of a lap or the end of a race, they touch these wall plates called Contact Pads. Each swimmer's best times are registered by the contact pads once 6.6 pounds of focused pressure is applied to them. The technology is so sensitive that the pads are able to register a time difference of one one-hundredth of a second.  That's pretty awesome considering how many events are determined by just that fraction. 

Racing Tech

Track and field events are so dependent on timing that even the starting gun and finishing lines are electronically timed and configured.  Once the starter pistol is shot to begin the race, a timing console is also triggered.  This mechanism also helps register false starts by monitoring the amount of time any one runner takes to leave the starting block. If it's less than .04 seconds, then the runner has taken a 'false start' and the game is reset.  

When the runners reach the finish line, they pass a laser beam that cuts across the track and records the time that the runner's torso (as opposed to a finger or arm) crosses the finish line. The photo finish cameras, at 2000 frames per second, complete the determining measures while showcasing the competitiveness of the athletes during the events.

The Takeaway:

Well, this Lady Geek has been an armchair witness to an entire revolution of technological ingenuity, inventiveness and design during this year's games.  I've been awestruck at the seeming seamless integration of the new technology with the existing infrastructure, I've been happily following my favorite sports guys and girls through twitter,  I've been amazed at the many 'close calls' between our competitors and I've been enjoying it all via time released, often edited NBC and CNBC broadcasts. All in all, while I can see this as the wonderful cumulative effort, I am still very appreciative that at the end of the day, it all boiled down to plain old fashioned enthusiasm, training and physical ability. You know, the human side of change.  That's why I love the Olympics, especially in this technological age.

Written By: MaryAnn Paris
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