“The Morning Briefing” is SmartPlanet’s daily roundup of must-reads from the web. This morning we’e reading about the Olympic game and the use of technology.
1.) Debating Olympic technology. A competitor at the 2012 London Summer Olympics will be running on carbon fiber blades attached to his amputated legs. Double amputee Oscar Pistorius of South Africa is expected to compete in the Olympic 400 meter race.
2.) MIT grads’ technology gauges Olympic mood. Captures social media messages to measure fervor — yea or nay — and turn London’s Eye into a giant mood ring.
3.) What are you going to believe, the technology or your lying eyes? For hard-core rationalists, the Olympics are a virtual mecca. Sure, some sports like soccer have been hesitant to embrace technology, but many events at the Games are almost robotic, leaving fans and athletes to often ignore what they see (or hear or feel) and instead simply accept what technology informs them has happened.
4.) Apps, social media to transform Olympic viewing. Rewind four years to the Summer Olympics in Beijing, and you’ll understand how this year’s marquee sporting event will be unlike anything ever before. Back then, there was no such thing as an iPad, smartphones were just starting to roll out and Twitter had less than a million users.
5.) What’s really going on with free Olympic WiFi? Two extremely contradictory stories published by GigaOM and The Verge got us thinking about what’s really going on with WiFi access at this year’s Olympics. And in this city notorious for intense Big Brother observation, is it reasonable to think anything could really be for free?
Image credit: London 2012
