london-2012
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Pentathlon switching to laser pistols for 2012 Olympics
It looks like your chances of hearing someone say "pew pew" at the 2012 Olympic games just got a whole lot better -- the world governing body for the Pentathlon announced this week that the sport will be switching from air pistols to laser pistols for the next summer games. That follows a successful trial at this month's inaugural Youth Olympics, which apparently went off without a hitch and without any impromptu games of laser tag. According to Klaus Schormann of the UIPM governing body, the switch will now also allow for competitions to be held in places like parks and shopping malls, and it will make it easier for athletes to travel with their guns on airplanes. Of course, the move could also open up a whole new can of worms: performance-enhancing hacking.
UK temporarily giving LTE spectrum to cameras for 2012 Olympics, tells carriers not to worry about it
You might recall that British regulator Ofcom recently got things in order for an auction late next year of Old Blighty's 2.6GHz spectrum for 4G use, but it turns out that spectrum's going to make a quick pit stop before reaching its final destination. Broadcasters at the London Olympics have been given the green light to use the bandwidth -- which will have already been sold by the time the games kick off in mid-2012 -- for wireless cameras, with the government saying it's fairly certain that carriers wouldn't have had an opportunity to deploy LTE in that spectrum by then anyway. Though Ofcom's original spectrum utilization plan from last year didn't call for using 2.6GHz, it apparently got a wake-up call from the Vancouver games, which revealed higher demand for both wireless cameras and 3D broadcasts than the agency had anticipated -- and unlike carriers, which are expected to pay billions of pounds sterling for LTE rights, Ofcom will be extending use of the bandwidth to broadcasters during the Games gratis. Awfully kind of them, isn't it?
