Tag: OLYMPICS

Seems that the Chinese government woke up on the bright side of the hard, stone floor this morning! The iTunes music store is apparently back up and running again in the country, after it was blocked last week by local officials. Not all is ice cream and puppy dogs, however. While 50 Cent and Bon Jovi downloads are back and in full effect, "Songs for Tibet" -- an album released by the Art of ...

Well if you want to become one of the most popular figures on Facebook, we've got a surefire way to rocket to the top -- break a couple Olympic records. In the days following his historic race into the record books, Michael Phelps has received well over 7,000 friend requests on the social networking site du jour (first Friendster, then MySpace, now Facebook, next -- FriendFaceSpace). In an ...

The Chinese government has booted NYC resident Noel Hidalgo from the country after he took part in a protest of China's occupation of Tibet in Tiananmen Square. While Hidalgo is far from being the only person to be deported in response to protests during the Olympics, he is the only person who has covered his arrest and deportation live on Twitter and via the video streaming service Qik (the ...

Look folks, we won't deny that hardcore usage of the Wii could result in weight loss, but we have all ideas Japan's Kosuke Kitajima relied a lot more on swimming laps religiously and eating a set diet than playing Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games. Nevertheless, the Olympic gold medalist, who snagged said medal in the men's 100-meter breaststroke earlier this week, did mention that he used ...

The pre-Olympics censorship debacle continues, and, unfortunately, it's still not completely resolved. Earlier this week, it was discovered that despite earlier pledges of Internet freedom for journalists during the games, many sites (like Amnesty International) were still blocked. There was, naturally, a global uproar, especially against the International Olympics Committee (IOC), the Olympics ...

If your definition of computer is a beige box with a keyboard and mouse sprouting out of the back, then prepare to have your horizons expanded a bit. Back in 1900, a device called the Antikythera Mechanism was discovered in a ship's wreckage near a Greek island of the same name. For years researchers weren't really sure what the thing did, but recent examinations -- published on Wednesday in ...

Remember that warning U.S. security agencies gave government officials and businesses? It appears that warning may be publicly extended to any and all travelers to Beijing. The danger to personal and sensitive data is hard to overstate in a country with such a long history of electronic espionage, but a public warning could damage political and business relationships with the economic ...

Chinese officials are taking steps to improve air quality and traffic gridlock in Beijing by cutting automobile travel via heavy traffic restrictions during the Olympic games. China's capital city is quickly becoming one the world's most-congested, with over 1,000 new cars being added to the city's streets each day. So how do they plan to do it? It looks like they've gone with a high-tech ...

Just in case it didn't really sink in last August, NBC is gearing up to air 3,600 hours of Olympics coverage this year. Yeah, 3,600 hours. So, how are mere plebeians supposed to watch that much content? With a couple HD DVRs, you ought to have no troubles at all. Hailed as the "most ambitious single media project in history," NBC Universal will be broadcasting across seven different NBC ...

National security agencies are warning American officials and businesses to take extra precautions with the data (addresses, documents, etc) on their cell phones and laptops while in China for the Olympics. In the past year, China has shown its desire to infiltrate American networks in order to steal government and industry secrets, and agencies are warning that it will be very easy for it to do ...

Good news for the cyborgs in the crowd: the ruling by the International Association of Athletics Federations that barred double-amputee sprinter Oscar Pistorious from a shot at the Olympics has been overturned by the Court of Arbitration for Sport. Detractors from Oscar's entry into the Olympics have cited a suspect study that says Oscar could be using as little as 25% of the energy of other ...

Despite having the highest number of online users in the world, China is still one of the most strict censors of the Internet. In the build-up to the Olympic Games in Beijing this summer, the nation has been talking about the easy availability of Internet access for the media covering the games, but now it's backing away from pledges of "complete freedom," indicating that some sites will continue ...

In the world of Olympic competition, participants will do anything they can to get an edge. Some take things a little too far, using performance enhancing drugs, but you can be sure that even those who would never break the rules are doing everything in their power to get the most out of them. Apparel and equipment manufacturers are definitely on board, spending millions of dollars to produce the ...