IDG News Service (Beijing Bureau) — My editor's unhappy with me because I just filed this column rather late. I'm guilty as charged -- I had a chance to watch Roger Federer (upset in straight sets by American James Blake -- U-S-A! U-S-A!), Venus Williams (upset in straight sets by Chinese favorite Li Na -- Zhongguo Jia You! ["Go China" in Mandarin Chinese]), and Rafael Nadal, who is so the best tennis player in the world it's not even funny. All three played on the same night, on the same ticket and it was close enough to where I live that I took Beijing's new subway Line 10 home when it was over. So, sorry I'm late.

I didn't mean to lose focus. The Olympics is, after all, about technology, right? IT and all that stuff? Hardware, software? At least I think that's what it's all about. The Beijing Organizing Committee for the XXIX Olympics (BOCOG) said that this was a "High-tech Olympics," so I guess it must be. They also said it was going to be a "Green Olympics," although frankly Beijing always looks kind of gray.

OK, so, right -- technology. The other day I went to beach volleyball. All of the Olympic venues have security checks prior to entering the grounds, staffed by very earnest young volunteers. It's like the airport security in the United States, only more professional. You have to produce your ticket, which has an RFID (radio frequency identification) tag in it, and press it against a reader, which authenticates it. You then pass through a standard metal detector and screening, after which your ticket's bar code is scanned and then torn off. Look, technology at the Olympics! I guess that later on you could take the ticket apart and check out the RFID tag, but why would you want to ruin it? The tickets are nice, I'm going to keep them in a scrapbook as souvenirs.

Earlier Thursday when we were trying to get to the tennis venue, it was pouring rain. I pulled out the TD-SCDMA (Time Division Synchronous Code Division Multiple Access) 3G (third-generation) phone that the nice people at Samsung lent me to try out. I accessed the WOW (Wireless Olympic World) system's mInfo, which is supposed to have all kinds of information about the games. I looked at the map of the Olympic Green Tennis Center, only to discover that it's not part of the Olympic Green. The map didn't tell me, however, where it is. I tried to find it online using China Mobile's 2.5G mobile Internet service in conjunction with my 2G Apple iPhone. That didn't help much either. So I turned to a couple of the earnest young volunteers and asked. Their estimate of a 30-40 minute walk was too little by about 30-40 minutes, but we got there. Thanks, technology.

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