Since the beginning of the 2012 London Olympics last month, Apple has been giving away a rotating set of 4 Great Britain-themed lapel pins each day. This isn’t a new thing for Apple, as the company gave out similar Canadian-themed pins during the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.
For the Olympics this year, the pins are tiny black and white iPhones and iPads. Cult of Mac reader Andrew Wingert sent in some shots of Apple’s full pin set.
[Source: Cult of Mac - Read the full story]
Google is trying hard to get its users into the Olympic Games.
After yesterday's hurdles challenge, the Web giant is tapping our hoop dreams with another interactive doodle that allows users to take the rock to the hole for Olympic gold. Using the space bar (or even the left-click button), would-be Dream Teamers try to shoot as many free throws as possible in 24 seconds.
Oddly, while the hurdles doodle demanded users to use two hands, the basketball doodle requires only two clicks with one hand to shoot a basket. But the trick is that the time between those two clicks determines the distance of the shot -- the longer time between clicks, the farther the ball will travel. That comes in handy has the free-throw line gradually moves away from the basket.
Performances are judged from one to three stars and can be shared on Google+.
As with tradition dating back to the 2000 Sydney Olympics, Google highlights a different event each day of the Games. In addition to the hurdles, sports already featured this year are archery, diving, fencing, rings, field hockey, table tennis, shot put, pole vault, synchronized swimming, and javelin.
However, unlike other doodles, this one doesn't appear to link to information about the event because it also uses the left-click button to operate the virtual athlete. For those you too busy working on your free throw to type in the associated search terms, the first of the men's basketball quarterfinals games begins at 6 a.m. PT Wednesday.
[Source: cnet]
PlayUp's sporting social network has recently updated with lots of content specific to the Olympics, and with the games just getting started, it seemed like a good time for a review. If you're looking for more, be sure to check out our round-up of Olympics Android apps, and expect another one soon.PlayUp curates a wide range of sports content from a bunch of different sources, including Twitter, USA Today, NBC, ESPN, Reuters, and others. There's even some decent video content that seems to come direct from PlayUp. For the Olympics, users can drill down into individual categories, check schedules and results, as well as create hangouts, where you can publicly or privately banter with other PlayUp users about events as they happen. Users can add friends through Facebook and Twitter connections to send them direct messages and see their activity on the network. Users can also add sports to favorites for quick access later on...
[Source: To read the full article visit Android Central]
Twitter's grand ambitions for the 2012 Olympics seem to be off to a mixed start. On the positive side, the service saw 9.66 million mentions of the Opening Ceremony from the start of the event at 8:00PM in London until the end of the delayed US broadcast. For the most part, the chosen time period eliminates anticipatory tweets about the event (with the exception of US viewers, who had to wait for NBC's delayed broadcast of the Opening Ceremony). On the negative side, many US viewers took to Twitter to express their displeasure with NBC's decision not to stream the Opening or Closing ceremonies, which Twitter may not be too happy about considering their decision to partner with NBC on Olympics coverage. Twitter has grown exponentially over the past few years — a single day last week had more tweets total than during the entirety of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, according to a recent blog post. In 2008, the service saw just 300,000 tweets per day, not counting spam. The company's growing user base, its recent moves to curate news on important events, and the partnership that turned the service into the "official narrator" of the 2012 Olympics all show Twitter wants to become a significant media outlet in its own right. Now we just need to see whether those ambitions will be contained in a walled garden.
[Source: The Verge]
If you thought the list of banned items at the Olympic Games couldn't get any longer, now the IOC is gunning for that mobile hotspot in your pocket. The prohibited list includes all of the things you'd expect (weapons, alcohol, toxic materials) but also this: "Personal / private wireless access points and 3G hubs (smart devices such as Android phones, iPhone and tablets are permitted inside venues, but must not be used as wireless points to connect multiple devices)" Probably best to leave that router at home and make sure you only activate your smartphone's hotspot when you're hidden in a crowd, folks.
[Source: Engadget]
Fears of longer commutes increase in the lead up to the 2012 Olympics Londoners prepare for remote working
Concerns around the need to work remotely are higher than ever now that London is moving closer to the Olympics. People are planning to work from home or elsewhere owing to fears transport will come to a grinding halt.
Remote access experts LogMeIn commissioned a consumer snap poll* to discover how Londoners expect the Olympics to affect them. Surprisingly, however nearly two thirds of Londoners (64.8%) are not familiar with the start and end dates of the London 2012 Olympics.
The survey goes on to reveal that over half (58.7%) are planning to change their commute during the games as 33%, of those asked, believe that their daily commute would be extended by up to 30 minutes whilst more than a quarter (29.5%) anticipate a 45 minute journey increase.
However, it is not only employees who are taking precautions ahead of time but businesses, too. The survey showed that a mere 7.6% of workers will not have the option to carry out their jobs remotely. Fears are high that London transport will not be able to cope and consequently a whopping 85.7% of those involved said they would prefer to work from home during this time.
LogMeIn has several - completely free - services that offer support for remote working, such as:
join.me - a free, simple-to-use screen sharing and online meeting service. A free version delivers on-the-fly collaboration in a matter of seconds – no registration or additional plug-ins required – supporting up to 250 participants. More features are available for an annual subscription.
LogMeIn Free – also available for free, as the name implies - gives users remote access to an unlimited number of work PCs and Macs from their home computers and even their iOS devices, like the iPad and iPhone. Users can run and access everything – applications, files, email, etc. -- on their work desktop or laptop from home or anywhere with a WiFi or 3G connection.
Cubby – simple free cloud data service allowing users to securely share information across PCs, Macs, iPads, iPhones, Android devices, or with other people. Cubby lets people turn any number of PC or Mac folders into ‘cubbies’ that can be accessed from other devices, stored in the cloud, and shared with colleagues and friends
*Research commissioned by LogMeIn was conducted in June 2012.