Posted on August 18th, 2008 by Tim Danton
Technology the real Olympics winner
Opposite me, David Bayon is picking away at his salad while watching the gymnastics (he’d like me to write that he was watching something manly, but we all know the truth). Jon Bray was watching the long jump. And to follow a whim, I fired up the table tennis highlights. We have, somehow, slipped with barely a murmur into on-demand internet TV, and it’s fantastic.
Even the resolution is high enough to impress. Bayon (now switching his attention to athletics) has just exclaimed “you can see her heart beating” as he watched one of the 400m runners stand ready for the race.
It takes something like the Olympics to show us how far technology has come. The BBC iPlayer has been around in one form or other for the last two years, and we’ve become used to it. But do you remember how you last watched the Olympics? If you’re anything like me, it was mainly via a highlights programme on terrestrial TV. I’d have been lucky to see two minutes of table tennis. If I wanted to, I could watch 50 minutes’ worth, or fast forward to precisely the match I was interested in.
Now we’re all casually firing up our browsers, streaming live or pre-recorded events direct to our display. Makes you wonder how far things will have improved by London 2012.
Tags: BBC, iPlayer, olympics, technology
Posted in: Random
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8 Responses to “ Technology the real Olympics winner ”
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August 18th, 2008 at 1:49 pm
biggest difference i;d say is that it looks like this time you are watching it at work and last time in your own time
thats a bigger difference that the means by which you watched it.
August 18th, 2008 at 2:25 pm
It is fantastic. Thanks to the wonders of technology, we can watch the Olympics at work – rather than working – and rather than seeing crappy highlights tonight in our own time.
Which is cool, ’cause I just saw Canada take silver in team show jumping, which is much better than actually doing work. Well, it is for me, anyway. But at least I’m not watching gymnastics like Dave.
August 18th, 2008 at 2:36 pm
I’ve just watched some boxing to compensate. Feeling more manly now.
August 18th, 2008 at 2:51 pm
@mart What a slur on my character!
I promise it was lunchtime. And if it wasn’t, I promise it was meaningful internet research.
August 18th, 2008 at 6:58 pm
I can see Bayon in a leotard. Pommel horse gold for 2012, Dave!
August 18th, 2008 at 10:26 pm
Menawhile, in the real world, companies with 50-100 users all sharing the same 1 or 2Mbps link struggle to get any work done while colleague use their “lunch hour”, or worse, core working time, to surf the net and stream audio and video. Users who skive this way instead of working actually stop their colleagues from being able to work too.
August 19th, 2008 at 9:31 am
@Simon A fair point about the limited bandwidth, although I’d hope that people had enough social conscience not to do that to their fellow employees. But as I wrote that during my lunch hour, made it clear that Mr Bayon was eating his lunch, and practically spilled virtual tomato sauce over the blog post, it’s hopefully clear I wasn’t talking about people skiving off work…
August 22nd, 2008 at 10:19 pm
Unfortunately many people are coming to see broadband Internet access at work as “their right” and don’t realise that, while they, their husband and dog get a 6Mbps connection at home, at work 50+ people are all sharing the same 1 or 2 Mbps connection and not all of them take “lunch” at the same time.
While they chomp their sandwich at their desk, surfing the net for “fantasy football” or the latest “celebrity gossip”, their colleagues are still trying to do some work.
I’m sure you weren’t advocating skiving but your down time is someone else’s work time and you’re using company resources for your own relaxation and pleasure.
It is a Real World problem that sometimes leads IT managers to behave like “Network Nazis” and ban access to some Internet sites so real work can get done. Video streaming of the Olympics has been a problem for several of our customers and the culprits always trotted out the excuses “It was my lunch hour/break time” and “I didn’t know it was a problem”.