Design work trumps new technologies at Beijing Olympics

When Beijing won the right to host the 2008 Summer Olympic Games, officials promised to use it as a showcase for new technology and China's economic development.

But the reality is that while the games will display the world's top athletic talent, it will be using old, mature technologies.

A lot of new technologies, and even some mature ones, have already been cut from the roster. Microsoft Windows Vista, for example, won't be the OS used on any of the PCs responsible for vital functions at the Olympics; its predecessor Windows XP will. WLAN didn't make the grade either. All networking for the games will be done by wireline.

Officials have even prepared a mobile Web site for the Olympics based on WAP, instead of GPRS or 3G. The site is designed to provide up-to-the-minute scoring information, and it's already online.

"We're only using proven technologies at the games," said Hou Xinyi, deputy director of the technology department at the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad, which has taken the acronym BOCOG. If China's 3G system is up and running by the end of this year, the official Web site for mobile users will be more useful to people, he added.

So far, China hasn't said when it will start issuing 3G licenses.

The nice thing about WAP is its reliability and usability. Most wireless networks can be used with it, including CDMA, GSM, PHS (Personal Handy-phone System), TDMA, and most OSes allow people to read information from WAP sites. It's just not as fast as 3G, not by a long shot.

But while the technology may be lacking, attendees to the 2008 Summer Olympic Games will be treated to some spectacular design work. Not only are some of the stadiums being built for the games unique -- and unusual for Beijing -- the torch to be used in the round-the-world relay is also easy on the eyes. And it was developed by a PC vendor, China's own Lenovo Group.

Lenovo won the design contest for the 2008 Olympic torch. The company's PC designers came up with a 72-centimeter-tall, 985-gram aluminum torch in the shape of an ancient Chinese scroll.

The torch is two colors, split in half in the same manner as the Yin-Yang symbol, said Y. J. Yao, a vice president at Lenovo and head of the design teams. The upper half of the torch is silver with cloud designs outlined in red, while the lower half is red, covered by a special paint with a rubbery feel, a no-slip safeguard so that runners won't drop it if they're sweating during their 400-meter portion of the global torch run.

Originally, the company thought about using a dragon design on the top of the torch, but "the dragon is a symbol for the emperor, not for everyone, so we can't accept the dragon," Yao said. The cloud is for everyone, and represents the coming together of heaven and earth, he added.

The name of the torch is the Cloud of Promise.