News.com has a special report about Technology Put to the Olympic Test with two interesting articles in particular.

Biathletes get wireless weapon in Games "Light beams will streak across regular intervals of the cross-country course where the races take place. A transponder on the biathlete's ankle will help send a signal describing the location of the athlete, the athlete's identity, and current time every time he or she passes through a light beam. The information will be sent to the coach's laptop, where software programs will take a second to determine the split time. 'Our coaches can sit on the courses with their laptops and instantly tell their athletes that they are 22 seconds out of first,' said Jerry Kokesh, development director for the U.S. Biathlon Association. 'We used to have to do this all by hand.' "

The article also notes security concerns about the 802.11b network that was installed to implement all of this. Are they afraid that a hacker is going to mess with the times or something?

Olympics: A cell phone nirvana? "The carriers' version of utopia for cell phone users is a nationwide network where 98 percent of all calls get through, even if the call is made in a car traveling through a 12,300-foot high mountain pass. This utopia will last for 18 days. Some of the new Utah network is temporary, and will be removed after the Olympics end.... The carriers added 177 more cell phone antenna sites and have 35 temporary antennas on tractor-trailers to mobilize during peak calling times, like the height of the opening ceremonies, Anderson said. She studied cell phone traffic patterns for the Nagano games. The air around the Opening Ceremonies was filled with electricity and with the most cell phone calls made at one time during those games."

Now if they could just cover my route home.... Imagine if the cell phone Sarah Hughes Sasha Cohen handed George Bush hadn't worked. (Doh! Thanks, Shirl.)

Addendum: Hello? Salt Lake City, Hello? "There will be lots of people trying to make calls but they'll be rebuffed by the lack of dial tones or busy signals -- if they're lucky enough just to get on the network. Despite all the work done by mobile operators in Salt Lake City, the cellular networks won't support the tens of thousands of mobile calls made by foreign visitors, analysts say." [at Wired News]

Deaf go mobile phone crazy "Over the last few years, the mobile phone has emerged as a popular device for what at first may seem an unlikely user group: the deaf and other people who are hard of hearing. Using the Short Messaging Service (SMS) functions on mobiles, people with hearing difficulties can communicate by typing messages into their phones.... By setting their mobile phones to vibrate, they can be alerted when a message comes in. This usage shows how a group of people can take up a technology that was not initially designed or marketed to them, and adapt it to suit their own needs and purposes." [at BBC Sci/Tech, via Meryl]

Another excellent example that illustrates why mobile, wireless access will be pervasive and ubiquitous in the future. Meryl notes that this doesn't really help her right now because her cell phone can't send messages, but that will change.

Is your library prepared to serve deaf users via SMS or IM? You'd better be in the future.

Have Cell Phone, Will Shoot "The carnage occurs with cellular phones, not guns -- courtesy of new technologies that allow cell phone users to locate each other to within several hundred meters.... The games rely on a cell phone technology that allows mobile operators to pinpoint users' positions within "cells" formed by their phones' locations relative to nearby transmitters...."

"The company's signature game is BotFighters, which Hålling says has attracted between 7,000 and 8,000 players in Sweden and Finland. The game will launch shortly in Ireland.  In BotFighters, users role-play as robots that they pick from a community website. They can pick all kinds of extras like laser guns and missiles, using play money called 'Robucks.' "

"But once they start firing at each other in the real world, they pay real money -- about 20 cents for each move in the game. (The cell phones can "get" missions from the company's servers, "scan" for nearby enemies and, of course, "fire.") Since intense battles often involve many moves, the games can quickly add up to some big phone bills. Sweden's Taxi31, for instance, has chalked up bills as high as $4,000." [at Wired News]

I'm quoting liberally from this article because most of the adults I know don't believe that kids - let alone other adults - will want to play games on their cell phones. Granted, the U.S. will be a different market, but any kid that's grown up with Gameboys will feel right at home with something like this. I mean heck, it's interactive and you can play against anybody, not just your next door neighbor.

In my Information Shifting presentation, I note that wireless companies plan to target their advertising at kids 10 years old and younger because they are considered to be the first big wave for this market. After all, what 10 year old wouldn't want to collect zombies and play virtual paintball using their PDA/phone combo? They don't know cell phones are supposed to be for calling people. To them, it will be an information appliance, game console, and IM tool all rolled into one.

BTW, you can find out more about BotFighters and other games at the It's Alive site. It's nice to see that it still has the heartbeat along the top and the funky background sounds. The site is perfect for a cellular game company. "Pervasive gaming" is a term you'll hear a lot more of over the next few years.