Monday, July 30, 2012

Olympic technological bungle

I mentioned the poor relay of information that was coming from the cycling well it turns out they have an excuse - bottleneck of the information flow. Uh-huh.

It seems that no-one on the tech side of things considered that a free unticketed event might attract a few people who, oddly enough, might be busy sucking down the bandwidth posting twitter and facebook updates alongside photos taken.

As a result data from the cyclists GPS units that would tell everyone where they were wasn't able to get through. So in the spirit of inclusion that exemplify the London Olympics rather than sort it out spectators have been asked to shut the hell up instead.

Nice.

2 comments:

Orphi said...

Several billion extra people from across the globe descend on London, and nobody thought to maybe, I don't know, increase the available bandwidth?

Oh, sorry, I'm thinking like a rational human being. I forgot that this was organised by a committee. :-P

I'm also loving how British taxpayers have paid billions of pounds to build statiums so that they can sit 70% empty for the duration of the games, while the people outside can't buy a ticket for love nor money.

What do you mean secret cartels buying up all the tickets to inflate the price? Oh, surely it isn't so…

FlipC said...

I suspect it should be fine in-stadia, it will just be the 'open' events that will be problematic. Plug some secure Wi-fi routers directly into the telephone exchanges for the duration; what with all the CCTV etc. there should be enough hard-plugs to connect to temporarily.

On the empty seats. Mixed thoughts on this. Sure there's the problem with reserving tickets for companies, sponsors and the big-wigs who don't turn up. But there's also the problem that the tickets are non-transferable.

Consider how long ago the tickets were bought/allocated and the unexpected that can occur between then and now. Got a ticket and know you won't be able to make it; don't even want it? You can't give it to a mate; can't sell it - so that's one empty seat.

I recall it being mentioned that a family had tickets to an event and were told that their new-born baby who hadn't been born at the time of the purchase would need a ticket.

Watch LOCOG try to pin all the blame on the companies though.