olympics

The Paris Olympics Promised Flying Taxis—Here’s Why They Failed to Launch
28 Aug

The Paris Olympics Promised Flying Taxis—Here’s Why They Failed to Launch

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Six months before the Olympic Opening Ceremony, Dirk Hoke, CEO of Volocopter, was still hopeful. “[We’re] making people aware that this is not science fiction,” he told WIRED in February, touting the flying taxi as a sustainable, safe and quiet mode of transport that would become normal in just a few years. “It works and it starts this year.”Flights on Volocopter’s VoloCity model would be free-of-charge and initially three routes were planned across Paris. Even as those plans were made public, Hoke had yet to travel in one of his own vehicles. “I would love to,” he said, “but so…
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Will the ‘Car-Free’ Los Angeles Olympics Work?
24 Aug

Will the ‘Car-Free’ Los Angeles Olympics Work?

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What’s undisputed is that, starting in the mid-1940s, powerful social forces transformed Los Angeles so that commuters had only two choices: drive or take a public bus. As a result, LA became so choked with traffic that it often took hours to cross the city.In 1990, the Los Angeles Times reported that people were putting refrigerators, desks, and televisions in their cars to cope with getting stuck in horrendous traffic. A swath of movies, from Falling Down to Clueless to La La Land, have featured the next-level challenge of driving in LA.Traffic was also a concern when LA hosted the…
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The Olympics’ Hostile Architecture Is a Preview of What’s to Come
09 Aug

The Olympics’ Hostile Architecture Is a Preview of What’s to Come

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On a graffiti-stained sidewalk in Paris, a strange sight appeared days before the Olympic opening ceremony in July: Around 40 giant cement Lego-like blocks in neat rows beneath the Pont de Stains, a bridge in the northern suburb of Aubervilliers that connects two Olympic sites, the Stade de France and the Parc des Nations.This place used to be a homeless encampment, where around 100 people, many of them migrants, lived in tents. Then on July 17, the police arrived and instructed everyone to leave, as part of a cleanup operation in which authorities put homeless people, members of the Roma…
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AI Is Heating the Olympic Pool
06 Aug

AI Is Heating the Olympic Pool

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In the suburbs of northeast Paris, there is a giant terra-cotta-colored warehouse with a labyrinth of windowless corridors inside. A deafening whir emanates from behind rows and rows of anonymous gray doors, and under white striplights, disposable earbuds are available to protect passersby from the noise.These are the uncanny innards of one of France’s newest data centers, completed earlier this year, which is now being used to heat the new Olympic Aquatics Center—visible from the data center’s roof. When US swimming star Katie Ledecky won her ninth Olympic gold medal last week, she did it by speeding through water heated,…
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Google will no longer air an Olympics ad that showed a child using AI to write a fan letter
03 Aug

Google will no longer air an Olympics ad that showed a child using AI to write a fan letter

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Google is phasing out an Olympics ad after for its AI-powered chatbot, Gemini, after receiving widespread criticism of showing a father use AI to help his daughter write a fan letter to her favorite athlete. The 60-second commercial, which is still available on YouTube, shows a father using Gemini to write a fan letter to an idol, Olympic track star Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, on behalf of his young daughter.“She wants to show Sydney some love and I am pretty good with words, but this has to be just right,” the dad says in the commercial. “So Gemini, help my daughter write…
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At The Olympics, AI Is Watching You
25 Jul

At The Olympics, AI Is Watching You

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“What we're doing in transforming CCTV cameras into a powerful monitoring tool,” says Matthias Houllier, co-founder of Wintics, one of four French companies that won contracts to have their algorithms deployed at the Olympics. “With thousands of cameras, it's impossible for police officers [to react to every camera.]”Wintics won its first public contract in Paris in 2020, gathering data on the number of cyclists in different parts of the city to help Paris transport officials as they planned to build more bike lanes. By connecting its algorithms to 200 existing traffic cameras, Wintics’ system—which is still in operation—is able to…
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Omega’s AI Will Map How Olympic Athletes Win
20 Jul

Omega’s AI Will Map How Olympic Athletes Win

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On August 27, 1960, at the Olympics in Rome, one of the most controversial gold medals was awarded. At the 100-meter freestyle men’s swimming event, Australian swimmer John Devitt and American Lance Larson both recorded the same finish time of 55.2 seconds. Only Devitt walked away with the gold medal.The way swimming was timed was by using three timers per lane, all with stopwatches, from which an average was taken. In the rare occurrence there was a tie, a head judge, in this case Hans Runströmer from Sweden, was on hand to adjudicate. Despite Larson being technically one-tenth of a…
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The Paris Olympics Will Show Us the Future of Sports on TV
17 Jul

The Paris Olympics Will Show Us the Future of Sports on TV

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The OBS is producing its video content in ultrahigh definition and high dynamic range, which should spruce up the level of detail and color in every shot. Content is also being captured in all manner of formats: vertical video for watching clips on phones, 8K video for the highest-definition broadcasts, and 360-degree shots for truly immersive drama.The OBS says it has more than doubled the multi-camera systems it uses to capture multiple angles of the action for super-slow-motion replays later. It will also use cinematic camera lenses, which are capable of capturing artsier shots, like enhanced depth-of-field changes that you’ve…
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The first Olympic Esports Games will take place in Saudi Arabia in 2025
15 Jul

The first Olympic Esports Games will take place in Saudi Arabia in 2025

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The International Olympic Committee () has that the inaugural edition of the Olympic Esports Games will take place in in 2025 as part of a 12-year partnership with the country's National Olympic Committee. The host city, venue(s) and dates are yet to be determined as are the games that will be included and the qualification process for each.The IOC says that international federations and national Olympic committees that are already involved in a digital version of their sport and esports in general will be its first options for partners. The organization took a similar approach to a trial event ,…
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Airbnb’s Olympics Push Could Help it Win Over Paris
18 Jun

Airbnb’s Olympics Push Could Help it Win Over Paris

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Short-term rentals can function as a quick release valve for a city expecting an influx of visitors, increasing capacity for a short time nearly instantly. In fact, despite the usual hype around the Olympic Games, there are still many places to stay in Paris this summer.A search on Airbnb for a two-person stay during the first weekend of the games returned more than 1,000 results, with many charging less than $200 a night. A search for hotel rooms on Expedia only turned up about 20 hotels offering similarly low rates. Hotel prices for the dates of the Olympics have actually…
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