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New Devices Help Track Olympic Winners
Darren writes "Athletes are going faster, higher and longer and as a result the technology that measures their feats at the Olympics needs to keep up. As a result a number of new devices to help track winners, losers at the Games have been developed, including microchips on marathon runners' shoes, ultrasensitive touch pads in the pool, radar guns at the beach volleyball and cameras that take 1000 images per second."
I was at the pub watching the men's sabre competition and we noticed they were wearing helmets the light up in different colors, also wear clothing that detects contact and prevents the usual bloodletting a strike would make. Pretty interesting stuff.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Worry about how they'll apply lasers and 3D analysis to score gymnasts, regarding how closely they follow their selection and how 'artistic' it is. Anything judged seems ultimately fair game, though seems more sci-fi than prospective reality anywhere in the near future.
'Maybe if they have to wear barcoded suits...'
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Apparently the athletes are improved, too. In track events, a start time within 0.1 seconds of the gun going off is considered a false start. Apparently 0.1 seconds is the fastest reaction time that humans are capable of. Some athletes, though, are now able to react in under 0.1 seconds, and as a result, they are being charged with false starts.
The coolest tech out there is definitely finishlynx. It takes pictures of who crosses the finish line only a pixel or two wide and stitches them together so you know exactly who crossed the line in what order and what their times were since the times are exactly proportional with the pics. In this pic of me in the men's lightweight single dash I am finishing 3rd (Alex Krupp, lane 1). The reason I appear so bloated compared to everyone else is I put on a huge fucking sprint at the finish and even though I was a full boat length of open water down on 5th place with 100 meters left I managed to finish 3rd. Not bad for not eating shit or drinking much in 2 days to make weight. Anyway because I was going so much faster than everyone else at the finish I appear in the least number of pixel wide images, thus making me appear bloated and compressed compared to all the other boats. The reason all the oars are swirly is because they change positions from when the first part of the oar crosses the line to when the whole boat is passed, thus creating a cool real time motion blur.