Beijing ahead of Games for '08
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ATHENS -- The countdown clock for 2008 will be installed in Tiananmen Square next month. Not that Beijing has been lollygagging since the Lords of the Rings awarded the Summer Games to the city three years ago. Beijing is bristling with cranes and steamshovels and jackhammers providing a staccato beat, with 30 sports venues in various stages of construction, including ...
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Despite the horror stories about heat, humidity, and pollution, the whole world still wants to go to Beijing for the Olympics. With the Games more than seven months off, tickets are difficult to find. There's so much demand that the organizers, who had planned to sell three-quarters of their supply to Chinese residents, will offer half to foreigners.
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With the next Summer Games set for Beijing, China will have a chance to defend its women's volleyball gold medal without leaving home.
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International Olympic Committee   president Jacques Rogge says preparations for the 2008 Beijing   Games are on track but feels good use of the time remaining is   vital for a well-organized Olympics.
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The Athens Olympic Games debriefing has opened in Beijing, with future Olympic hosts and five bidding cities for the 2012 Games participating.
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BEIJING, Dec. 1 -- China has decided to substantially liberalize restrictions on coverage by foreign journalists ahead of the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, the government announced Friday.
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Beijing grabbed Hong Kong headlines  on Wednesday with its Olympians singing and dancing into the  hearts of residents days before legislative elections in which  pro-democracy politicians could make gains over pro-China  rivals.
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International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Jacques Rogge says the strong performances of China and Japan in Athens marked the &quot;awakening of Asia&quot; ahead of the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
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China's 40-billion-dollar welcome mat is almost in place as Beijing prepares to woo the world -- barring unwelcome guests -- to the Olympic Games in August.
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Travel: With the Olympic Games just eight months away, you should be thinking about where you're going to stay
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BEIJING (Reuters Life!) - On a wintery lunchbreak before Lunar New Year, Beijingers in puffy jackets lean over glass cases of gleaming rat figurines and Olympics trinkets at the city's largest gold store.
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Activists are using the coming games as leverage to prod Beijing on issues like factory working conditions. Will it pay off?
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CHENGDU, China - Americans get up for the big events - the Olympics, for instance, or the Super Bowl.
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(InfoWorld) - When Beijing won the right to host theÂ 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 beenÂ 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 (wireless LAN) 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 (Wireless Application Protocol), instead of GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) or 3G (third generation). 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,Â 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 (Code Division Multiple Access), GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications), PHS (Personal Handy-phone System), TDMA (Time Division Multiple Access), 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 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. The form of the torch -- the scroll design -- denotes paper, a useful item and a Chinese invention, Yao said. The color was chosen via a survey. "We asked, what color is China? Over 99 percent of respondents said red," Yao said. The color represents fire and warmth, friendliness and luck. People who like pictures of the torch might be interested in buying one of the laptop PCs Lenovo designed using the torch colors and styles. The company plans to auction off 2008 of them online and donate the proceeds to charity. EbayÂ is helping with the auction, but it won't be an eBay URL (uniform resource locator), said Yao. "We have a passion for the Olympic Games," Yao said. "You know, when it's happening in your city, you have a passion for this." The other top Olympic-related design work has gone into the new National Stadium, referred to by many as the Bird's Nest due to its unorthodox construction. The opening and closing ceremonies of the Summer Olympic Games will take place in the stadium. The exterior of the 91,000 seat stadium resembles a bird's nest, a steel exoskeleton wrapped around the outside of the site. The design is bold, and striking. It's hard to tell how it's going over with local Beijing residents, though. Many complain that there's nothing Chinese about it and one of the best comments this reporter heard on a recent trip to the city was "I guess it will take some getting used to." Beside the Bird's Nest is the National Aquatics Center, where all swimming and water sports events will take place. Based on the geometry of water bubbles and crystals, the center was nicknamed the Water Cube because of the design of its light blue and white outer membrane. The Cloud of Promise, Bird's Nest and Water Cube are all attempts at innovative design. Unfortunately, the technology used at the games won't be quite so bold. Â
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Yesterday's report that the Summer Olympics have uprooted more than 2 million people over the past two decades touches a nerve with Beijing, which reportedly will have moved out nearly that many to prepare for next year's Games.
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A route to the world's highest mountain is to be built in preparation for the 2008 Olympic Games.
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On Aug. 8, when the Beijing Olympics begin in promised splendor, a few may reflect on how far or how fast China has come to host this high mark of international prestige.