Fun-tastic gadgets at the Olympic games

Sure, I didn’t make it to the Olympic Games. But, what the heck, everything is live on TV and if I missed a few games because of the irregular cable signal caused by the even weirder weather, it was great to be on Twitter because there were folks tweeting every move of some of the well-watched events.

For the blow-by-blow account, I follow @ofacialDionisia. Her tweets are really funny as she describes each athlete that she likes movement by movement — including those better left out of this article. She also describes how/what they look like in their sporting gear.

And for the more formal results, there is @London 2012, which is one of the official Twitter accounts of the games.

But of course, when cable is up, there’s nothing like watching the games on TV.

I have to mention that I almost fainted along with the South Korean Olympic weightlifter Jaehyouk Sa after his elbow snapped while he was attempting a 162kg lift. 

The 27-year-old successfully lifted 158kg, but tried to push it up to 162kg the second time around. In a video footage of the incident, Sa can be seen falling to the floor and screaming out in pain.

I watched that video. Ouch!

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And then there were the biggest athletes in the world who turned into fans at the opening ceremonies of the Olympics. I guess these great folks did what you or I would do in a situation where we were in a world stage — take photos with whatever gadgets they had on hand. I guess many of them put up these photos on their Twitter accounts, too, for bragging rights.

One of the more popular photos is that of Lebron James using his smartphone to capture the moment.

Even Mr. Bean was seen taking photos with his smartphone while “playing” the piano during the opening ceremonies.

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Here are some Olympic gadgets of the moment:

•Acer Iconia A510 Olympic-Edition Android tablet. Acer’s summer range of tablets and laptops has some form of Olympic branding attached. The Iconia A510 Olympic Edition tablet includes a premium Eurosport streaming app for the duration of the games. The Iconia A510, which runs on Android Ice Cream Sandwich, has a 1.3GHz Quad-core processor, a 10.1-inch WXGA display and 32GB of storage.

•Samsung Galaxy Note Olympic edition. Samsung has pushed the Olympic-themed Galaxy Note. The Galaxy Note with its 5.3-inch Super AMOLED display and stylus input has a Union Jack back plate. Samsung will donate one pound to charity for every Olympic Note sold. 

Samsung also offers an Olympic-themed Galaxy S3, which is being offered to athletes at the games.

• UK-themed Xbox 360 Kinect Bundle. It’s not an official Olympic product, but Microsoft offers a Union Jack-themed Xbox 360 bundle, which includes a flag-bearing console with matching controller and Kinect sensor. It also includes two Kinect games and three months worth of Xbox Live.

• Nikon Sportstar EX 10x25 DCF binoculars. If you’ve been lucky enough to get hold of some Olympic tickets, you’ll want to get as close to the action as possible. The Nikon binoculars will let you get up close and personal with all the fun of the games. 

• Speck candy shell country cases for iPhone. Carry your country wherever you go — and do it proudly.

• Monster Inspiration Headphones. Inspiration, Monster’s new over-ear noise-canceling headphones, make a statement all on their own, but add your country’s colors to the headband and you really stand out in the crowd. The country headbands are available for a limited time only. They snap into place easily with magnetic clips so you can stroll the streets of London in style.

And for the athletes, here are some of the high-tech swimsuits that caused a stir before the start of the games.

• Speedo LZR Racer Elite. Although Speedo designed its Fastskin 3 racing system for the 2012 games, still most swimmers opted to wear the Speedo LZR Racer Elite suite, which was introduced in 2010. The 2010 suit limited men to jammers covering only the waist to the knees, and women to suits covering shoulders to knees — both made from textile only.  

•Adidas London 2012 Olympics Team GB Women’s Swimsuit by Stella McCartney. Adidas created a suit designed by Stella McCartney specifically for Great Britain’s leading athletes. The official Team GB kit is built with technical fabrics and innovative fits. This women’s swimsuit delivers the fit, performance and technology to excel its wearer to maximum sports success. The suit features a compression fit for maximum hydrodynamics — to cut through the water at speed.

It’s great to be a couch potato for the Olympic Games — after all, it has been really flooded outside, so what better way to spend the day than by watching the best athletes of the world?

Now, if only our cable and Internet connections wouldn’t act so wonky.