The Wired World Cup

If you thought the World Cup brought with it only world-class football and a

month of overflowing beer, hooliganism, and distressed wives and girlfriends,

you probably have forgotten about the power of technology. So right on cue, you

have got computer viruses and Trojans that take advantage of your passion of the

world's most popular sporting event! There is one that comes with a message

titled Korea -Japan results. There are others, which are lurking around or

waiting to kick off at appropriate-or is it inappropriate-times.

With such enthusiasm all around, it does sound pretty negative. So, looking

at the positive side, technology has decided to play game, with hooligan

audiences at four World Cup stadiums-Munich, Hamburg, Kaiserslautern, and

Stuttgart. These cities have installed a state-of-the-art access system called

'Handshake', which has been developed by SkiData of Salzburg, Austria. For

example, at Allianz Arena in Munich, this technology can admit 69,000 people in

an hour-and-a-half and regulate turnstiles for orderly exits. It can separate

supporters of opposing teams to different sections and track occupancy of these

sections in real time. In case of thefts and loss, it can even block seats. The

stadium has 240 checkpoints, 70 handheld readers, and 15 VIP gates.

You can experience this smart technology, if you can lay your hands on the

tickets to one of these stadiums. With only 36% of the tickets open to the

general public, this is not easy. Thus, people are doing big business over the

Internet selling World Cup tickets. There are websites selling tickets for $45 a

seat for non-popular matches to as much as $5,500 for the final match, to be

played at the Berlin Olympic stadium. There are reports that not all tickets are

genuine. One plan to avoid forgery was to sell enhanced tickets containing an

RFID chip with the ticket holder's name and identification details. Several

people refused to accept these tickets simply because they did not want to be

identified!  One can dub this as a

technology misfire.

While on the subject of the use of technology at the World Cup, Avaya's

name rings loud and clear. The company has temporarily wired all the 12 stadiums

with data centers, hotels, offices, airports, and train stations through 5,000

IP phones and 20,000 high-speed data ports. Its engineers are working 24x7 to

prevent any kind of hacking attacks and breaches of security that can not only

cripple the media reporting, but also compromise data of more than two lakh

organizers, staff members, and players. As a sponsor and IT provider to FIFA,

Avaya has spent more than $100 mn since 2001 of which the cost of the network

would be around $25 m.

The Internet is also buzzing with activity. You can see all kinds of tech

paraphernalia hopping around. Computer games, browsers with real-time updates,

spreadsheet-based planners to keep track of the table positions, wallpaper,

screensavers, and computer deals that promise an unbeatable multimedia coverage

of the event with TV tuner cards, etc. Incidentally, it seems that the TV

Licensing Authority of the UK is up in arms against individuals and

organizations watching 'BBC Live' streaming telecast on the computer without

a proper license.

Many websites predicting the World Cup results are sprouting by the dozen.

There are a lot of mathematical, statistical, and technical wizardry happening

in the background to arrive at these results. Some of them claim to use

statistical models, public opinion, past data, and computer models analyzing the

structural peculiarities of the competition, and their own expertise.

Clearly there is more to technology than work. India will have its own chance

to hold technology-supported events in the Commonwealth Games. And, while we

wait for that to happen, this month is for football. I have to now get back to

updating my spreadsheet with the latest results!