In pics: Tech @ Beijing Olympics

The Beijing Olympics are set for a grand start on August 8. The games have been in the limelight since the day they were announced, sometimes for right reasons, and many a times for wrong reasons.
The Chinese government's recent decision to censor Internet during the games has once again kicked up a row. As the days inch closer to the Big day, we bring you some interesting tech moments driving the games.

Seeking Olympian branding!
Lenovo is the only Chinese company among the International Olympic Committee's 12 top-tier sponsors. The Beijing-based company is hoping its link to the games will help its efforts to become a global brand name.
Lenovo is supplying 30,000 servers, personal computers and other pieces of equipment for the games and is sending 580 engineers to maintain it.
The company has run some 40 test events and rehearsals for the games, said Chen Xiaopeng, its senior vice president for China.
The company recently showed off a new wireless device, dubbed Beacon, which attaches to a digital camera and allows users to post pictures directly to the Web. Yang said it would be available for some news photographers to test during the games.
Lenovo is planning Olympics-related television advertising campaigns in the United States, Australia and India and will be running Internet advertisements in Europe.

Stop Press!
The Beijing Olympics plunged into another controversy after China's decision to reverse a pledge on allowing unfettered Web access to the thousands of foreign reporters covering the Games.
The International Olympic Committee and the Chinese organisers BOCOG later agreed to lift all Internet restrictions for the Beijing Games.

Someone’s watching you!
An accredited member of the media goes online at the main press centre for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games on the Olympic Green in Beijing. Computer security experts have advised visitors to Beijing to protect their data from prying eyes. According to experts, travelers carrying smart cell phones, Blackberries or laptops could unwittingly be providing sensitive personal or business information to Chinese officials who monitor state-controlled telecom carriers.
Data risks
A journalist works on a laptop computer during a Beijing 2008 Olympics press conference. Without data encryption, executives may have their business plans or designs pilfered, while journalists' run the risk of exposing their contact list.

Till curtains go up!

A Chinese performer wraps up the stage in front of the television broadcast tower during rehearsal for the Beijing Olympics at the Olympic Green in Beijing, China, July 30, 2008.
Recently, a US Senator accused China of installing Internet-spying equipment in all the major hotel chains serving the Olympics.

Training Times
Staff train at the audio production room at the new China Central Television's (CCTV) Olympic Broadcast Center in Beijing. Broadcaster CCTV is dedicating 3,000 staff to the Beijing Olympic Games, with over 2,500 hours of programming going out on seven of the 17 channels it controls. CCTV will distribute Beijing Olympics broadcasts to all TV stations across China.

No politics please!
A staff member trains at the new China Central Television's (CCTV) Olympic Broadcast Center in Beijing, July 30, 2008. Although Chinese government has agreed to free Internet access for reporters for the period of the Games, it is still tightly controlled for the rest of the country.
It has also made a plea not to politicize the Games that many hoped would lead the country of 1.3 billion on a path to greater political reforms to match years of breakneck growth that has made China the world's fourth-largest economy.

Dressing up!
A giant overhead screen dominates a retail street in Beijing. Beijing is getting ready to receive a massive influx of foreign tourists during the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games and is determined to showcase a modern and vibrant capital.
Hu said that as early as 1908 some Chinese were saying their country should host the Olympics, adding that when the Games open on August 8 it would be the fulfillment of a 100-year dream.


Repressive regime
Foreign journalists use Internet services provided at the Main Press Center at the Olympic Green in Beijing.
Claiming that Chinese journalists faced greater repression now than in 2001 when Beijing was awarded the Olympic Games, a US-based think tank has charged that authorities there were accelerating crackdown on media before the opening ceremony for the mega sporting event on August 8.
The blocked Internet was seen as the latest broken promise on press freedom at the Beijing Olympics, which China's authoritarian government is hoping will show off an open, modern country and the rising political and economic power of the 21st century.

Lacking direction?
A passenger walks past a subway map at the new subway Line 8 which opened recently exclusively for accredited volunteers, journalists, staff and athletes in Beijing, July 29, 2008.