No, this is not about the technology behind you being able to watch the live stream of events from the comforts of your laptop without paying a cent. It’s also not about the apps involved in getting you the latest medal counts, broken records or controversial calls. This post is about the technology used in the Olympic games themselves, the ones that help give you the best view of each dive, jump and fall, and help keep technicalities and results in check.

(Image Source: Olympic.org)

The Olympics may be about the spirit of competition but a little help from science and technology can help make the games to be solely about the athlete’s performance. From timekeeping to camera technologies, photo cells to awesome 3D replays, this post will reveal some of the coolest technology that helps keep the Olympic Games running smoothly, and you at the edge of your seat.

Time is of the Essence

Ever wonder how they figure out who wins in swimming races? It’s not like you can take a photo finish, and since water splashes, that makes it even tougher. But not when electronic timekeeper brand Omega has something to do with it. The Swiss timepiece maker carries huge responsibilities in determining who takes the gold medal home in mega sports event like the Olympics. And they do this with a lot of technology, including "contact pads".

Four fingers and 6.6 pounds

Whenever you see swimminers finishing up the last lap, it all becomes a blur and spectators there and at home refer to the scoreboard to find out who won. Each swimmer’s best times is registered by the contact pads once 6.6 pounds of focused pressure is applied to the pad.

This technology is so sensitive that the pads could register a time difference of one one-hundredth (0.01) of a second, which was exactly what gave U.S. swimmer Michael Phelps the gold (and an Olympic record of 50.58 seconds) during the 100-metre butterfly event in the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

(Image source: Picture of the year International)

From Start to Finish

In track events, even the starting gun and the finishing line is electronically timed. Once the starter pistol is shot to start the race, a timing console is also triggered, mainly to detect false starts. A false start is determined when the runner starts at less than a tenth of a second, the time it needs for a human to react to the starting pistol.

(Image source: Omega)

On the other end of the race, when the runners reach the finishing line, they will pass a laser beam that cuts across the track. This beam is received by a light sensor on the other side of the track. When a runner blocks this beam, the time is recorded, and as there are two photo cells placed at different heights to measure this, this will ensure that the runner’s torso (and not an arm) crossed the finishing line first.

Photo finish cameras complete the rigorous measures taken to determine who wins the race, as well as gives judges and spectators a look into how technology can showcase the competitiveness of athletes in sports. With 2000 frames per second, there can be no question as to who takes which medals home.

Smile, You’re on DiveCam!

But what about that camera at diving events, the one that follows the divers as they make their somersaults and drop in through the surface of the water? It’s actually an invention called the DiveCam and it’s not as high-tech as you’d like to believe. It works with two things: a pulley system and believe it or not, gravity.

(Image Source: The Wall Street Journal – Sports)

The man responsible for the DiveCam, Garrett Brown, is also the maker for SteadyCam – a mechanical arm that gives cameras that smooth moving run – and SkyCam – the camera that gives you the overhead view of football players as they run the field.

The Contraption

WIth DiveCam, the camera is placed inside a 50-foot long tube (yes, it’s that out-of-place flattened tube to the side of the diving boards) that extends well under the surface of the water. The cameraman times the diver as they leave the springboard, then drops the camera as the diver makes his or her descent.

Based on laws of physics, the diver and the camera should drop at the same time, giving spectators a perfect view of the dive as it happen. A brake system stops the camera from breaking from impact and it is pulled back up for the next dive.

Time-slicing: the Coolest Instant Replay

Also in the mix is the Matrix-effect replays of gymnasts in mid-air. While I haven’t been able to pinpoint a video of this effect that is available for all (unless if you’re in the UK, in which case, here’s an example) but if you have been watching the gymnastics event you would have been seen these awesome 3D replays, which is something like what you see below .

Aiding Referees

Using feed from cameras taken from different angles, stop motion and rotation view, game referees can use the video feeds to get an all-round view of the action and in some cases settle controversial disputes on the spot. While the technology has already been around since the Matrix hit the big screen in 1999, it wasn’t used in sports until 2001, to be specific in the Super Bowl.

The Debut

Everything was kept under wraps until the day of the event itself but the 33 strategically placed cameras used in the system, called EyeVision, gave the spectators a brand new look into the sports event. One drawback to this is that the costs of the equipment can really add up and their area of focus is quite limited. However, it does add the coolness factor to stunt-filled sports like gymnastics and extreme sports.

(Image Source: 360 Replays)

The Olympic Torch

From 1964, the Olympic flame has been lit in Olympia, Greece before carried all over the host country of the Games for the year then lit in the Olympic Cauldron for the entirety of the Games. Throughout this long journey known as the torch relay, the torch must always be lit so a lot of technology is put into making this event a success.

(Image Source: Olympic.org)

As the torch makes it journey from Greece by air, land and across the seas, it has to be designed to be light enough (less than 1 kg usually) for the torch bearer yet sturdy enough to carry its own fuel supply and internal burning mechanisms.

(Image source: World of Coca Cola Flickr)

For the 2000 Sydney Olympics, a combo mixture of butane and propane became the preferred liquid fuel as it produces the desirable yellow flame without the accompanying smoke. Further enhancements made to the torch gave it a double-flame design allowing it to be kept alight even underwater as it crossed the Great Barrier Reef.

(Image source: Telegraph)

Despite all the technological input, the flames occasionally go out when weather conditions are less than conducive but the torch can be relit from backup torches (but no other source) that were also lit from the same fire in Olympia. Each torch is remodeled and symbolically designed for each Olympic Games. Click here for an interactive view of the beautiful evolution of the Olympic Torch in the past century.

Further Reading:

Here are some other sports-technologies that are (or will soon be) making waves in major sports events.

• NFL in discussions about using chip-in-ball technology
• Chip Timing – for use in marathons to track runners’ running time
• Oscar Pistorius just wants to compete
• Top 10 new sports technologies that will change the Olympics forever

Related posts:

1. Top 10 Apps to Get Latest Updates from London Olympics 2012
2. 5 Websites to Watch The 2012 Olympic Games Online
3. Evolution of Mobile Phones: 1995 – 2012
4. State of the Internet 2012 [Infographic]

In our previous tutorial, we have learned how to use LESS in practical way by utilizing applications like ChrunchApp to compile the code. This time we will walk through some handy tips that will be able to boost our performance and productivity when compiling LESS syntax. We are going to set up our desktop/working environment by enabling syntax highlighting for our current editor, using automatic compiler tools and utilizing preset Mixins, then synchronize them all together.

Well, if you’re ready, let’s get started.

Disclaimer: The tips explained below are derived from my day to day experiences as a web designer. So, before we walk through it further, I want to outline that the tips might suit some designers and not others; just like any other tip you find on the Web. Nonetheless, I hope you can reap something useful from the following tips.

1. Code Highlighter

As we mentioned before, we have introduced you to ChrunchApp. However, this app might not be every web designer’s preference; because each designer has their own working environment, including the code editor of their choice.

Rather than install another code editor, you can actually still use your current one and enable the syntax highlighting in it. So, in this post, I will share some tips to add LESS code highlighting into 2 famous text editors: Sublime Text 2 and Notepad++.

Sublime Text 2

This editor is currently my preferred choice to help me compose codes. This app is available for Windows, Linux and OSX, so whatever your OS is, you will still be able to follow this tip.

Now, let’s download it from its official website and try this editor. Then, read the following instructions to enable LESS color highlighting in it.

Note: Please make sure you have read the license before downloading, as the free version is only intended for evaluation.

Install Package Console

First, open your Sublime Text 2, and display the Console from this menu View > Show Console

Then, copy and paste the following command line into the Console, then hit Enter to install the package control from wBond.net:

import urllib2,os; pf='Package Control.sublime-package'; ipp=sublime.installed_packages_path(); os.makedirs(ipp) if not os.path.exists(ipp) else None; urllib2.install_opener(urllib2.build_opener(urllib2.ProxyHandler())); open(os.path.join(ipp,pf),'wb').write(urllib2.urlopen('http://sublime.wbond.net/'+pf.replace(' ','%20')).read()); print 'Please restart Sublime Text to finish installation'

This Package Console will help us to install the highlight-package.

Installing LESS-highlighting Package

Restart the Sublime Text 2 and show Command Palette from this menu Tools > Command Palette. Wait until the package list has all loaded. Then, type Install Package to search and load package repositories.

Then, search for the LESS package from the repository list and hit Enter.

Wait a minute for Sublime Text 2 to download and install the package until the following notification appears on the status bar.

Go to the menu View > Syntax, you should see LESS on the list. It means that the Sublime Text 2 is supporting .less and your LESS syntax should also have proper color highlighting now.

Notepad++

Notepad++ is a Free, Open Source code editor, and has many useful plugins to extend its functionality. It is also widely used by many web designers/developers particularly those who work with the Windows operating system. So, I decide to also include the tip to add LESS text highlighting for it.

Install LESS-highlight in Notepad++

Enabling LESS color highlight in Notepad++ is quite easy.

First download LESS package for Notepad++ from this link (userDefineLang_LESS.xml). Then, Go to View > User-Defined Dialogue.

The following pop-up box below will appear. Click the Import… button and locate your downloaded .xml file. Then, restart the Notepad++.

Open your .less file and go to Language menu. You should now see LESS included. Select it to apply color highlighting on your LESS syntax.

More Resources

There are many other editors on the market. So, here we include some useful links for you if you do not use any of the above editors.

Adobe DreamWeaver

Undoubtedly, Dreamweaver has a huge user-base. It’s available for both Mac and Windows. So, if you use this editor, here is one of good source to install LESS highlight in Adobe DreamWeaver.

Coda

If you are using Mac you probably know Coda, this editor is one of the most popular among Mac users. And, here is how you can install LESS in Coda.

Geany

It is one of the more popular code editors among Linux users. Some computers in my office that run on Linux also use Geany. So, if you use it as well, you can include LESS highlight by following this instruction at SuperUser.com

2. LESS Compiler

Unlike the ChrunchApp that has a built-in LESS compiler, the other editors will not have it by default. Although there are some ways to include it, but it is rather technical for general users. So the best solution I’ve got is to do the compiling using the following tools: WinLESS or LESS.app. WinLESS is a compiler designed for Windows, while the LESS.app is built for OSX.

These tools can convert our LESS code into a static CSS automatically as we save the file and report directly if there is an error in the code. Well, let me show you how handful this tool is:

First, I would like to download WinLESS and install it.

Click the Add folder button and locate the directory where you put your .less files (I assume you already have created at least one). Once you add one; WinLESS will scan and find all .less files and show you on the list.

Go to menu File > Setting, and make sure these options are checked;

• Automatically compile files when saved
• Show message on successful compile

We can also set the output folder, in case we want to save it elsewhere. But, in this example we will leave this option as it is; which means the output file will be saved in the same directory as the .less file.

Open your .less file from the added directory, make a few changes and Save it.

The WinLESS will notify you when the file has been successfully compiled into .css or if there is an error in the codes. This way you can check the .css output directly, rather than having to wait for the codes to complete to compile it.

If you are using Mac, you can use LESS.app that has same functinality as WinLESS.

Preset Mixins

In current modern web design practices, we will use CSS3 properties like Gradient, Shadow or Border Radius that look like this:

-webkit-border-radius: 3px;  -moz-border-radius: 3px;  border-radius: 3px;

or

background: -moz-linear-gradient(top, #f0f9ff 0%, #a1dbff 100%);  background: -webkit-linear-gradient(top, #f0f9ff 0%,#a1dbff 100%);  background: -o-linear-gradient(top, #f0f9ff 0%,#a1dbff 100%);  background: -ms-linear-gradient(top, #f0f9ff 0%,#a1dbff 100%);  background: linear-gradient(top, #f0f9ff 0%,#a1dbff 100%);

In our previous tutorial we have made some Mixins to simplify this syntax. Fortunately, some people in the web design community are really generous enough to spare their time to compile these useful Mixins, so that we don't need to compile it ourselves from scratch.

And, one of my favorite is Less Elements that contains many useful CSS3 preset rules. Thus, we now write fewer lines of code from tedious vendor prefixes.

All right, now, let's see how all these tips above can really help.

Putting Them All Together

In this example I'm going to create a simple link button. First I would like to create a new HTML document and put the following mark-up:

<head>  <title>LESS</title>  <link rel="stylesheet" href="styles.css">  </head>  <body>  <a rel="external" href="#">Click Me</a>  </body>

Create a styles.less as our main LESS stylesheet, save it in the same folder with our HTML document and add the folder to WinLESS.

Import the elements.less we've downloaded before using this syntax:

@import "elements.less";

Now, we can use any Mixins provided from elements.less like .gradient, .rounded, and .bordered. I'm sure the Mixins name is quite self-explanatory.

Next, put the LESS rules below, in your stylesheet. And, save it once again

  a {  	display: inline-block;  	padding: 10px 20px;  	color: #555;  	text-decoration: none;  	.bw-gradient(#eee, 240, 255);  	.rounded;  	.bordered;  	&:hover {  		.bw-gradient(#eee, 255, 240);  	}  }  

Since our .less file has been added to WinLESS, it will automatically be compiled into .css. Now let's see the results.

Well, it's not so bad isn't it, considering that this button was created with fewer lines than what was needed. And, here is the actual generated static CSS:

  a {    display: inline-block;    padding: 10px 20px;    color: #555;    text-decoration: none;    background: #eeeeee;    background: -webkit-gradient(linear, left bottom, left top, color-stop(0, #f0f0f0), color-stop(1, #ffffff));    background: -ms-linear-gradient(bottom, #f0f0f0 0%, #f0f0f0 100%);    background: -moz-linear-gradient(center bottom, #f0f0f0 0%, #ffffff 100%);    -webkit-border-radius: 2px;    -moz-border-radius: 2px;    border-radius: 2px;    -moz-background-clip: padding;    -webkit-background-clip: padding-box;    background-clip: padding-box;    border-top: solid 1px #eeeeee;    border-left: solid 1px #eeeeee;    border-right: solid 1px #eeeeee;    border-bottom: solid 1px #eeeeee;  }  a:hover {    background: #eeeeee;    background: -webkit-gradient(linear, left bottom, left top, color-stop(0, #ffffff), color-stop(1, #f0f0f0));    background: -ms-linear-gradient(bottom, #ffffff 0%, #ffffff 100%);    background: -moz-linear-gradient(center bottom, #ffffff 0%, #f0f0f0 100%);  }

In Summary

Here is a quick summary of what we have discussed in this post:

• By enabling syntax highlight in our current editor, we don't need to install an additional editor only for composing LESS syntax; this can save you some spaces/memory on your disk.
• We also no longer need to download and link the LESS.js Library into our HTML head section as we did in our last tutorial. This way, our HTML document remains clean and neat.
• Using compiler tools like WinLESS and LESS.app can generate the static CSS output instantly. So, If there is something wrong with the syntax, we can examine it right away.
• Preset Mixins like LESS Elements is our best friend. It can really save our time when compiling tedious CSS3 property.

We have come to the last section of our tips. I hope you will enjoy and find them helpful for your current or future web projects. Thanks for reading the tips. If you have any comment please do not hesitate to post it in the comment box below.

Related posts:

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2. LESS CSS Tutorial: Designing A Slick Menu Navigation bar
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4. HTML5 Tutorial: How to Build a Single Product Page

If you are a college student, there’s a high chance that you bring at least one of these three devices to class with you: a laptop, a smartphone or a tablet. It doesn’t matter which type of mobile device you are accessing online materials with; it’s what you are using it for that is contributing to the chokehold of available bandwidth, particularly on campus where understandably students make up the largest population. But it’s not really their fault; we are all suckers for bandwidth-hungry materials such as videos, music, high-resolution images, movie files and live streams.

That’s the effect of living in the golden age of the Internet.

And since we are more inclined to run our social lives online than offline, when complaints about the lack of a ‘good wireless connection‘ on campus pile up, sometimes it’s good to just take a step back and assess the situation. This infographic from onlinecolleges.net reports that more than three-quarters of college considers the ‘increasing amount of bandwidth that students are using’ as a significant issue. So what are they doing about it? I guess you have to check out the infographic to find out.

Spot an infographic you think will be a perfect fit here? Send the link to us with relevant details and we’ll credit you with the find.

Related posts:

1. State of the Internet 2012 [Infographic]
2. 16 Ways How Educators Use Pinterest [Infographic]
3. Wikipedia: Redefining Research [Infographic]
4. Evolution of Apple Products (2001-2011) [Infographic]

Forget messaging apps like WhatsApp, Line and Viber, sending and receiving free text messages should not and is no longer restricted to smartphones only. If you’re looking for a cross-platform iMessage-like service, this post is for you.

Today, we’re going to introduce to you a powerful cross-platform messaging app – mysms, which allows you to send and receive free text messages to other mysms users right from your desktop computer, regardless of it being a Mac or Windows. Mysms may eventually be the only messaging app you’ll ever need on your smartphone.

Recommended Reading: How to Send / Receive SMS in Chrome Without A Phone [Android]

mysms Android & iOS App

To begin using mysms, get it on your smartphone first.

1. Download and install mysms messenger app on your smartphone: iOS | Android.

2. Register and activate your phone number by keying in your phone number and password for desktop and web access.

   

That’s it! Now let’s have a look how mysms Messenger works on different platforms.

mysms on Smartphone

mysms works like any other messaging app for smartphones: both sender and recipient must have mysms installed to start texting for free. Then, they can start sending all sorts of messages, files, images, videos or even word documents.

mysms on Computer

To send messages straight from your Mac or PC, just get mysms installed on your computer. Best of all, your messages will always stay in sync, no matter which device you’re using.

For Android users, you can even use mysms to send SMS via your network service provider, charges will apply.

mysms on Web Browser

Besides the smartphone and computer, mysms also provides a web app for you to manage all of your messages and contacts. The automatic backup feature keeps all your messages safe and accessible from anywhere.

Conclusion

If you want the flexibility to be in contact with anyone on the go via smartphone yet still have the comfort of sending messages from your computer, all for free, give mysms a shot.

Related posts:

1. How to Send / Receive SMS in Chrome Without A Phone [Android]
2. How to Setup Messages + Facebook Chat in OS X Lion [Quicktip]
3. Schedule (Send later) Your GMail Emails with Rightinbox
4. Keeping Your Private Photos/Videos Hidden on Android [Quicktip]

The Logo Design contest has come to a close yesterday and we’ve received tons of entries telling us about what they want to do with their logo designs and redesigns. Boy, we’ve got a real talented group of readers. Best of luck in all your endeavors and businesses!

Speaking of luck, the judges have been working hard to sift through the entries, and well, they’ve made their decision on who is taking the prize home.

To recap, the winner is winning a logo design worth $450 (courtesy of DesignCrowd) that is designed by professional designers from around the world. We are looking for one winner so trust us when we said that the decision-making process was really tough.

Our Winner is …

Over 70 entries, but you know there can only be one winner. And the winner is:

Alvin Jude

Congratulations to our winner! You will be contacted shortly for details on how to claim your prize.

For Those Who Did Not Win

In any case, to reward you for your participation, DesignCrowd is giving all entrants a 50% discount on posting fees (worth US$40 before discount) on logo design. This code is good for one-time use only, valid until 31 October 2012.

Click here to claim.

More Giveaways Coming Up!

More giveaway contests are coming right up. Here are several ways to keep yourself updated with Hongkiat.com. Stay tuned!

1. Facebook
2. Subscribe Newsletter
3. Twitter
4. RSS Feed

Related posts:

1. Logo Design Gone Wrong: 10 Offbeat Examples
2. How to Create RSS Feed Logo with CSS3
3. How to Create Gmail logo with CSS3
4. A Look Into: 6 Olympic Logo Designs