Rio Paralympics 2016: Games to go ahead with major budget cuts

The Paralympic Games will take place as planned next month, but face major budget cuts, the International Paralympic Committee has announced.

The cuts will be made to venues, the workforce and transport.

Delayed travel grants will now be paid to athletes, but 10 countries may struggle to get teams to Rio.

"Never before in the 56-year history of the Paralympic Games have we faced circumstances like this," said IPC president Sir Philip Craven.

With 19 days to the start of the Games, the IPC says Rio's organising committee has not raised enough money to fund the Paralympics.

This is due to Brazil's struggling economy and the fact that only 12% of available tickets have so far been sold for the Games, which start on 7 September.

It meant organisers were three weeks late in paying 8m euros (£7m) of travel grants to help athletes get to Rio.

But Rio's mayor Eduardo Paes has secured an additional £36m of funding and £24m in sponsorship from state-run companies after an injunction was lifted that had blocked further state aid for the Games.

What's being cut?

• Downsizing of Rio 2016's workforce for the Paralympics
• Changes to the transport services for athletes and their teams
• The closure of a number of venue media centres
• Moving events to other venues to enable Deodoro Park to be dismantled, allowing the other venues to have dedicated transport hubs
• Security forces currently in place for the Olympics will remain for the Paralympics.

Craven added: "These cuts are on top of the ones we, together with the International Olympic Committee, have already made in the last 12 months and are likely to impact nearly every stakeholder attending the Games."

Organisers were meant to pay travel grants to all 165 participating countries by the end of July. The grants, paid to national Paralympic bodies, cover the travel costs for athletes and officials.

The first instalments will now be paid but the IPC is concerned that the delay could threaten some countries' participation.

"Currently we have around 10 countries who, even if the grants are paid, may struggle to cover the cost of their travel to the Games," said Craven.

The IPC also said only 290,000 tickets have been sold and it did not expect to see full venues in Rio.

Despite the problems Craven said the Games would "act as a catalyst to positive social change in Brazil and Latin America".

He added: "We are working desperately hard to protect athlete services, especially within the field of play.

"They have dedicated their lives to reaching these Games and we will do our utmost to try and maintain the service levels and scope that they expect at a Paralympic Games."

Richard Lane, from disability charity Scope, added: "It's incredibly disappointing to hear that disabled athletes are being short-changed and face competing in empty stadiums.

"With more than two weeks to go, we hope the organisers can address these issues and ensure the Games are a success."

Pokemon Go could be as dangerous as texting: Study

HOUSTON: The danger involved in playing the location-based augmented reality gamePokemon Go is similar to the hazards of texting, a new study has warned.

Pokemon Go, which released in July, uses global positioning system (GPS) to help players locate, capture, battle and train Pokemon who appear on the screen as if they were in the same real-world location as the player.

The app quickly became a global phenomenon and has been downloaded by more than 100 million people worldwide.

In the days after the game's release, reports started coming in of people falling, running into things or even walking into traffic playing Pokemon Go.

Nintendo issues 'Pokemon Go warning', shares fall

"The problem with Pokemon Go, in my opinion, is that it leads to a whole new level of not only slowing down, but moving in a particular direction to chase your Pokemon," said Conrad Earnest, a research scientist at Texas A&M University in the US.

Last year, Earnest completed research focused on texting and walking. His team found that when compared with non-distracted walkers, texting and cognitively distracted walkers slowed down, took more steps and increased the height of their steps to go over obstacles.

Researchers used the results to hypothesise that the slowed walking pace coupled with path deviations will eventually cause a trip-and-fall accident.

Earnest refers to that research to discuss recent concerns about dangers surrounding Pokemon Go.

"Players are more likely to cross at a time when the crosswalk signs are not giving a clear go. They are more likely to cross in the middle of the street as opposed to a crosswalk," said Earnest.

"I think Pokemon Go is the potential recipe for more injuries and more pedestrian or traffic accidents," he said.

According to Earnest, it is unrealistic to think people will just chase Pokemon on foot - they are also going to chase Pokemon behind the wheel as well.

"A friend of mine was riding his unicycle in a low and slow traffic area and was crossing the street in a crosswalk. A woman in a car was chasing a Pokemon, ran a stop sign and hit him," said Earnest.

There have been similar incidents around the world, including people crashing into parked cars or running off the road altogether.

"The more distractions you throw in the mix when you are trying to get from point A to point B, the greater likelihood of you running into a problem," said Earnest.

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Latest Olympics media rules nix GIFs, Vines, and streaming apps

The Olympics Committee has always been restrictive in who can use what footage and when, but a couple new rules introduced for the 2016 games take things even further. The official social media guidelines now prohibit streaming apps, Vines, and even the lowly GIF.

Part of the new restriction appears in the official broadcast rules (PDF), under “Internet and Mobile Platforms.”

…the use of Olympic Material transformed into graphic animated formats such as animated GIFs (i.e. GIFV), GFY, WebM, or short video formats such as Vines and others, is expressly prohibited.

“Olympic Material” is defined as pretty much any images of the games, whatever the source.

Then, in the FAQ for the social and digital media guidelines (PDF):

Broadcasting images via live-streaming applications (e.g. Periscope, Meerkat) is prohibited inside Olympic venues.

The versions of these documents updated for the 2014 games in Sochi don’t have any comparable language, or at least nothing this specific. A possible exception is the“Photographer’s Undertaking,” which states:

The dissemination of moving images or sound  captured  in  an  Olympic venue, through any media, including display on the Internet, Mobile Platform and other interactive media or electronic medium, is strictly prohibited.

But that document isn’t dated, so it’s hard to say when the IOC might have made that language more inclusive.

In general the rule boils down to: Video taken in the Village or at a venue is to be taken by accredited media and used within the broadcast rules, or else kept for personal purposes only. That outlawed streaming in effect, but the new rules make it more clear. GIFs weren’t mentioned, let alone GIFVs, GFYs, or any other new custom looping image format.

Of course, any attempt to crack down on the inevitable meme-making that accompanies such a major media event is doomed to hilarious failure.

Hell, even the pros are likely to get tut-tutted by the IOC for not following every rule to the letter. Just try making sure your broadcast, front page, segment, vlog, or whatever meets all the restrictions set out here.

POKEMON GO CREATORS HAVE BEGUN WORK ON HARRY POTTER GO!

Its confirmed pokemon GO creators have started work on "harry potter go"

Harry Potter fans, get ready, as the magic is coming to the real world.

Following the completely insane success of Pokemon GO, Niantic are set to make more of our childhood dreams come true once again, by making HARRY POTTER GO become a reality.

An appeal was set up just a couple days requiring this, with fans imagining the possibility of throwing spells, all things considered, dueling with companions and having the capacity to get mystical mammoths. 

Furthermore, it appears Niantic have tuned in. They've squandered no time in getting the rights for the Harry Potter rendition of the application, with Hello Giggles reporting that Niantic's senior engineer, Marcus Figueroa uncovered more points of interest in a meeting.

He said:

We have acquired the rights for the app. The demand for this title was absolutely insane, so we figured we’d give it a shot. We want to do something with schools of witchcraft and wizardry, similar to pokestops in Pokemon GO. As wells a quest system, and possibly large scale completely interactive events, but no promises. That’s all I can say.

Twitter will stream its first eSports competition, starting today

It’s no Twitch, but Twitter this weekend will live stream its first eSports competition on its service, thanks to a partnership with Eleague. Twitter will provide live coverage of the organization’s semifinals and championship held today and tomorrow in Atlanta, where teams will be playing Valve’s “Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Game.”

The first semifinal takes place today at 5 PM ET, and will be followed by the second semifinal at 10 PM. The season one championship is then held on Saturday at 4 PM ET with the top two teams going head-to-head in a best out of three series, says Eleague.

However, this will not be an exclusive live streaming deal for Twitter. Eleague, which is part-owned by Turner along with WWE | IMG, will also air the matches live on TBS as well as offer a live stream of all three matches on Amazon-owned Twitch.

That said, the eSports organization is poised to take advantage of Twitter’s audience, using the network as a way to interact with fans and promote competitive gaming in general. The Eleague Twitter account (@EL) will be tweeting out highlights, GIFs, stats and score updates throughout the match, while Twitter-owned Periscope will feature on-air talent and behind-the-scenes footage of players, the company notes.

For Twitter, the deal is a way to tap into a growing audience of gamers, which the company claims are some of the more active users on its network. Of course, Twitter hasn’t always had an easy time managing its gamer user base – a smaller subset of gamers, the #GamerGate crowd, have been responsible for some of the most vicious trolling the site and its users have ever faced.

At least by focusing on eSports, Twitter has a chance to bring in a more diverse group of gaming fans, beyond those who like to anonymous target and harass women in the gaming industry.

“Esports fans go to Twitter to see and talk about what is happening now in competitive gaming,” said Anthony Noto, Twitter’s Chief Financial Officer, in a statement about the new deal. “Gamers are one of the largest and most engaged audiences on Twitter, and we are thrilled to partner with Turner and WME I IMG to bring them the live content from Eleague and Twitter commentary they are already looking for, all on one screen.”

Also of note: during the live stream on all three platforms, including Twitter, Eleague says it will be taking some limited commercial breaks. These will feature ads from Domino’s, Arby’s, Buffalo Wild Wings, and Credit Karma. 

Eleague’s partnership is now only of many Twitter has made over the past several months as it moves into live streaming, and one of several in the wider “sports” category. The company also live streamed Wimbledon, and has made a deal with the NFL to stream Thursday Night Football this fall. It recently added a partnership with Pac-12 Networks for university sports, too, and will exclusively live stream two original NBA programs weekly next season.

Outside of sports, Twitter also partnered with CBSN to live stream convention coverage and Bloomberg for financial news.

Researchers have developed a flexible holographic smartphone screen that plays a mean game of ‘Angry Birds’

The first thing you do upon developing a flexible holographic smartphone display? Fire up a game of Angry Birds, naturally. All the rest of that smartphone functionality can wait until you’ve finished a few rounds of slingshotting avian missiles.

Maybe not the first thing – but it was clearly high on the list of the Human Media Labresearchers who developed the HoloFlex. And indeed, the game makes a pretty sizable cameo in the demo video for the new technology, which utilizes motion parallax and stereoscopy to render 3D images without the need for glasses.

The technology is built into a Flexible Organic Light Emitting Diode (FOLED) touchscreen that can be bent by the user. In addition to the oft stated upsides of a bendy smartphone, a built-in bend sensor (similar to what the lab deployed in its recent ReFlex prototype) leverages the motion as another means with which to interact with the handset.

The pair of disembodied hands in the demo video use the motion to move objects along the phone’s Z-axis. In the case of Angry Birds, that means stretching back the bird-catapulting slingshot. The tension on the phone correlates with that of the elastic band as it stretches back.

As is pretty clear from the video, this is all still very much in its early stages. Most notably, there’s the extremely low res 160 x 104 resolution (a result of dividing up the full HD display to achieved the desired 3D effect). But the lab has some grand plans, including holographic video conferences.

“When bending the display users literally pop out of the screen and can even look around each other, with their faces rendered correctly from any angle to any onlooker,” researcher Dr. Roel Vertegaal says in a release announcing the new technology.

The lab, naturally, references Princess Leia in the release to really drive the point home. Dr. Vertegaal, you’re our only hope.

Internal specs, for those who care about such things on their display prototypes include a 1.5 GHz processor and 2 GB RAM running Android 5.1. The technology will be on-display at the ACM CHI 2016 conference in San Jose next week.