 | | Credit: Empics |
Samsung has a long history of offering technology and telecoms support to the Olympic Movement. Samsung was a Worldwide Partner in the Wireless Communications Equipment category for the Nagano 1998 Olympic Winter Games, the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games, the Salt Lake 2002 Olympic Winter Games, and for the Athens 2004 Olympic Games, in the process providing over 72,000 units of wireless communications equipment. This status is set to continue through the Torino 2006 Olympic Winter Games and the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games. All in all, Samsung will be providing more than 8,000 units of telecoms equipment as Worldwide Partner in the ‘Wireless Communications Equipment’ category.
Samsung’s Olympic marketing campaign includes a variety of activities: the sponsorship of the Olympic Torch Relay before the Games time; a Samsung pavilion for athletes and spectators called the Olympic Rendezvous @ Samsung (OR@S) in Torino on-site during the Games; and a team of Samsung athlete ambassadors; providing the communications equipment for the wireless Olympic mobile information service with Samsung’s dynamic and advanced technology, WOW (Wireless Olympic Works), all as part of its contribution as Official Worldwide Olympic Partner in the Wireless Communications Equipment category throughout the XX Winter Olympiad in Torino. Dynamic WOW Dynamic WOW is an appropriate acronym for the Samsung-developed wireless Olympic mobile information service that allows Olympic officials and VIPs to receive up-to-the-minute information and data while on the move via Samsung’s newest mobile phones. It is an evolved system based on the wireless technologies used at the Athens 2004 Olympic Games, and enables officials to receive vital information that would otherwise be available only on a fixed-line environment. Under the auspices of TOROC, Samsung is working with Atos Origin, the Olympic Worldwide Information Technology Partner of the IOC, and TIM, the Official wireless service provider of TOROC for the Italian territory, to develop Dynamic WOW.
WOW has been designed to handle a vast array of information and services critical to the running of the Olympic Games. Some examples include:
Accessing schedules and results of events
Updating the medal count
Providing a brief biography of each medallist
Information on venue and weather
Group messaging from TOROC headquarters to on-site staff for the effective running of the Olympic Games.
With WOW, all of these things and many more can be done by Olympic officials from their mobile devices without the need for constant access to a PC or fixed terminal.
The first-generation WOW system debuted at the Athens 2004 Olympic Games. Its successful operation prompted Samsung to expand its capability for Torino 2006. Among the features that justify the ‘dynamic’ in the system’s name are:
Mobile INFO2006 - a wireless information portal, accessed through a mobile phone. Using Samsung’s latest handset models, users of this portal will be able to get up-to-the-minute news, schedules and results of particular events, medal tallies, and a host of other information by converting the fed data from IDF (Internet Data Feed) of Atos Origin, all with an easy slide-up or flip-on of their Samsung mobile phones on a ‘Dynamic Idle Solution’ basis that was developed specifically to provide more efficient and effective communication. The Dynamic Idle Solution automatically updates multimedia information and enables users to search detailed information interactively.
Information on Demand (IOD) - a feature that provides automatic alerts, updates on intermediate and final event results and medal tallies of selected countries directly to the handset. Users can choose the events and information they want from a preferences screen in the Mobile INFO2006 module. When the results of chosen events are known, they are sent automatically to the user’s phone in the form of a text message.
Olympic Community Messaging (OCM) - this operational group messaging service will keep officials and participants updated with important information about the Games, such as rescheduling of events. The OCM is being considered to provide: 1) Official Announcement Notification to send important announcement to Games officials, 2) Emergency Alert Messaging to send information in unforeseen cases, and 3) Olympic Staff Scheduling Alerting to keep staff updated on schedules and events, automatically alerting groups of people about changes or updates, in accordance with their role or a specific venue.
Although WOW is not designed for use by spectators, visitors will benefit substantially. WOW will help ensure that every aspect of the event’s organisation runs more smoothly, making it a more enjoyable experience for sports fans. WOW also ensures that TOROC staffs are better informed.
These benefits did not happen by chance. Samsung developed WOW with the full co-operation and approval of the IOC and TOROC, which has been responsible for overall project management. As the primary means by which TOROC will communicate with its staff on-site at sports venues, WOW must meet their specific needs to be updated with relevant information; TOROC has been involved in every stage of the discussions to ensure that this happens. Soothsaying Samsung Samsung believes that mobile technologies will play a critical role in future events, and is committed to enhancing and improving the technology for future Olympic Games. The power and flexibility of mobile devices makes them ideally suited for events such as the Olympic Games, where staff and officials are widely dispersed and frequently change locations, far from central sources of information. Drawing from the experience during Athens 2004, where WOW redefined the way in which international sporting events are organised and managed, WOW represents one of Samsung’s most important contributions to the sporting world. Samsung is proud to make all this possible again, in a new and improved fashion, for Torino 2006. The Olympic Games Phone Samsung will provide over 8,000 Olympic Games phones for Torino 2006. The Olympic Games phone is the SGH-D600 model, Samsung’s newest handset with camera and multimedia functionality. These phones are special edition handsets that will be provided to relevant organisations for the successful operation of the Olympic Games as part of Samsung’s contributions as Worldwide Olympic Partner in the Wireless Communications Equipment category.
The SGH-D600 model is an upgraded version of the D500 series, the winner of several prestigious awards including the Best Mobile Handset 2005 for excellence in handset design and innovation by the GSMA, the global trade association for the world's Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) operator community.
The official Olympic Games phone features a luxury design highlighted by its compact and stylish “Intenna” and an elegant slide-up design. The SGH-D600 also features the latest technology including a 2 megapixel camera with flash, TV-output support, video wall paper, video caller ID and voice recognition with supporting functions for video recording, messaging, MPEG4, H.263, MP3, AAC and AAC+. Advanced data-related capabilities include Bluetooth, USB, PictBridge, Bluetooth Printing, File Viewer as well as capacity to support E-mail Client, SynML DS (local sync) and external memory.
“Samsung is proud of its partnership with TOROC and the contributions that we will make to Torino 2006 as the Worldwide Partner in the Wireless Communications Equipment category,” says senior vice-president of Samsung Electronics, Woosik Chu. “The SGH-D600 phone is our flagship model for 2005 and one of our best-in-class products. I am certain that the official Olympic Games phone will play a vital role in the operation, management, and overall success of the Torino 2006 Olympic Winter Games.”
Sponsorship of technological products and projects such as WOW all require significant investments. Samsung is committed to providing only the best, most efficient and effective wireless information equipment for the Torino 2006 Olympic Winter Games, and will ensure that all necessary investments will be made to meet this commitment.
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