Mobile traffic spikes during London Olympics

Mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets are enhancing the viewing experience for spectators at the London 2012 Olympics, while it seems that mobile apps are also enhancing the performance of participants in the games.

According to Reuters, operators have seen a spike in data traffic since the Olympics began thanks to users watching events on their phones, accessing the Internet to check results and updating social networking sites.

Reuters also cited Vodafone as saying that the moment that Tour de France winner Bradley Wiggins took the gold medal for Great Britain in the Olympic cycling time trial broke a record for the amount of data carried over its network per second.

Indeed, Google reported earlier this week that Olympics-related searches on smartphones and tablets increased 10 times worldwide during the first week of the 2012 Games compared to the previous week.

It's not only the spectators that are benefiting from latest mobile technology. Reuters also reported that coaches are using mobile apps to analyse form, execution and timing to improve the performance of competitors. For example, SwingReader and Coach's Eye, apps available for the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch, are able to record gymnasts' routines and play them back in slow motion.

Diving coaches and teams training for triathlons are some of the others to have made use of apps to highlight issues and improve performance.

"Every single country uses an iPad on deck and captures the dive as soon as they do it," explained Drew Johansen, head coach of the US diving team, in an interview with Reuters.

For more:
- see this Reuters article
- see this separate Reuters article

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