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Alibaba unveils digital pins for media professionals at Tokyo Olympics 2020
Alibaba Group, the Worldwide TOP Partner of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), has unveiled the Alibaba Cloud Pin, a cloud-based digital pin, for broadcasting and media professionals at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020. The pin can be worn either as a badge or attached to a lanyard. The digital wearable is designed to enable media professionals working at the International Broadcasting Centre (IBC) and Main Press Centre (MPC) to engage with each other and exchange social media contact information in a safe and interactive manner during the upcoming Olympic Games between July 23 and August 8.
“The Olympic Games has always been a thrilling event with opportunities for media staff to meet like-minded professionals,” says Chris Tung, Chief Marketing Officer of Alibaba Group. “With this unprecedented Olympic Games, we want to use our technology to add new exciting elements to the Olympic pin tradition at the IBC and MPC while connecting media professionals and enabling them to maintain social interactions with safe distance.
“As a proud Worldwide Olympic Partner, Alibaba is dedicated to the transformation of the Games in the digital era, making the experience more accessible, aspirational and inclusive for broadcasters, sports fans and athletes from across the world.”
Christopher Carroll, Director of Digital Engagement and Marketing at the International Olympic Committee, adds, “We are excited to be partnering with Alibaba to support us in our digital transformation journey and to help us build engagement ahead of the Olympic Games.”
Serving as a multifunctional digital name tag, the pin enables users to meet and greet each other, adding people to their friend list, and exchange daily activity updates, such as step counts and the number of friends made during the day. This can be done easily by tapping their pins together at arm’s length, bearing in mind the social distancing measures.
The digital pins also include specific designs of each of the 33 sports on the Tokyo 2020 Programme, which can be unlocked through a list of playful tasks like making new friends. To activate the pin, users simply need to download a Cloud Pin application, and pair it with the wearable device via its bluetooth function. This Cloud Pin at the Olympic Games will be given as a token to the media professionals working at the IBC and MPC during the Olympics.
As the official Cloud Services partner of the IOC, Alibaba Cloud offers world-class cloud computing infrastructure and cloud services to help enabling the Olympic Games to digitalise its operations to be more efficient, effective, secure and engaging for fans, broadcasters and athletes from Tokyo 2020 onwards.
In addition for Tokyo 2020, Alibaba Cloud and Olympic Broadcasting Services (OBS) launched OBS Cloud, an innovative broadcasting solution that operates entirely on the cloud, to help transform the media industry for the digital era.
After a year’s delay, the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, now being held in 2021, are just a week away from kicking off at the Japan National Stadium in Tokyo.
All month long, SwimSwam has been, and will continue to, preview every swimming event on the schedule for the Tokyo 2020 Games, including projecting our medalists and top 8 finishers for each and every race.
Below, follow along with SwimSwam’s picks, previews, and medalist choices for the upcoming Games.
Tokyo 2020 Olympics composer apologizes for bullying disabled classmates
TOKYO — The Japanese musical maverick who composed some of the score for the opening ceremony of the Tokyo Olympics has apologized after revelations that he bullied disabled classmates recently resurfaced.
The composer, Keigo Oyamada, also known as “Cornelius,” boasted to Japanese magazines in the 1990s about how he had tormented fellow students. The boasts came back to haunt him less than a week before the games are to kick off Friday.
Back in the 1990s, when his star was still on the rise, Oyamada, now 52, recalled in interviews with local music magazines that he would, among other things, force a mentally disabled boy to eat his own feces and masturbate in front of other students.
“These reflections were not looked back on regretfully, but instead were seen as funny childhood moments,” the popular blog ARAMA! JAPAN wrote. “He spoke of them in a boastful nature.”
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Often compared to pioneering American musicians like Beck and the Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson, Oyamada is best known in Japan as one of the originators of the kitschy Shibuya-kei sound, which drew heavily on American pop music from the 1960s produced by the likes of Burt Bacharach and Phil Spector.
Oyamada, whose stage name is a tribute to the “Planet of the Apes” movie character Cornelius, posted his mea culpa on his website and on Twitter.
He said that he was “very immature” when he preyed on his classmates and that he felt “deep regret” for what he did. He said he understood why some might object to his participation in the games.
Team USA basketball: Kevin Love to miss Tokyo Olympics; JaVale McGee, Keldon Johnson added as replacements
Team USA had to replace two players on its 12-man roster ahead of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Washington Wizards forward Bradley Beal will miss the games after entering health and safety protocols, and Cleveland Cavaliers forward Kevin Love withdrew from competing in the Olympics as he’s still dealing with a right calf injury that hampered him throughout the 2020-21 NBA season. To replace Beal and Love on the roster, Team USA added Denver Nuggets center JaVale McGee and San Antonio Spurs forward Keldon Johnson.
“I am incredibly disappointed to not be heading to Tokyo with Team USA, but you need to be at absolute peak performance to compete at the Olympic level and I am just not there yet,” Love said in a shared statement.
While the U.S. isn’t short on talent, it isn’t ideal for this many roster changes to be happening so close to when the Olympic games begin. The team will still be waiting for the arrivals of Devin Booker, Jrue Holiday and Khris Middleton, who are all still competing in the NBA Finals, and now with the addition of two new players, any chemistry Team USA was hoping to build entering the Olympics will be minimal.
