Being the official handset of the Olympics, you'd have expected to see the Samsung Galaxy S3 at last night's opening ceremony. There's even an Olympics-themed version, for crying out loud. But what Samsung didn't bank on was almost every athlete walking into the stadium recording everything on their own phone, be it a Samsung, iPhone, Sony Xperia, HTC…
What was that rule about barring rivals to official sponsors?
Samsung did get its money's worth in the opening ceremony though. During the stint about social media (which culminated in the inventor of the World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee, tweeting live from the stage, the hero), a love story played out about a girl who'd lost her phone. No surprises for guessing which mobile it was. A young man found it, returned it, and they kissed. Altogether now: ahh.
Apparently the Galaxy Note put in an appearance as well, though I must've nipped out for a wee at that point.
But then as soon as the athletes started coming into the stadium, country by country, they were recording every second of it on all manner of gadgets, including compact cameras, iPhones, camcorders, and SLRs. Which was surprising, considering all the hoo-ha about not even being allowed to mention the names of rivals to the main sponsors within five miles of the Olympic Village.
Then again, I suppose you can't stop the athletes from using their phones. It was strange to see so many of them experiencing their moment of glory through an LCD rather than lapping up the occasion, but then I guess they wanted it for posterity.
Other highlights include James Bond and the Queen parachuting out of a helicopter -- for which Danny Boyle deserves a knighthood, in my opinion -- and Paul McCartney closing things with a rendition of Hey Jude. Which hopefully cheered up any Samsung bods upset by all the other gadgets on show.
What did you make of the ceremony? Let me know in the comments, or on our Facebook page.
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Comments 9
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dezfowler 28 July, 2012 12:37
Come on guys..."inventor of the Internet"...get it right please, you're supposed to know your technology!
anonymous 28 July, 2012 14:21
Tim Berners-Lee, a British software engineer and computer scientist, created the world wide web in 1989. He also designed and built the first web browser. His breakthrough was a system that allowed computer users to share a common language to communicate over a network. However, after laying the foundations for the information super-highway, Berners-Lee did nothing to turn this into a money-making scheme for himself.
anonymous 28 July, 2012 14:36
That was a particularly humorous. I was wondering where is this phone.. I mean I do have this phone but I didnt see it all during the ceremony. Even at that scene where the girl had lost that phone. What phone was it? I certainly couldnt tell... And Yes!! All those multitudes of Athletes that came out.. I did not see one Samsung phone. In fact all I could see were iphones... Im sorry to say that Samsung have one big FAIL!! on their marketing list..
dezfowler 29 July, 2012 00:25
Exactly, the World Wide Web, which is the pages you view in your web browser. The Internet is what you connect to through your ISP and let's you use lots of other services such as email, streaming video, online gaming etc not just WWW. The Internet was invented by the US military's Advanced Research Projects Agency and was originally called ARPANET.
Joe Svetlik 29 July, 2012 19:41
Thanks for pointing out the Tim Berners-Lee error, I've corrected it. Didn't have much sleep the night before, seeing how long the opening ceremony dragged on.
Jake- 30 July, 2012 19:11
I Didn't see any Samsung's :( all i saw was iPhones... Samsung need there money back...
Lee Hayward 30 July, 2012 20:24
I saw loads of Samsung phones as well as a few Iphones , I mainly saw Androids of various manufacturers , not sure which ceremony you guys were watching
Romex777 31 July, 2012 00:35
@ dezfowler, you must be an American! So we will forgive you your ignorance!
dezfowler 1 August, 2012 08:09
@Romex777 I'm actually British and a computer programmer so I know my HTTP from my TCP/IP. Am pretty ignorant most of the time, not on this occasion though.