vancouver

VANCOUVER--Microsoft Business Division President Stephen Elop looked up as he delivered a presentation to his top managers on Microsoft's campus on Wednesday.

As Elop had been speaking, one of those managers, Kirill Tatarinov, had groaned several times.

"Was it something I said," Elop asked Tatarinov, who runs a division that creates business software for midsize companies.

Sheepishly, Tatarinov confessed that he had been watching the Russia-Canada Olympic hockey game. If Tatarinov worked for some other bosses at Microsoft, that could have been what is known in Redmond as a "career limiting move." Luckily, Tatarinov works … Read more

VANCOUVER, British Columbia--It's been 62 years since the United States claimed a gold medal in bobsled.

And this year, our best hope is piloted by a computer geek who trains by playing video games.

So our chances are pretty good. That's because, in addition to being a Microsoft Certified Professional and admitted PC nerd, Stephen Holcomb is also the reigning world champion in the four-man bobsled.

Plus, he's got this crazy "Holcy dance" that one just has to see to believe.

Holcomb hopes to dance his way on to the medal podium by the time … Read more

VANCOUVER, B.C.--There's been a lot of attention in Vancouver about a certain Snow Leopard, but this one comes from a lot farther away than Cupertino, Calif.

Ghanan skier Kwame Nkrumah-Acheampong, who happens to have the same nickname as Mac OS X 10.6, has won attention as the only representative from the African nation at these Winter Games. The Snow Leopard is slated to race on Saturday in the men's slalom race at Whistler.

Part of his nickname comes from the fact that he supports the Snow Leopard Trust, an organization devoted to protecting the endangered … Read more

VANCOUVER, British Columbia--The good news for Microsoft is that all the PCs powering the Olympics are running Windows. The bad news: it's the older Windows XP operating system.

Windows 7, it seems, was a bit too new to be used, while Windows Vista was, well, Windows Vista. So, instead, all the PCs are running an operating system that was first released before the 2002 Games in Salt Lake City.

Representatives for Acer confirmed that the more than 6,000 notebooks and desktops that they delivered to Olympic organizers were all running Windows XP.

"It was the operating system … Read more

VANCOUVER, B.C.--A child's first hockey game is a right of passage in Canada.

And Thomas Challis, 5, of Coquitlam, got an exceptionally good introduction to big-time hockey, landing the chance to go with his dad to Tuesday's match-up between Switzerland and Belarus.

Thomas' dad, Roger, patiently explained some of the game's finer points, such as the difference between linemen and referees (referees call penalties, while linesmen generally do not) and why regular players have hard shin pads and goalies have big soft pads (goalies don't want to give up big rebounds that can lead … Read more

VANCOUVER, B.C.--The advantage of being Omega, in addition to the branding benefit of being the official timekeeper, is you also get access to some really cool photos from the Olympic finish line.

And this year, Omega has an even more powerful 2,000-frame-per-second camera to capture those close calls. The folks at Omega were nice enough to share some of the photos from the first week of the games, which I've put into a photo gallery.

The shots include Seth Wescott narrowly winning the gold medal in snowboard cross and Apolo Anton Ohno edging out Canadian Charles … Read more

The U.S. men's hockey team still has a long way to go before they reach Olympic gold in Vancouver, but last night's 5-3 victory over Canada takes them a step closer to their goal. In other words, Jeff has never been more proud to be an American hockey fan, and be sure to catch today's Calls From The Public to hear me attempt to define a power play in less than 10,000 words. And in unrelated news, if you thought our studio was overrun with equipment before, wait until you see what Wilson did to it over the weekend!

Today's episode of The 404 Podcast needs a youthful street team, since they can apparently be bought with string cheese and fizzy drinks. In the United Kingdom, large corporations including the makers of Fanta and Cheesestrings are hiring "brand ambassadors" to evangelize their products on popular social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and Bebo. The job comes with a pretty decent wage, as well, with many pre-adolescents getting paid in money-off vouchers worth ~$40 per week in addition to free samples of said products.

Next up we've got another story about kids, this one coming from a school in Philadelphia that spied on students using their own Web cams and remote software pre-installed on loaner laptops. The students became suspicious of this breach in privacy after an administrator confronted a kid about his "improper behavior in the home," and even showed him a picture taken using his MacBook Web cam. Other students have also corroborated this story, telling reporters at Gizmodo that they would notice the camera light on their MacBooks turning on at home, which the school district claimed was "just a glitch." Tune in to hear the full story in all its shady glory.

If you've ever struggled with acne,a new iPhone app called AcneApp promises to "zap wrinkles and acne" away while you chat on your smartphone. Dr. Greg Pearson from Houston, TX claims that the app uses 420 nanometer blue light and 550 nanometer red light to kill bacteria and promote collagen growth to eliminate wrinkles and unslightly pimples on the face. Understandably, some dermatologists are skeptic about AcneApp, citing third party studies that show the red and blue lights require several dozen treatments throughout the day before seeing actual results. In other words, it'll be awhile before we start to see people other than Wilson rubbing up on their iPhones, so don't go out and waste your $1.99 on this app just yet.

VANCOUVER, British Columbia--Less than a century ago, the timing of downhill skiing required someone at the top and bottom of the run, each with a stopwatch synchronized to the time of day.

Every few skiers, the timer at the top would send down a piece of paper with the start times of the last few skiers and then some math would ensue, eventually resulting in the time of the run being calculated.

Oh, how things have changed. Not only is everything electronic, of course, but the sensors are often tied to the athletes themselves. In speedskating, racers wear a transponder … Read more

VANCOUVER, British Columbia--It's not the Super Bowl, or even the gold medal match-up, but it is most definitely Super Sunday in Canada.

That's because three epic ice hockey battles are on tap, topped by the U.S. and Canada, who square off at 4:30 p.m. PST. The match-up has taken on added importance with the host nation having needed a shootout to defeat Switzerland earlier in the week.

As if the pot needed any further stirring, the home page on Yahoo Canada quotes Team USA center Ryan Kesler as saying he hates the Canadian team.

I'… Read more