How to Follow the 2012 Olympics Online

After months and months of anticipation by athletes and fans alike, the 2012 Olympic Games officially begin this Friday. For most fans, however, the world’s most global sporting event can be tricky to catch — many of the competitions will take place during the workday, when posting up in front of a TV is tough. Not to worry, the modern surfeit of online info is more clutch than ever.
Above, Mashable details the best ways to access quality social and editorial content online from now through the closing ceremony on Aug. 12.
Social media will play a bigger role than ever for this year’s Olympics, thanks largely to its eye-popping growth since the last summer games in 2008. In that span of time, Facebook‘s user base has grown from about 100 million to more than 900 million since then, and the number of posts per day by Twitter users worldwide has exploded from about 300,000 to 400 million.
SEE ALSO: 2012 Olympics: The Must-Follow Athletes on Twitter Making sense of social networks’ deluge of information from fans, media and athletes can be tough, so we’ve got some tools and tips to get you started.
But while we love social media, it alone isn’t enough to follow an event as massive and multifaceted as the Olympics. That’s why we’ve got a range of sources for top-notch editorial content, from columnists to reporters on the ground.
Scroll through the gallery above discover 10 ways to follow the 2012 Olympics online, then add your own suggestions in the comments.

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Chirp app sends smartphone data via 'digital birdsong'

Rory Cellan-Jones tries out the new chirping method of communication

An app that transmits data via a burst of "digital birdsong" aims to simplify the way users share images and other files between smartphones.

Chirp plays a two-second long noise that sounds as if it was made by a robotic bird. When heard by other devices it triggers a download.
The software was developed by Animal Systems, a spin-off business from University College London (UCL).
It is free to use, but companies will be charged a fee for add-on services.
At the moment users are limited to sending pictures, website links or 140-character text messages. These appear in a feed similar to Facebook's timeline.
Other applications such as Android Beam, Bump, Datasync and Dropbox allow users to swap material via bluetooth, wi-fi or links to cloud-based storage.
But Chirp has the advantage that it can quickly send data to multiple devices at once without them needing to be either paired or have a wireless connection.
If recipients are offline their devices will remember the "chirp" and download associated content later.
"We are pretty sure this is unique," the firm's chief executive Patrick Bergel told the BBC.

"We solve the problem of having to pair devices to move data. It's fairly novel to be able to transmit information to anyone who is in earshot - a large number of devices can share the same information at the same time using sound.

"You can also use it as a device shifting mechanism. In the future you will be able chirp yourself a link to a map from your laptop."
Mr Bergel says Chirp's distinctive sound allows it to work at low volumes in relatively noisy locations such as pubs, clubs or busy streets.
It can also work over public address systems or radio transmissions - potentially allowing broadcasters a way to send up-to-date pictures or links to background information; or an advertiser to send coupons or snippets of a song or promotional video.
Animal Systems subscribes to a "blacklist" service to prevent users transmitting known pornographic or illegal-content website links. However, it does not plan to moderate other material.
The application works by uploading a user's material to the firm's servers. The data is then identified with a 50-bit address space: one of trillions of available identifiers.
This location is then sent to the sender's device. When the user presses a button in the app it plays an audio-encoded version of the address.

Copy-protected

Data has long been passed between machines in the form of sound, including recordings on tapes used to load programs into 1980s home computers and early modems dialling into networks.
Even so, Mr Bergel said he had taken steps to prevent others copying his product.

A feed of messaged material appears beneath a visualised sound-wave

 

"We have a systems patent on moving short codes over the air," he said.
"We have [also] solved a lot of difficult problems. There's a lot of technical issues around moving data and making it robust against noise and echoes."
Having launched the app the five-man team behind it will now focus on offering premium services to marketers and other businesses.
Mr Bergel said these could include:

• A guarantee that uploaded content would be permanently kept on the firm's servers.
• Access to analytical data letting firms track whose devices have "listened" to their chirp.
• The ability to send video messages that play within the Chirp app.

Mr Bergel said the ultimate goals was to see manufacturers pre-install Chirp on handsets.
However, he must first convince users that they need the service at a time when wi-fi, 4G data and advanced bluetooth connectivity are becoming increasingly common.
For now Chirp is only available as an iPhone app. An Android version is promised "soon".

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Penn State blamed over Jerry Sandusky sex abuse

The leaders of US university Penn State showed a "total disregard" for the safety of victims of sex abuser Jerry Sandusky, a report says.

Former FBI chief Louis Freeh said: "The most powerful men at Penn State failed to take any steps... to protect the children who Sandusky victimised."
Mr Freeh cited the former university president and legendary football coach Joe Paterno, who died last year.
Both were sacked during the probe into assistant coach Sandusky's abuses.
Sandusky, who worked on Paterno's nationally lauded football team, was convicted of 45 counts of child sexual abuse in a trial in June.
He is expected to serve a life sentence.
'Most powerful people' Louis Freeh's report, released on Wednesday, laid much blame in the hands of four of Penn State's "most powerful people": President Graham Spanier, Vice-President Gary Schultz, athletic director Tim Curley and head football coach Joe Paterno.

They "failed to protect against a child sexual predator harming children for over a decade," Mr Freeh wrote.

The four men knew that Sandusky was under investigation by university police for allegations of child sex abuse on campus as early as 1998.
Sandusky retired from the university a year later, gaining emeritus status, which allowed him unfettered access to campus buildings.
Three years after the first allegations, the report found that officials did not take any action to identify a victim seen being abused by Sandusky in the Penn State showers in 2001.
In fact, Mr Curley informed Sandusky that another coach, Mike McQueary, had reported seeing the incident. That move further endangered the victim, Mr Freeh concluded.
According to emails uncovered by the report, Mr Curley, Mr Schultz and Mr Spanier had initially planned to report the incident to child welfare services, but decided against it.
Instead, offering Sandusky professional help and telling him "guests" were not permitted to use campus facilities was deemed a "more humane and upfront way to handle this", as Mr Schultz wrote in an email.
"Although concern to treat the child abuser humanely was expressly stated, no such sentiments were ever expressed by them for Sandusky's victims," Mr Freeh said in prepared remarks on Thursday.

The report also faults the university's board of trustees for failing to press Mr Spanier for details about the 2011 grand jury investigation of Sandusky.

In a statement, Paterno's family said he had made mistakes but had "never interfered with any investigation".
"The idea that any sane, responsible adult would knowingly cover up for a child predator is impossible to accept," the statement said. "The far more realistic conclusion is that many people didn't fully understand what was happening and underestimated or misinterpreted events."

University ethics officer

Mr Freeh also noted that Penn State's policy to comply with a national child abuse reporting act that was expanded in 1998, was still in draft form when Sandusky was arrested in 2011.
Travis Forney, a Penn state alumnus who played as a kicker on the football team, told the BBC he was glad the report spread blame among the many people who could have acted.
"I totally agree with coach Paterno that this was an university issue," he said. "I think everyone can agree that more could have be done, but in my opinion the ball was dropped by the four people and the 31 other people on the board of trustees."
Mr Forney said that this year - for the first time at his summer sports camp - the university has implemented a seminar for "anybody who is involved with children" focusing on reporting child abuse and protecting children.
The report includes several recommendations on what steps the university should take going forward:

• create a stronger sense of accountability and transparency among leadership
• evaluate security for campus buildings and track university programmes involving children
• require all employees to provide training for abuse awareness and reporting
• establish a university police policy to seek assistance during sensitive investigations or where there is a conflict of interest
• appoint a university ethics officer and an ethics council.

In an initial response, the board of trustees of Penn State University said it was still considering the report, and would comment further in due course.
"We expect a comprehensive analysis of our policies, procedures and controls related to identifying and reporting crimes and misconduct, including failures or gaps that may have allowed alleged misconduct to go undetected or unreported," the board said in a statement.

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Badger culling legal challenge fails

Bovine TB costs the UK economy more than £100m per year, mainly in farm payments

 

A legal bid to block badger culling in England has failed in the High Court.

The government says that culling will help combat cattle tuberculosis, which costs the UK more than £100m per year.
The Badger Trust argued that the cull was illegal, as it will at best make a small impact on the disease and could make it worse.
Culling is now likely to go ahead later this year in west Gloucestershire and west Somerset, with as many as 40 sites to be licensed eventually.
Badgers become infected with the bacteria that cause bovine TB, and can carry them from farm to farm, although more cattle contract the disease from contact with infected herds.
Plans to begin culling in Wales were recently abandoned in favour of a vaccination policy following the change of Welsh Assembly Government last year.
At the High Court hearing in London last month, the Badger Trust argued that the cull plans drawn up by the Department the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) were illegal on several grounds.
Badgers are generally protected under UK law, but exceptions are allowed for disease prevention.

David Williams Badger Trust

The trust's lawyers argued that that the small reduction in cattle TB incidence anticipated by government scientists did not qualify as "prevention".

The government does not set a specific target for the percentage reduction in cattle TB incidence it expects to see, but the latest evidence suggests that nine years after culling, incidence might fall by 9-16%.
Scientific evidence, stemming mainly from the UK Randomised Badger Culling Trial (RBCT), shows that culling can actually spread the disease, as it disturbs badgers' family groups and makes them roam further afield, coming into contact with more herds.
The government acknowledges this, but believes its culling strategy will get round the problem.

 

The trust also argued that the plan to have culling licences issued by Natural England was outside the law, and that the only person authorised to issue them was the Environment Secretary - currently Caroline Spelman MP.
In his judgement, Mr Justice Ouseley ruled against the trust on both counts.
"Although the Secretary of State has tried to interpret the science to her advantage, nothing has altered the basic finding that while badgers are implicated, killing them can make no meaningful contribution to tackling the disease, and cattle measures in themselves are sufficient if properly applied," said Badger Trust chairman David Williams.

Badgers (Meles meles) are protected by a number of UK and European laws

"We did not embark on this litigation lightly; and England now faces the prospect of 40,000 badgers being slaughtered over the next four years."
Costing the cull The trust also raised issues regarding cost.
The government says that cull areas must be at least 150 sq km in size, and the groups of landowners and farmers applying to cull must show they can access at least 70% of the land.

The groups will employ trained marksmen to shoot the badgers as they roam - so-called "free-shooting".

The effectiveness of free-shooting badgers has never been studied. In the RBCT, they were trapped in cages and then shot.
The trust pointed out that if free-shooting proves ineffective, farmers may have to resort to trapping - which would increase costs approximately 10-fold.
The government said it was pleased with the judgement.
"No one wants to cull badgers, but last year bovine TB led to the slaughter of over 26,000 cattle," said a Defra spokesman.
"To help eradicate the disease, it needs to be tackled in badgers.
"We will continue to work with the farming industry so badger control in two pilot areas can start as soon as is practical."
Natural England is currently processing the Somerset and Gloucestershire applications.
The judge left the option of a written appeal open to the trust, and it has a week in which to decide whether or not to pursue that avenue.
Humane Society International has mounted a parallel challenge through the EU, arguing that Defra's plans contravene the Bern Convention on protection of wildlife.

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Academics say 'no truth' to lying eyes theory

New research says the lying eyes theory is a myth

 

Research by academics at two universities have concluded that the common belief of lying eyes is a myth.

Many psychologists think when a person looks up to their right they are likely to be telling a lie and glancing up to the left is said to indicate honesty.
However, the experts from Edinburgh University and Hertfordshire University carried out tests and found the theory to be wrong.
The research appeared in the online journal Public Library of Science ONE.
The claimed link between eye movements and truth telling is a key element of neuro-linguistic programming (NLP), a method of enhancing people's lives using psychological techniques.

Five ways to detect a liar

Prof Richard Wiseman outlined other ways to spot a liar;

1. Me, myself I: Liars make up stories that never actually happened, and so tend to reduce the number of times they refer to themselves. Look out for any sudden drop in words like me, mine and I
2. Shifty: Lying is difficult and people tend not to move around when they are concentrating on something. Be wary if a person suddenly becomes very still
3. Umm ... err: Liars are far more hesitant than truth tellers and tend to stumble over their words. Listen out for tell-tale umms and errs.
4. Timing: Liars often have to think about what they are going to say before they speak. Be suspicious if someone suddenly pauses before starting to answer a question.
5. Token gesture: Liars tend to move their hands around more than truth tellers. Be wary if someone suddenly starts covering up their mouth or touching their hair as they chat.

One aspect of NLP involves teaching people about the relationship between eye movements and thought.

According to the theory, when right-handed people look up to their right they are likely to be visualising a "constructed" or imagined event.
In contrast when they look to their left they are likely to be visualising a "remembered" memory.
For this reason, when liars are constructing their own version of the truth, they tend to look to the right.
The idea was tested by filming volunteers and recording their eye movements as they told the truth or lied.
A second group of volunteers was then asked to watch the films and try to detect the lies by watching the eye movements.
Co-author Dr Caroline Watt, from Edinburgh University, said: "A large percentage of the public believes that certain eye movements are a sign of lying, and this idea is even taught in organisational training courses.
"Our research provides no support for the idea and so suggests that it is time to abandon this approach to detecting deceit."
Psychologist Professor Richard Wiseman, from Hertfordshire University, said: "The results of the first study revealed no relationship between lying and eye movements, and the second showed that telling people about the claims made by NLP practitioners did not improve their lie detection skills."
A follow-up study involved analysing videos of high-profile press conferences in which people appealed for help in finding missing relatives, or claimed to have been victims of crime.
While some were telling the truth, others turned out to be lying.
Again, there was no evidence of a correlation between lying and eye movements.

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