Everything you need to know about the tech at the Paris Olympics

Now that the Paris Olympics are over, the temporary air conditioning units shipped in for athletes are poised to have a second — and hopefully third — life.

There was a good amount of drama around these units. Planners initially didn’t include them in their design for competitors’ housing, opting instead for more energy-efficient options. Moreover, AC just hasn’t been as necessary in cooler climates until lately and is still relatively uncommon in homes across Europe. But heatwaves pose big risks for athletes, many of whom decided to supply their own mobile units to stay cool.

For the 2024 Paris Olympic and Paralympic Games, Samsung created almost 17,000 exclusive Galaxy Z Flip 6 Olympic Edition phones to be given away to athletes and “Olympic family.” As the Olympic Games now draw to a close, many of those phones are being flipped online and are available to those who weren’t chasing a spot on the podium, as spotted by Mobile Syrup.

A quick eBay search reveals that many of the phones were never opened and can now be snatched up by non-Olympians at a premium. Some listings already have bids over $2,000 (the standard Galaxy Z Flip 6 starts at $1,099), while others have “Buy It Now” pricing set at $10,000.

Google is not winning any gold medals for its Olympics ads this year. After days of backlash, the company has decided to pull its controversial “Dear Sydney” ad from Olympic coverage.

In the 60-second ad, a father seeks to write a fan letter on behalf of his daughter to her Olympic idol, US track star Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone. The premise is the sort of treacly ad you’d expect to see at the Olympics, but things take a twist when instead of helping his daughter write a letter, he just has Gemini do it for them. “This has to be just right,” he says, before prompting Gemini to tell Sydney how inspiring she is, that his daughter plans to break her record one day, and to add a “sorry, not sorry” joke at the end.

At prime time each night, NBC airs the day’s highlights from the Paris Olympics to tens of millions of people. Viewers have watched the US women’s gymnastics team clinch gold in a “redemption tour” after winning silver in Tokyo; they’ve been in awe when US swimmer Katie Ledecky finished a race, her competitors so far behind her that they’re not even in the frame.

But the most fascinating and eccentric Olympics coverage is happening on TikTok.

For almost 20 years, Nintendo and Sega have released Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games to coincide with the international sporting event. But now, according to a report in Eurogamer, that tradition is at an end. In 2020, the IOC made the decision to not renew the game’s licensing deal, ending a run of games that’s covered most Summer and Winter Olympic Games since 2007.

“Basically the IOC wanted to bring [the licensing] back to themselves internally and look at other partners so they would get more money,” Lee Cocker, a developer who worked on the Mario & Sonic franchise, told Eurogamer.

The men’s triathlon event at the Paris Olympics was postponed today because of pollution levels in the Seine, where the swimming leg of the event was supposed to be held. Now, the event is tentatively scheduled for Wednesday — if the water quality improves by then.

Bacteria in the river, including E. coli, has been a concern leading up to the Summer Games. Paris spent the equivalent of roughly $1.5 billion on cleanup efforts before the Olympics to prevent sewage and wastewater from contaminating the Seine, The Associated Press reports. But rain seems to have stymied efforts to keep bacteria at safe levels.

The plot in Canadian soccer’s Olympic drone spying scandal thickens. A TSN report alleges that the Canadian men’s and women’s soccer teams have been spying on opponents — with and without drones — for years.

Earlier this week, the Canadian Olympic women’s soccer team landed in hot water after the New Zealand team spotted a drone flying over their practice. The incident was reported to French authorities, and it was discovered that the drone operator was Joseph Lombardi, an unaccredited “analyst” with the Canadian squad. Lombardi and assistant coach Jasmine Mander were subsequently sent home, while head coach Bev Priestman voluntarily withdrew from the opening match against New Zealand. Priestman has since been suspended from the Games entirely.

For once, the answer for how to stream sports is simple: if you want to watch the 2024 Paris Olympics, you need only open up Peacock. This is the third time the Peacock team has streamed the Olympics, but it’s the company’s biggest undertaking yet: 5,000 hours of content over two weeks across 39 sports, all of it streaming live. Every day, from morning until midafternoon, there will be live sports; in the evening, NBC will air its prime-time show with all the best action from the day. “This is the most content we’ve ever had on the platform,” says John Jelley, NBCUniversal’s SVP of product and user experience. His team’s goal is to help you make sense of all of it. 

(Disclosure: Comcast, which owns NBCUniversal, is also an investor in Vox Media, The Verge’s parent company.)

A member of the Canadian Olympic women’s soccer team was caught using a drone to spy on New Zealand’s practice session on Monday. It’s said to be the second “drone incident” at a New Zealand practice over the past week.

As a result, the Canadian Olympic Committee has announced that soccer coach Bev Priestman will not coach the Olympic team’s opening match tomorrow. Two other staffers have been removed from the team and are being sent home from the games.

Google has bought itself the title of “official AI sponsor for Team USA,” and when the 2024 Olympics broadcast starts on July 26th, you will be reminded of that frequently. NBCUniversal’s partnership with Google will put many of the company’s AI-powered features front and center during the event.

The broadcast will include Google Maps’ 3D views of venues like the Versailles, Stade Roland Garros, and the Aquatics Centre, as well as tidbits about what events will occur at each location. The imagery pulls from the Immersive Views added to Maps over the last few years that represent certain landmarks and areas of interest with photorealistic models.

Uber rolled out a new update that lets users search average fares and wait times for planned trips in other cities. The company said it wants to give people who are planning trips or vacations more visibility into how much it will cost to book Uber rides when they get there.

The update will give people access to fare and wait time details in approximately 10,000 cities globally, Uber says. The change rolls out starting on Tuesday, July 16th.

At the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics, Le Monde reports that athletes on Japan’s volleyball, track and field, and other teams will be competing in outfits made from a new fabric that can better absorb infrared light. Similar to stealth aircraft that avoid detection by deflecting radar signals away from detectors, the fabric absorbs and prevents infrared light from reaching cameras and infrared sensors.

Some devices have unintentionally demonstrated how the infrared sensing used in night vision goggles and thermal cameras can reveal the unseen, like the OnePlus 8 Pro’s “Photochrom” color filter that worked like X-ray vision on the thin shell of an Apple TV. When used on people, infrared photography can reveal the lines of a person’s body or the undergarments they’re wearing beneath a thin layer of clothing, such as those worn by athletes.

The Paris 2024 Olympics are nearly here. The opening ceremony starts on July 26th, and this year’s events run through August 11th. On the main NBC channel, you can see hours of live morning and afternoon coverage of events like swimming and gymnastics ahead of a three-hour primetime recap, to go along with livestreams of every sport and event and full event replays on Peacock.

One key aspect of NBC’s Peacock coverage will be an Olympics hub, which spotlights major events happening live, lets you browse by sport and by “star athlete,” offers an interactive schedule, and includes an up-to-date count of medal standings.