Editor's Blog: Olympics as tech showcase?

And that ePassports story...

I've written and read a lot in the past few years about how the 2008 Beijing Olympics are very much about China's coming of age in terms of being a modern economy and in certain areas like technology. Certainly getting 3G networks up and running in time for the games (still a will they?/won't they? debate) has been mainstream news.

But this morning I was at the Communications Management Association annual conference and heard something I hadn't before. Chairing the event this morning was Conservative MP Ian Taylor (I'm chairing tomorrow, so excuse what could be seen as a plug for the event). He mentioned there have been discussions in parliament and the DTI about freeing up spectrum, the idea being that by 2012 London - and by wider inference the UK - can show off its position in tech.

Now I know there will inevitably be all sorts of project overspends (if not over-runs, given the immovable deadline) by the time the games come around but I'd like to think we can get our house in order with whatever cellular or other wireless technologies are considered cutting-edge by then.

It makes sense to use the Olympics to showcase this. It just hadn't occurred to me before that 2012 is already on the UK tech industry's radar. Or don't tell me it's not and in fact it's the government taking a lead in this case. We'll see.

At the same CMA event, which no longer resembles the stormy sea-front conference I used to attend in the 90s in Brighton, the annual CMA Communications Market survey of 350-plus of its members is being presented.

I hope to write more fully on that later today (summary of the summary: still gripes over broadband availability, some of the best-rated suppliers named, a hearty cheer as the CMA chair called for lower roaming fees - see, it's not only a commissioner's crusade in Brussels) but one thing I'd like to develop further later this week is the increasing blurring between IT and facilities management departments and implications this has for security, especially so in a world where convergence is on the march (a major CMA theme this year).

In other news, I was happy to see this morning the BBC and others going big on a potential stumbling block (is that an understatement?) for the new ePassports now rolled out in the UK - the passports are meant to last 10 years but the chips inside them storing all manner of data have only been guaranteed for two.

(For a related story, see our take on why biometrics are neither good nor bad.)

A release detailing the National Audit Office's investigation into the ePassport move came out yesterday afternoon and the team here spent a few hours wondering why something just didn't add up. I'm glad this particular angle is getting more play - and glad our story went live at midnight, as the NAO report was officially made public.

I'm following this story for another reason - I have to apply for a new passport over the next few weeks or months, so I'm interested in how that goes. I'll let you know.