Technologies@World Cup

World Cup organisers desperately needed a way of keeping control of tickets for this event. To do this, they turned to the internet and tiny computer chips that can transmit information. To give you an idea of how big interest is in this, remember that the 2006 World Cup competition started back in September 2003, when South American teams played their first qualifying games. Since then, 195 competing national sides have played a total of 847 matches, or roughly 77,000 minutes of football, to decide the 32 competing finalists (except for Germany, who qualify automatically as the hosts). The finals are the pinnacle of a three-year-long football marathon.

The organisers had to come up with a ticketing system that would fairly distribute the available 2.93 million tickets to fans all across the world. Internet sales were an obvious choice, so all publicly available tickets were made available online. Users filled in an application form on your PC for the games they wanted to see, submitted it to the Fifa World Cup website, then sat back and crossed their fingers.

The World Cup tickets will contain radio frequency identification (RFID) tags. The tag is a small silicon chip that stores and processes data, along with an antenna, which can receive and broadcast radio frequency signals. The whole thing is as thin as a sheet of paper and about the size of a postage stamp. Philips manufactured the tags for the World Cup tickets at an estimated cost of 10 eurocents (around Tk 8) per chip, which is barely significant considering the euro 35 (around Tk 3100) price for the cheapest seats at the group-stage matches.

All 12 World Cup stadiums in Germany have been fitted with RFID readers at their many entrances. Ticket holders passing through the turnstiles just have to hold their ticket near the reader, which will communicate with the tag, and if everything checks out, the turnstile will allow access. This means that tickets do not have to be checked by hand and forgeries are practically impossible. Tickets can be checked by officials to ensure that the ticket holder is the original purchaser, helping to prevent black market trading of tickets at massively inflated prices.

The stadium of the future
Germany is proud of its stadiums, with the jewel in the crown being the new Allianz Arena in Munich. It can change colour and architects say its shape and multi-panel roof are the key to the look of the grounds of the future.

Future grounds will be designed as bowls, with an abandonment of the idea of four stands surrounding a pitch, and with roofs. A round shape creates a better atmosphere, research suggests. "You're not just going there to see the game. You want to see those other 90,000 people around you," said Rod Sheard, an internationally renowned architect and an expert on stadium design when BBC recently asked him about the future of stadiums.

"They will change, there's no doubt about it," said Rod Sheard. "The big change that's happened in recent years, and will be a real change in the next 20, is that city planners have started to realise how important these buildings are in city centres."

However, it is likely that future stadiums will not be able to seat any more people than the current maximum, around 90,000. "That's purely a practical thing, in terms of the people in the back row not being able to see the game; it gets to the point where you may as well just stay at home and watch TV," Shread added.

World cup ball more advanced than your PC
The official ball of the tournament, the Adidas Teamgeist (team spirit), is packed to the seams with well-researched hi-tech goodness. Compared to most other footballs which have 26 or 32 sewn panels, the Teamgeist only has 14, making it far more smoother. This fact has goalkeepers going crazy since the smoother surface gives the ball a more unpredictable trajectory in the air. Translation: be on the lookout for what seem to be silly goalkeeping errors.

Backed by what Adidas calls "unprecedented" performance, the Teamgeist, which is supposedly the roundest football ever produced, is also nearly completely waterproof, thanks to a thermal bonding technology. Finally, Fifa rules state that balls must not have a more than 10 per cent weight increase when wet; the Teamgeist only gains .01 per cent weight when wet.

Matches in High-Definition
For the first time, the world cup matches are being broadcasted at extra high quality High-Definition or HD signals for special High-Definition TVs. To get the best coverage of the World Cup finals, you will want to watch the matches in High Definition.

Now, what is this High-Definition broadcast? Let me explain: Normal PAL TV signals, like the ones we use here, use an interlaced 720x576 resolution signal for broadcasting the video. That gives acceptable video quality for most viewers. But for others, it's just not enough. The HD signal is a far crisper 1920x1080 interlaced resolution, or 1080i as it's commonly known. With HDTV, the picture quality enjoys massive improvement over the aging, and interlaced, PAL signal. And that's not all, its audio quality, equivalent to 5.1 Dolby Digital surround sound, is a treat for the ears too.

Just how good is this? Imagine a big bright and beautiful high-resolution poster in your living room. Now imagine that poster coming-into-life and showing the world cup matches. That is what a HDTV is like. Its looks so realistic, that some animals like cats cannot distinguish between HDTV and reality.

Unfortunately, HDTV is still in its infancy. It is expensive, costing thousands of dollars. And not many channels offer content in High Definition yet, even in countries like USA and UK. But it is a start and it is damn well worth it for the avid sport fan who can afford the luxury.

Also, because of the mass adoption of wide-screen TVs, largely driven by the popularity of DVD movies, for the first time, viewers worldwide will be enjoying games in wide-screen, letting them see more of the play than ever before.

Providing the slick high-tech coverage that the modern TV viewer expects is a huge job, especially as all the broadcasters around the world must fulfil the specific needs of their particular audiences. In each of the 12 stadiums, there are at least 20 digital high-definition (HD) cameras. These cover the game from every angle, with multiple cameras providing close-ups and alternative views of the action. Specialist cameras are also fitted in the goalmouths for replays. There are even dedicated cameras covering the team benches.

The cameras themselves have specifications home digital video enthusiasts can only dream of. At least 6000 cameras are going to be used, each of which has three 9.2 million pixel CCDs with which to capture every possible detail that comes through the lens. Compare this with the mere 800,000 pixel CCDs in a standard video camera to get some idea of the quality of the images being captured.