By Andy McCue, 17 June 2003 16:15
NEWS Next week's Wimbledon will be awash with new technology as well as strawberries, champagne and Pimms. The old traditionalists of the All England Club have brought in the 'hawk eye' technology used in cricket to check line calls and stop those temper tantrums with the umpire before they start. As it follows every ball in flight, the system will give a new set of statistics on bounce swerve and speed for commentators to mangle and reproduce at irrelevant moments. Sponsor IBM has also stepped in to jazz up the Wimbledon website, optimising it for PDAs. It will give the All England Club another crack at visitors' and stay-at-homes' wallets with a secure online shopping channel and a subscription channel featuring player interviews, match highlights and video clips. Rob McCowen, marketing director of the All England Club, said in a statement: "Last year, average duration of visits to the site was two hours nine minutes. With refreshed formats, interesting and lively up-to-date content, the Club aims to encourage users to stay online even longer." A secure Wimbledon wireless network will also be available for the duration of the championships. Officials, hospitality guests and media will be able log into the internal Wimbledon information network from anywhere in the grounds.
In order to post a comment you need to be registered and logged in.
Log in or create your silicon.com account below