Today’s Boston Marathon, run by Boston Athletic Association had some 23,500 athletes, equipped with Champion Chip RFID tags so family and friends could monitor their progress online.
Robert Cheruiyot won the Boston Marathon for the third time Monday, defending his title in the remnants of a soaking nor’easter to bring Kenya its 15th victory in 17 years. Russia’s Lidiya Grigoryeva captured the women’s crown. Bloggers have additional coverage.
Mobile and e-mail updates were also available. The BAA allows runners to register up to three e-mail addresses or wireless devices. The alerts are sent from the 10-kilometer, half-marathon and 30-kilometer points and finish line.
BAA’s adoption of RFID began with the 100th marathon in 1996 when the BAA made wearing RFID tags mandatory for all race participants — the first major U.S. marathon to use the device. Last year, 10,232 Boston marathon runners, or about half, signed up for alerts, up from 9,836 in 2005.
Astronaut Sunita Williams ran in this year’s Boston Marathon at over 18,000 miles per hour aboard the International Space Station. Periodically, she asked Mission Control for an update on the times of friends, including NASA astronaut Karen Nyberg, and her sister, Dina Pandya, who were running the marathon on the ground. She finished, unofficially, in 4 hours, 23 minutes and 46 seconds as the station traveled over Russia — more than 210 miles above Earth.
Perhaps next year, the Marathon will run through the city’s WiFi network. OpenAirBoston (OAB, a private, non-profit corporation, was created to develop, implement and operate a network to provide affordable wireless internet access throughout the City of Boston.
Boston’s pilot network, built with partners, BelAir Networks, MetroNext, Galaxy Internet Services and others, will cover approximately one square mile of the Roxbury area. Only 43 percent of Boston residents currently have broadband Internet service at home and it is estimated that 80 percent of Boston School students do not have Internet access at home. The Initiative will also help keep Boston at the technology forefront, bringing new economic vitality and innovation to the city.
A recent EPCglobal pilot project using active RFID (radio frequency identification) tags along with software from Oracle and Savi Technology has highlighted the importance of common standards for port operations. The pilot tagged shipping containers traveling between Hong Kong and Japan for real-time tracking information using a draft EPCglobal standard.
DailyWireless has more articles on RF-ID including, The Iditarod, WiFi Tracking Tags from AeroScout, PanGo & Ekahau, Mapping Goes Live, Geotagging Photos – Cheap, Geocoding Content & Telemetry, Mapping RFID & Santa, Football Helmets Unwired, GPS Tracking: In a Shoe, On a Bike, Wireless GPS Camera, New Smartphones from HTC, Polar Flight Telemetry, GPS Sports Workout Phone, Photo Lat/Long via WiFi, GPS Dog Collar, GPS Watch & Tracker, and Marathon Woman.
[...] up for alerts … Japan for real-time tracking information using a draft EPCglobal standard. …http://www.dailywireless.org/2007/04/16/tracking-the-boston-marathon/Runners&apos bar codes help safety officials – Boston.com … boston marathon runners … tracking [...]
Left by boston marathon runner tracking on April 22nd, 2008