He said that this, together with plans by China's state broadcaster, would ensure the 2008 Games livies up to its billing as a "People's Olympics."

"CCTV will offer some free channels during the Games, so people can basically enjoy the Olympics for free.

"Our chips are cheap and cell phones that are enabled to use them will not be much different in price to regular phones," Meng said.

SARFT is planning to build a regional test network in Beijing this month and hopes to start trials by the end of the year. The goal is to deploy CMMB on a national level by the first half of 2008.

Innofidei is now busy selling their chips to cell phone makers so that the new generation of phones reaches the market by Christmas.

"Our innovation successfully integrated the merits of the two best-selling consumer products in history - TV sets and cell phones," said Meng.

"In the near future, soccer fans won't be tearing their hair out because they are stuck in traffic and missing the chance to see their favorite teams play."

Local baseball fans, meanwhile, will be able to draw comfort from the knowledge that - both at the Olympics and afterwards - their teams will be playing on a field designed to help recycle water.

Given Beijing's arid climate, water-saving technology could not come a moment too soon.

Rainwater will be instantly absorbed and purified by floor tiles that have been installed in the field. The run-off will then be collected in subterranean pipes and used to help with irrigation, landscaping and even toilet flushing.

To further promote Beijing's plan to host a "Green Olympics," even the tiles are made of desert sand.

The company hopes to spread this kind of thinking to other cities in southern China that suffer from heavy precipitation.

They also hope to use some of this Olympic technology to help build a more diverse and healthy diet.

Initially this will serve the visitors to the Games, but later it will be made fully available to the Chinese people.

Beijing's food scientists have already "tamed" almost 100 types of vegetable that are not native to China. With these new scientific innovations, the vegetables can now survive and grow in Beijing's neighboring cities in Hebei Province

"The Beijing Games should not just provide foreign visitors and athletes with Chinese food," said Zhou Lijun, vice-chairman of the Beijing Association of Science and Technology. "We should also be able to offer a highly international Olympic menu.

"Some of these so-called 'alien' fruits and vegetables have already been successfully grown in Beijing for the Games. Later on they will become a part of our daily diet."

The Beijing Academy of Agriculture and Forestry Sciences, which is carrying out the work, has successfully developed over 300 kinds of Olympic vegetables for the Games, they said.

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