If you're considering going to the World Cup in Germany next year, it appears that tickets will have an embedded RFID chip linked to your passport. While this is meant to make it more difficult to resell tickets, it also means you have to plan very carefully what games you are going to and who you are going with. I hope that this really does keep ticket prices down enogh to outweight the the potential inconveniences that this may cause. When we went to the Euro Cup in Portugal last summer, after-market prices were at least 5 times higher ( over 500 euros ) than the official ticket priceslisted on the UEFA site.

World Cup 2006 'abused for mega-surveillance project'

To apply for a ticket you have to give your name, address, nationality, which team you want to support and your bank details. You must also supply your ID or passport number and your birth date.\ Assuming you are successful, you receive a fully personalized ticket containing an RFID chip; this enables authorities to check the ticket against your passport. Very little information resides on the chip: the identity check is conducted against a database at the German Football Association (DFB).

I just caught a bit of the NHL press conference where the commissioner announced the cancellation of this season. It was a big coincidence, I went downstairs to get lunch and flipped on the TV. According to TiVo it was set to record the English Premiership match of the week but that was pre-empted. Two thoughts from what I briefly heard:

1. Does this give the owners any room to reorganize their business along the Single Entity Model ( court-room tested, soccer approved ) which would allow them to share revenues and control players more. Would that be an acceptible setup for current hockey owners or do they want unfettered control under a franchise model.
2. The commisioner stated that last year the owners infused the NHL with \$500 million in cash outlays. I wish I could spend money like that. I wish just one or two of them would decide they'd rather lose less money and invest in MLS, purchasing a team is just a cool \$25 mill plus the promise to get a stadium build ( much harder ).

Finally, as a point of comparison, a number floated around about how much MLS lost in its first 3 or 4 years of operation is around \$300 million. The league is still not profitable, thanks to costly stadium leases for teams in DC, Colorado and New York, but the outlook is promising. With more teams getting their own stadium, revenues go up significantly - not just from game day but ancilliary events including concerts, and other spporting event .\

It seems Microsoft is trying to stem the tide of users ditching the security hazard that is Internet Explorer for Mozilla Firefox. They just announced that Microsoft Internet Explorer 7.0 Beta Due This Summer. Why wait until this summer for a preview version of their next browser when you can get Firefox today? Not to mention that If You are Not Running XP It Will Only Cost You \$100 and may only be available for the latest Windows version - sorry win2k users!.

Firefox 1.0 is better right now than IE 7 will be when it comes out. Don't wait. Get Firefox now. 25 Million Downloads can't be wrong.