Special report:   2008 Olympic Games 

    BEIJING, Dec. 25 (Xinhua) -- Beijing is focusing on upgrading technologies for better service for the upcoming Olympic Games next year.

    The Beijing Municipal Commission of Science and Technology said most of its funds for technological upgrades in 2007 went to Olympic-related projects, the Ministry of Science and Technology website (www.most.gov.cn) reported on Tuesday.

    The government contracted several research institutes and hi-tech companies to build a multilingual call center for next August's Games. The center would provide help in 12 major global languages, the website said.

    The hi-tech call center and self-service information kiosks, which have been built along main Beijing streets, were tested and proved effective in recent months.

    The municipal government also encouraged local companies to develop a computerized caption system in Chinese as an endeavor to ensure accessibility to the visually impaired. The Chinese-captioned video signals are to broadcast from the Olympic media center for the first time, the website said.

    The Beijing Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games next year had also contracted a few companies to enhance security technologies for its official websites and intranet system.

    An intelligent urban transport system, consisting of a control headquarters and automatic monitoring sites surveying real-time traffic conditions would be available before the Games began.

    The municipal government didn't elaborate on how much was spent on the upgrades because most of the projects were co-funded by the central government.

    In bidding to host the Games, China vowed to rapidly upgrade its Olympic-related technologies and to provide better service for global athletes and tourists.