It is 64 years since the Olympics were last in London, the first time they were televised by the BBC. Over three quarters of adults in the United Kingdom say they will watch coverage of the London 2012 Olympics, although the final figure may be higher. One in five also say they will follow the games online, through a computer, tablet or mobile phone. Over half of adults in the country say new technology will make accessing coverage of the Olympics easier. Back in 1948, there was only one television channel and only an estimated 100,000 receivers in the country.

An app that transmits data via a burst of "digital birdsong" aims to simplify the way users share images and other files between smartphones. Chirp plays a two-second long noise that sounds as if it was made by a robotic bird. When heard by other devices it triggers a download. The software was developed by Animal Systems, a spin-off business from University College London.

Guardian has announced a number of digital projects that have been produced to add to the news outlet's coverage of the London Olympics, including a personalised "could you be a medallist?" interactive and a "second screen experience" dashboard for viewing the games. In a release the Guardian outlines six of the "digital initiatives" it has been working on for the games, from its liveblogs and virtual stadium tour, to a new London 2012 "experts' network", which will see experts in the sporting world "tweet, blog and answer readers' questions during the games".

Throughout the education sector, digital and social media projects are being used to inspire young minds and develop skills across a range of subjects. Both Ted-Ed (ed.ted.com) and O2 learn (O2learn.co.uk) provide free-to-use videos to users, via YouTube for the former and on a dedicated website for the latter. The short films are designed to be used as teaching aids and combine live action, animation and voiceovers to cover topics as diverse as the evidence for alien life and how to mic up a rock drum kit. They can also be edited by users to create more personal, inter-active learning …

Amazon is to establish a global digital media development centre in London, the company announced on Monday. The centre, which Amazon says will open "in the coming months", will bring together the design and development teams of two of the firm's online video subsidiaries, Lovefilm and Pushbutton. It will "focus on the creation of interactive digital services for TVs, game consoles, smartphones and PCs, the development of the digital media experience on Amazon websites around the world, and the building of services and APIs that power that digital media experience," Amazon said.

While agreeing that social media is popular and fun, "Can't talk. #training" may be the most apt tweet or status update, especially at the games. And it's far less than 140 characters. "It's good to keep in contact with your family and friends," Australian shooter Alethea Sedgman said. "But sport-wise, it's better to focus without Facebook." The Australian cycling team doesn't use social media during competition time. No RTs for them, maybe just some RTTs (remember to train).

The government should legislate rather than wait for the UK or the European courts to rule on whether internet users have to pay to browse websites, a UK media monitoring business has said. James Mackenzie, commercial director of Cutbot, told Out-Law.com that businesses and internet users could both suffer if the government waits for the courts to interpret whether the act of browsing lawfully published web pages or circulating links to those pages is legitimate.

Mail Online, the news website owned by Daily Mail & General Trust, became profitable for the first time in June, after achieving a near 80% year-on-year rise in revenues, mostly driven by advertising, which is set to generate almost GBP30 million this year, Media Week reveals. Mail Online has long been the most popular newspaper site in the UK and, according to comScore figures, overtook the New York Times to become the leading online English-language newspaper at the start of the year.

Social media will soon become a "significant" part of ecommerce in the future, marketingweek.co.uk reports. During collating speeches given at this week's Iris Worldwide Retail Retold conference in London, Marketing Week found that the underlying message was for businesses to integrate social media with online retail, or risk being left behind when everybody else does.

Designed to be a 'near match' to the print edition, the app will be available for free through Newsstand on iOS. This follows the launch of the Metro Facebook app last month, which orders content by the number of 'likes' it has, and aims to increase engagement and encourage commenting, liking and sharing.