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The Technology Powering Qatar’s FIFA World Cup 2022

A series of technology firsts will help make the World Cup a more immersive event for football fans, boost Qatar’s sustainability credentials, and help to keep the scorching heat at bay.

Published

4 years ago

November 1, 2022

Nour Nasir

the technology powering qatar's fifa world cup 2022

Qatar is the smallest nation to host a World Cup tournament, and it’s also the first Middle Eastern country with the same honor. As well as being notable as an “out of season” event, the FIFA World Cup 2022 will also feature several technological innovations.

Here are some of the more exciting examples we’ve unearthed so far:

Robo-Ref

The most notable feature of Qatar 2022 will likely be the high-tech match balls, which have been upgraded with FIFA’s “Semi-Automated Offside Technology”, an enhanced version of existing VAR systems (video assistant referees).

The official ball of the tournament is called “Al Rihla” (Arabic for “The Journey”) and is packed with the latest Adidas Suspension System, which can log its position on the pitch at a staggering 500 times per second. Each venue will be installed with 12 dedicated cameras to monitor the ball position and 29 points of each player’s body, with AI processing data in real time.

As well as helping with contentious match decisions, the new technology will also be used to create dynamic replay animations that can be displayed during broadcasts, or on the big screens of the event’s stadiums.

Advanced Stadium-Cooling

The temperatures of a Qatari summer are no joke at the best of times, and could prove debilitating for spectators and potentially deadly for pro footballers.

Saud Abdulaziz Abdul Ghani from Qatar University‘s College of Engineering has come up with an answer that mimics how a car’s air-con system works. The ingenious invention uses a mixture of insulation and “targeted cooling” through grills in the stands and nozzles on the pitch. The result is improved air circulation, which can be filtered, cooled to 18 degrees Celsius, and pushed back into the stadium.

The technology is thought to be up to 40% more sustainable than a traditional cooling system. It only needs to be used two hours before an event, reducing energy consumption considerably over conventional methods. Along with high-tech retractable roofing, Dr. Saud hopes that stadiums around the globe will eventually adopt his inventions.

A Lego-Style Stadium

The Lusail Iconic Stadium is undoubtedly the most prestigious venue of the FIFA World Cup 2022 event. However, another stadium at Ras Abu Aboud, known as “Stadium 974,” takes the prize for ingenuity.

Qatar’s government was keen to avoid building venues that were of limited appeal to the community after the event had finished. To that end, Stadium 974 is the first collapsible venue to feature in the World Cup, being constructed from repurposed shipping containers.

The 974 containers (hence the name) have been modified to hold seating, bathrooms, and every other element of a stadium, with the intention that they can either be rebuilt into several smaller venues or sent overseas for future events.

According to FIFA, the Stadium 974 concept brings a new level of sustainability to football stadium design. However, it should be noted that the vast Lusail Iconic Stadium will also eventually be repurposed as the centerpiece of a new metropolis to be known as Lusail City. The stadium’s infrastructure is set to be converted into a community space, with schools, shops, cafés, sporting facilities, and health clinics.

News

Instagram Redraws Its Wordmark And The Internet Reads “Instagzam”

Instagram’s first wordmark refresh in a decade arrives with new fonts, a restrained gradient — and a Reddit verdict of sidegrade.

Published

4 days ago

August 14, 2026

Nour Nasir

Instagram

Although Instagram’s famous camera icon hasn’t changed, the company has refreshed the handwritten wordmark at the top of its app. This is the first redesign we’ve seen in ten years, and one the internet promptly set about renaming.

“The wordmark at the top of the app hasn’t changed in 10 years, so it was time for a refresh,” Instagram head Adam Mosseri wrote in a post on August 13, describing the new version as “cleaner and more modern” while keeping references to the original design.

Instagram says its team explored hundreds of options — all-caps lettering, camera-inspired concepts, even literal handwriting — before returning to script. “Script reflects individuality, so referencing that felt right,” Instagram director of product design Jasmine Probst said in Meta’s announcement. “The new wordmark is bolder and simpler, with touches of unexpectedness. It cues individual expression, a personal voice, both of which have always been core to Instagram”.

The wordmark is part of a broader brand overhaul: an updated Instagram Sans typeface, two new fonts — the hand-drawn Instagram Pen and Instagram Mono — plus refreshed motion and layouts, and more restrained use of the signature gradient. The wordmark is rolling out globally now, with the rest arriving throughout 2026 and beyond.

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The design mixes cursive and print lettering, some characters connected and others floating free. That hybrid approach, combined with unusually shaped “s” and “r” characters, led some users to conclude the logo actually reads “Instagzam”. On the r/logodesign subreddit, one user said the wordmark looked “fan-made,” like something built in Canva; another called it “an unsettling mix of manuscript and cursive”; a third summarized it as a “sidegrade” — or, inevitably, a “zidegrade”.

Not everyone was hostile to the new look. Some found the half-cursive design stylish and surprisingly readable, while others called it an improvement on its predecessor, and one commenter argued Instagram was simply adopting minimalist branding later than everyone else. Either way, the platform now has a refreshed identity, three updated fonts, and an unofficial new pronunciation.