How is your Olympics-watching experience going?

You may have caught some of the Olympic Games over the weekend, most likely in front of your television set and not online. NBC Universal, which owns the U.S. broadcast rights, said it attracted 114 million TV viewers, which was itself an Olympic record. The Web-viewing audience was a fraction of that, although a lot better than during the last Olympics.

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We’ve come a long way since Pong and Space Invaders. But video and computer games are still striving to be both interactive and realistic. Have you seen the “Saturday Night Live” skit of the interview with Grand Theft Auto IV’s main characters, Niko and Vlad? Their arms move imprecisely, as if they’re puppets underwater.

On Monday, chip maker Advanced Micro Devices, which already supplies the graphics power for the Nintendo Wii and the Xbox 360, showed the “SNL” skit at an event in San Francisco. Then AMD gave a taste of what it says a game maker can do with its new microprocessor: A 30-second clip of what appeared to be a real scorpion skittering around a terrarium, presumably hunted by another equally terrifying bug.

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In recent months, some start-up technology companies have died or gone into comas after running out of money, a possible early sign that the resurgence in venture investment may be coming to an end. File123 is counting its days. Edgeio was edged out. TripUp has fallen. BrightSpot went dark. Firebrand flamed out and Ezmo is no more. Industry analysts say this year will bring a big wave of start-up deaths as the credit crisis gripping the financial markets makes investors cautious in other areas.

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