Yup, that was widerly overlooked by the media. Today's testing plan is to get singular beams circulating, first in one direction and then the other, so no collisions there. The original plan calls for first real collision experiments sometime in October.
But from what I'm reading on the blag, preliminary tests were completed faster that planned, so they might speed up a schedule a bit.
You have to keep in mind that today is indeed the big day for most involved engineers, because getting the protons up to speed and keeping them on track is a rather delicate process. If there is a failure in one of the guidance systems, the beam will burn a hole into the cryostatic tube through which it is travelling. This would most likely cause leakage of liquid helium, which in turn would require repairs, for which the coolant would have to be removed. All this would cause huge delays and additional costs.
The media only read so far as "big LHC inauguration today" and started writing away, interviewing self-proclaimed experts with unwarranted-self-importance-syndrome and other doomsday prophets.
