Privacy expert Garfinkel on opening public institutions' wireless networks: I hadn't realized that noted security and privacy expert Simson Garfinkel spent several months as part of a firm trying to build a commercial wireless ISP business that would expand across the globe. He found the back-office stuff the killer, not the networks or network infrastructure. (I've heard the same thing about MobileStar; it cost them $3K/Starbucks to put Wi-Fi in, so how did they burn through $80M? Garfinkel explains.) Garfinkel argues that public institutions for whom incremental bandwidth costs are nil should contribute to the larger community by opening their networks. Likewise, he points out how simple it is for individuals to get bandwidth and feed it out. Running through tens of millions put him on the track of what's becoming the real revolution: community networks. (Garfinkel's books include the superb non-fiction horror title Database Nation and the co-authored (with guru Gene Spafford) Web Security, Privacy, and Commerce.

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Beantown's Broadband Blues: Why No Wi-FI?: Scott Kirsner, a familiar name to those who read technology articles, writes about Boston's lack of Wi-Fi, although he points out that change is in the air. He cites an article (see below) that encourages public institutions to open their wireless networks because of the practically zero cost involved. Although acknowledging the chance of hackers, crackers, and spammers, reasonable safeguards could prevent that. Kirsner wants public Wi-Fi - now!

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>>>Yahoo!, a web portal, in contrast, is having trouble encouraging its 219m users to pay for its services.  Most of the information it offers is available elsewhere, and switching costs are low - a share price is a share price, wherever you read it.<<<  That's got to hurt!  Personally, I think portals should move to the destkop where they have a growth path.  Decentralization via P2P and desktop Websites would allow it to leverage an almost unlimited supply of free storage, processor power, and bandwidth on the desktop.  Yes, even bandwidth.  The combined bandwidth available to people at home and at work dwarfs the combined bandwidth of all the big Internet firms.  Further, it is paid for by end-users.

Here is an interesting graph they included (to include it on my Weblog all I did is click properties, find the URL of the picture, got to the page with only the graphic, and copy into my WYSIWYG editor.  The picture was automatically sized, etc.):

[John Robb's Radio Weblog]
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>>>The Foveon image chip in Sigma's new camera has 3.5 megapixels, but they work in a different way.  Each pixel can capture red, blue, and green light.  They do this in a similar way to that of colour film.  On film, different colours penetrate the photosensitive material to different layers.  On the Foveon chip, the pixels detect colour according to how deep the light penetrates the chip's silicon base.  The result, says Foveon, is that its 3.5 megapixel chip can perform as well as a 7 megapixel conventional chip (note:  digital cameras with more than 5 megapixels cost thousands of $$)....  Worldwide, it is estimated that 18m digital cameras, worth more than $8 b, were sold in 2001. <<<

Two more items.  The Foveon chip works for movies too.  Additionally, new silicon lens technology will eliminate moving parts from the camera entirely (silicon lens eliminates zooming given that it focuses on each pixel in the field of view simultaneously).  Bing! 

This gets even more interesting when personal storage devices (PSDs), like iPod, are put into the mix.  If my analysis is correct, PSDs will be the personal computing device of choice in five years.  At its core will be a huge 1 Tb disk (plus a big hunk of RAM).  Attached to it will be chips that playback movies and music.  Wireless connections to PCs, laptops, and tablet screens will enable a high quality management interface.  A camera/video recorder with a Foveon chip will likely be a popular attachment.  Battery life will be 100 hours with new fuel cell tech on the way.  Final thought:  It will likely have a wireless P2P connection.  Wow.  I want one.

Here is some more fun thinking:  This device, if combined with a personal weblog and connection to a P2P network, will enable people to publish like the pros.  The reason I point back to weblogs is this:  all these files will need contextual information in order to be effective shared.  PSDs plus a category specific version of my Weblog stored as a static site on my PSD (remember, management of a PSD will be done via a PC) would work wonderfully over a P2P system. 

So, I could go to an event, where I could snap pictures and take videos and automatically store them in my PSD.  After the event (or during, if I had a laptop) I could connect the PSD to my PC, publish a couple of entries into my weblog with links to the new content, and then publish the weblog as a static site on my PSD.  Wireless P2P connections would take care of the rest. [John Robb's Radio Weblog]
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