Monday, April 7, 2003

IBM loops in more wireless. Big Blue touts new wireless capabilities, including mobile conference calling and "push to talk" technology, for its telephone network equipment installed in thousands of offices. [CNET News.com]
2:30:22 PM    comment   

Motion Computing Speeds Up Tablet PC. Motion Computing has launched a peppier version of its M1200 Tablet PC as well as a line of accessories for it. [allNetDevices Wireless News]
2:29:38 PM    comment   

A Closer Look at Nortel's WLAN Line. The communications company announced this week a suite of carrier-grade 802.11 products. Here are details on what they'll do. [allNetDevices Wireless News]
2:27:58 PM    comment   

IBM Builds Networked Homes with Developer. IBM will help Commonwealth Builders create a new community of fully-networked homes that will allow users to manage the thermostat, lighting and security systems remotely. [allNetDevices Wireless News]
2:26:41 PM    comment   

Technology Marketing: The Awful Customer. Michael Schrage. Virtually all the work I now do with the government is on a expenses-reimbursed, pro bono basis. Patriotism and public service aside, it is cheaper and easier to work for the government for free than to attempt to live profitably as a Beltway Bandit. Washington is indeed a harsh mistress. [Tomalak's Realm]
2:24:37 PM    comment   

Making Wines Finer With Wireless. A Canadian vineyard is using wireless sensors linked to a central computer to monitor air temperatures across 50 acres of grapes. The data will help the vintners protect crops from frost damage and more closely pinpoint the perfect moment to harvest. By Mark Baard. [Wired News]
1:26:11 PM    comment   

Tuning Into the Hype About Wi-Fi. Wi-Fi Internet access is popping up in all kinds of businesses, including fast-food restaurants and coffee shops. But do customers really want it? By Elisa Batista. [Wired News]
1:08:07 PM    comment   

Lower Manhattan's Free Unwiring. A business improvement district in Lower Manhattan will install free hot spot and hot zone service: The service will encompass a number of areas to begin with -- City Hall Park; the South Street Seaport area; Bowling Green; Vietnam Veterans Plaza on Water Street north of Broad Street; in Liberty Plaza, at Broadway and Liberty Street; and in Rector Park in Battery Park City. Interestingly, the article also contains the first mention I've seen of Emenity, a for-profit group headed by one of NYCwireless's founders, Anthony Townsend. Emenity is working hand-in-hand with NYCwireless, a group that itself lacks charitable status but works with the Earth Pledge Foundation to receive donations.... [Wi-Fi Networking News]
1:05:09 PM    comment   

Estonia: Land of Cheap Wi-Fi/GPRS. Estonia offers unlimited Wi-Fi/GPRS for as little as US$20: Veljo Haamer of Wifi.ee in Estonia (one of the Baltic republics for the geographically challenged) writes in reaction to the Czech Republic service offering unlimited GPRS service for US$34 per month that three Estonian wISPs have flat rate monthly GPRS and Wi-Fi service. The least expensive plans are US$20 per month from RadioLinja and Vodafone. Veljo also points us to a coverage map in English of Wi-Fi service, of which 50 percent are still free. This is another clear sign of how in a country (or area) with less copper infrastructure how Wi-Fi or unlicensed wireless can transform connectivity, and hopefully enlarge the economy. My family is mostly from Lithuania and areas of Russia and Poland near there, so Estonia has a warm spot in my heart.... [Wi-Fi Networking News]
1:04:35 PM    comment   

Fries, Wi-Fi, No Pepsi, Coke. If you sell them a Value Meal, they might come: A skeptical article in the San Jose Mercury News on whether the McDonald's Wi-Fi experiment in New York is a sign of things to come or a demonstration of the inefficiency of charging for hot spot service. As regular readers know, I believe that captive venues like conference centers, airports, and hotels, have a high potential to get regular subscribers through networks aggregated for roaming. Non-captive venues, like public parks, cafes, or areas with retail density will certainly always have some amount of free service. But if you capture travelers with the promise of reliable service and they get the benefit of lower costs for Internet access in the captive locations, those same travelers will wind up using commercial service elsewhere if it's included in their monthly subscription fee. That's to say that if you're already paying $30 to $50 per month for unlimited Wi-Fi because you spend a lot of time in Austin, San Jose, San Francisco, and Seattle, and hotel nights in Embassy, Wyndham, etc., you'll seek out the cafes that are part of the same roaming system because you'll be used to a guaranteed level of performance and customer service.... [Wi-Fi Networking News]
12:58:41 PM    comment   

Time Magazine Tells Old, Boring Story. Wake me when the story is over: Time tells old, boring story slightly inaccurately: Time Magazine paints a very dull picture of an exciting field by printing a story that, minus a few statistics, could have appeared over a year ago. After opening with a twist on the usual coffeeshop story, the Time story reads pretty close to the picture I painted in February 2001 in the New York Times. Ah, well, this is an article for folks who don't know anything about Wi-Fi. Instead of even mentioning Intel's Centrino marketing campaign and system which could drive Wi-Fi use through simple awareness and branding. This is a European story from Time's overseas division, but it only mentions a single prices -- about 8 euros an hour -- for a single hot spot operator without mentioning, say, Telia's pricing in Sweden or any operator in the US. It gets T-Mobile's acquisition of MobileStar's assets wrong; T-Mobile didn't buy the company or assume the debt. The writer also misstates Boingo's purpose by identifying it as a company that helps sniff and connect to networks.... [Wi-Fi Networking News]
12:53:58 PM    comment   

Silicon Valley Hikes Wireless Frontier. As wireless telephony and computing combine, the center of gravity in digital technology is clearly shifting. By Steve Lohr. [New York Times: Technology]
12:50:33 PM    comment   

When Games Override Calls as Phone Feature. Nokia, Sony Ericsson and their competitors are deploying technology to let callers kick, punch and beat one another up over their mobile handsets. By Matt Richtel. [New York Times: Technology]
12:50:04 PM    comment   

Schools use SMS to fight truancy. Oi u ltl sh*t, get bk 2 skool now [The Register]
12:39:03 PM    comment   

Symbian to unveil open source dev language at Expo. Here comes OPL for mobile phones [The Register]
12:38:20 PM    comment   

RIM: bumper BlackBerry harvest. Still in the Red [The Register]
12:37:34 PM    comment   

Text messaging is popular in Europe and Asia, but not in America. Why? "economist"
12:12:22 PM    comment   

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