03 August 2002

WiFi Rail Network KILKENNY, Ireland -- I think we need to explore the idea of a WiFi community aboard Irish Rail. I thought about this idea while talking to a blind passenger on the train from Kilkenny to Dublin. It wouldn't be difficult to create a hands-free client with voice recognition that connected to an Irish mobile phone system. It's possible to arrange the software now with Open Source speech programs such as Sphinx II for voice recognition and Festival for text to speech output. Tie them together with POE and Perl. >>Read Building Wireless Community Networks online with Safari.

Pressplay to Offer Unlimited Downloads CNET -- Stung by tepid market reception to its online music subscription service, Pressplay plans to offer listeners access to an unlimited supply of songs for a set period for a single fee. Under one section of the new plan, subscribers will be able to download or stream an unlimited number of songs to their computer for a single annual fee of $179.40.

Underway WLAN OREILLY.net -- Four guys. Two cars. A mobile phone. Some laptops. And Wi-Fi. En route to a conference, these four gentleman used a combination of off-the-shelf, easy-to-configure hardware and a variety of relatively straightforward software to create a two-car mobile Wi-Fi network with a GSM uplink.