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Monday, December 2, 2002
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http://www.msnbc.com/news/841222.asp?0si=-&;cp1=1
ëA COMMODITY BUSINESSí
Cellphone companies insist that Wi-Fi presents no threat to their current plans and contend that thereís a place for both systems. But some experts are skeptical that Wi-Fi will ever become profitable. ìIím not convinced [Wi-Fi] is a great business,î says William G. Crawford, a former telecom analyst at U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray. ìWater is a wonderful thing, but selling water may not be. Itís a commodity business.î
Anthony Townsend, co-founder of free Wi-Fi network provider NYCwireless who is trying to spin off a for-profit company, says the telecommunications companies are taking the wrong approach by trying to charge for wireless Internet access at airports and coffee shops. Mr. Townsendís start-up, Cloud Networks, is hoping to make a business out of designing, building and maintaining Wi-Fi networks for owners of apartment and office buildings. ìTheir model is to put a quarter in your chair to get a light turned on over your chair,î he says. ìOur model is that the cost of providing light should be part of the cost of your coffee.î
10:56:40 AM 
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P-to-p's next frontier? David L. Margulius
JUST WHEN IT seemed peer-to-peer architectures might fade into the sunset, another horizon opens up.
Spurred by the spread of 802.11 and related protocols, new mobile and wireless applications are creating situations in which the lack of access to central servers offers opportunities uniquely suited to p-to-p.
Picture this scenario: A group of firefighters, responding to a crisis, surrounds a large burning building in a remote rural area while carrying peer-enabled digital voice and data communication devices. Despite lacking access to external networks or central switches, they're able to communicate via voice and video with a powerful, built on the fly, p-to-p digital network infrastructure.
Sound far-fetched? Then consider a group of management consultants sitting in a client's conference room, all equipped with Wi-Fi cards but with no access to their client's LAN or the public Internet.
Then there are applications where the peer nodes are mobile -- such as in vehicles -- and it is more efficient to connect them to one another rather than utilize a fixed infrastructure. There are also distributed devices that are economically inefficient to connect via a fixed infrastructure, such as remote sensors, traffic lights, or pipeline valves along hundreds of miles of pipeline.
According to Peter Stanforth, CTO of Maitland, Fla.-based Mesh Networks, p-to-p wireless applications fall into several categories, with the common characteristic being a lack of reliable connectivity to host networks.
More... Article
10:48:44 AM
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The Stratelliteô is a high-altitude airship that, when in place in the stratosphere, will provide a stationary platform for transmitting various types of wireless communications services.
Sanswire Technologies is working with its joint venture partner, Telesphere Communications, Inc., a division of Techsphere Systems International, LLC to launch a total of ten Stratellitesô that will provide the transmission platform for Sanswireís high-speed ìNational Wireless Networkî. When completed, subscribers will be able to access the Internet wirelessly from anywhere in the United States and parts of Canada and Mexico.
Each Stratelliteô will be over two hundred feet in diameter, have a payload capacity of thousands of pounds, and is powered by a series of solar powered electric motors. In addition to Sanswireís National Wireless Network, proposed telecommunications uses include cellular, 3G/4G mobile, MMDS, paging, fixed wireless telephony, HDTV and others.
Made of Kevlarô and manufactured by 21st Century Airships, Inc., each Stratelliteô will be held stationary in the stratosphere at an altitude of 68,000 feet using technology patented by 21st Century Airships and remotely controlled from tracking stations on the ground. Each Stratelliteô is designed to stay in one location, for up to 12 months, at which time, it would be replaced by a duplicate Stratelliteô, allowing a seamless exchange that will prevent outages to subscribers.
| Windows Media Lo-Res |
Stratellite_Teaser1_320.wmv (769KB) |
VIEW | | 
10:42:44 AM
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John Partrick writes...
The Public Internet Project
The Public Internet Project is dedicated to the evolution and development of close range wireless technologies in urban environments -- WiFi. Their mission is to "gain understanding into the evolution of consumer adoption of close proximity wireless technologies such as 802.11b, and to promote free public 802.11 hot spots, like the Bryant Park wireless network in midtown Manhattan, for the economically disadvantaged."
It appears that The Public Internet Project is a for-profit firm which is conducting proprietary research into wireless technology adoption and then selling its reports to businesses. They have just completed a study of WiFi hotspots in Manhattan and on their web site they have a map that shows GPS locations of more than 12,000 WiFi locations. To do this they drove every street in the borough of Manhattan (approx. 98%) with the exception of areas that were closed to vehicle traffic due to police or construction (WTC and Wall Street). That is impressive determination.
The Public Internet Project says that Manhattan was selected as the research area because it contains a significant distribution of socioeconomic stratifications of modern society and represents the earliest of all adopters. The research reflects the adoption of 802.11b wireless usage across a wide variety of zoning districts and economically diverse populations.
10:30:47 AM
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David Sifry writes...
 Technorati I wanted to let you know about a new project I've been working on called Technorati. Essentially, it is a site that creates a set of web services that I've always wanted for myself - services layered on top of the wealth of current search functionality and tools available for bloggers.
There are 4 core services that Technorati provides:
1) Link Cosmos: This is a service that lets you see what blogs are linking to a Blog (or any arbitrary URL, btw). I always wanted this because I wanted something to help me get a feeling for how interesting a blog was - if lots of people are linking somewhere, it must be interesting, right? And If lots of people I know and respect are linking to someone or something, then it must be something worth taking seriously.
So, with Link Cosmos, you can check any URL you like - type it into the search box, and you'll get an instant view of the bloggers who are linking to the site. This is what makes it significantly different from Blogback, for example.
3) Google Juice
A corollary of Google Rank is Google Juice. By adding a URL to search for, Google juice gives me the ranking for a site (or set of sites) that I want to track - and Google Juice goes even deeper than Google Rank - if your site is in the top 1000 Google responses, Google Juice will find your site and give you its ranking for that set of search terms. Here's an example, searching for the URL "www.scripting.com" on the search term "weblogs". Rock on, Dave!
4) Watchlists
Watchlists are the easy way to keep and track historical information about the sites that you are tracking. They allow you to quickly see new links to your site or see historical Google ranking information not shown in the standard views.
Watchlists are where the business model behind Technorati comes into play. By paying $5/year, you can purchase access to the watchlist web service. You get instant access to the live watchlist information, and you also get a daily email with all of the updates to the sites or Google Rankings that you're tracking.
10:22:19 AM
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The Cause of RSI. An intriguing, but unresearched, speculation as to the cause of Repetitive Strain Injury. Could it be the light action and short travel of modern keyboards and mice that cause the trouble? Dysponetic activity (inappropriate and misdirected as well as unconscious muscle bracing) is implicated in the aetiology of RSI. How much of this is due to the need to support the weight and muscle tone of one's fingers to avoid inadvertent key presses? [kuro5hin.org]
10:15:33 AM
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Homebound But Plugged In... Wirelessly. The Washington Post has an article about a group of seniors at a nursing home that connect to the outside world using the internet. They have a fixed wireless connection to their building, attached to a Wi-Fi system that lets them have access to the internet wherever they want. It's certainly an indication that things like wireless technologies are starting to catch on beyond just the early adopters. Of course, the system was installed by yet another WISP - many of which have failed in the past, so it will be interesting to see if they've found a niche in wiring up nursing homes, or if they're just another attempt in a long line of WISPs that go nowhere. [Techdirt Corporate Intelligence: Techdirt Wireless News]
10:14:26 AM
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Browser History Mechanisms. So we're rapidly approaching 10 years of web browsing, and browser history mechanisms are showing their age. There's good evidence to show the back button is broken. More on this to come as I crusade to fix it in Mozilla, and hack up my own solution to prove the utility. Lot's of context for this effort, here's some fresh waves:
[Surf*Mind*Musings]
10:10:04 AM
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© Copyright
2004
Jon Schull.
Last update:
1/21/04; 9:26:22 AM.
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