A new form of wireless network known as
White Spaces will come online next month, the
FCC announced today.
White Spaces has been called "WiFi on steroids". White spaces are unused spectrum between broadcast television channels. It is faster than WiFi so it can handle more data. It can bring (nearly) free Internet access to the most remote areas of the country, places that can't get WiFi. Because it uses broadcast television signals, any place that can pick up a broadcast TV signal should be able to tap into
White Spaces.
posted by cashman
on Dec 22, 2011 -
34 comments
Starting today,
Starbucks is offering free wifi in all of their US and Canadian stores. This has computer security folks a little edgy, since it could allow hackers and computer miscreants new opportunities to steal the data of unsuspecting computer users, and prompted
Steve Gibson,
computer security guru, to advise people to "just be afraid. Be very afraid." This applies to people who use laptops, wifi enabled cellphones and pdas. But there are ways to protect yourself.
[more inside]
posted by crunchland
on Jul 1, 2010 -
93 comments
AirPower Wiki looks like its just getting off the ground, but if you travel much, you know the hassle of finding a power outlet in an airport. Hopefully it grows fast and furiously.
posted by allkindsoftime
on Jul 26, 2006 -
8 comments
Another wifi-related arrest was publicized today. In the past, the only case readily available to researchers involved
additional seedy activities that are what really drew the arrest. The coffeeshop and other open hotspots show up on several sites such as
jiwire and
wifinder which are devoted to helping people find wireless hotspots.
In this case, a coffeeshop noticed someone leeching their WiFi parked in his truck -- over the course of 3 months, without ever entering the coffeehouse and making a purchase. While not yet convicted of anything, he has been arrested for "theft of services," and this could mean the first precedent set for whether or not "wireless piggybacking" is illegal. The case becomes especially interesting for both sides of the ethical debate on "borrowing" wireless. One one side of the judge's opinion will be the fact that the coffeehouse is a public place, not a private home. On the other side, it turns out the man who was arrested just so happens to be a registered sex offender, though this coincidental fact is not technically relevant to the case.
posted by twiggy
on Jun 22, 2006 -
259 comments
Googlenet. What if Google wanted to give Wi-Fi access to everyone in America? And what if it had technology capable of targeting advertising to a user’s precise location? The gatekeeper of the world’s information could become one of the globe’s biggest Internet providers and one of its most powerful ad sellers, basically supplanting telecoms in one fell swoop.
What was speculation this last month, now seems to be
getting closer. However, it looks like it's
raising hackles, similar to the ugly memories of
google web accelerator beta which
was cancelled just a few days after release
posted by Mave_80
on Sep 20, 2005 -
41 comments
Republican Congressman Pete Sessions from Texas
introduced a bill that would make all free, public, municipal WiFi illegal. Sessions, as it turns out, is a
big fat recipient of SBC funds. Why stop there? Should we privatize highways as well? How about subways? Glad the liberal media is all over this one. Here are a couple of links: Original post on
DailyKos, An informative
editorial from the Fort Wayne paper
posted by mountainmambo
on Jun 9, 2005 -
48 comments
Endangered Gizmos via the
EFF (warning, they do want your money to continue fighting "
to defend our rights to think, speak, and share our ideas, thoughts, and needs using new technologies, such as the Internet and the World Wide Web.")
Lawsuits have driven some excellent consumer products into extinction, like the
ReplayTV 4000,
DVD X Copy and the lamented wild and crazy
Napster 1.0 including what drove them into extinction. They also list endangered gizmos like the
HD TV PCI Card,
Morpheus and
Generic FireWire,
open Wifi hot spots and CD burners.
Among the "saved" gizmos is the
Skylink garage door opener which had been
attacked under the DMCA.
posted by fenriq
on Feb 8, 2005 -
5 comments
FutureIsNowFilter "
TengoInternet and the
Texas Parks and Wildlife Department announced a pilot program to offer wireless Internet service at five Texas state parks... The wireless service will allow park guests while visiting the park to access the Internet to gain park information, send e-mail or pictures, or just surf the Web, without cords having to physically plug into a network."
Shouldn't be camping be more about nature than technology?
posted by Doohickie
on Dec 16, 2004 -
31 comments
A nice article on some of the engineering and economics aspects of WiFi, and the history of frequency regulation in the USA.
posted by freebird
on Aug 16, 2004 -
9 comments
WiFi Against Bush is an interesting twist on viral marketing aimed at our neighborhoods and the occassional warchalker — let everyone in within range of your router know what you _really_ think of the President.
Via the venerable Shifted Librarian.
posted by silusGROK
on May 12, 2004 -
11 comments
Catch some waves... for free! Wi-Fi Freespot will help.
Via my roommate's co-workers, who keep sending this round e-mail circuits. I don't know why they include me. I hate technology.
posted by WolfDaddy
on Feb 5, 2004 -
7 comments
WiFi-SM is "a Wi-Fi-capable patch you stick on your body so you can feel painful shocks whenever news stories are published containing keywords that you enter into the software". (via Mikes List) Who needs this when we have MetaFilter?...
posted by marvin
on Oct 8, 2003 -
11 comments
McD Wireless Beginning today, many McDonald’s restaurants around the Bay area will provide Wi-Fi with a side of fries...
Previously discussed in
March.
posted by sparky
on Jul 9, 2003 -
18 comments
IM just for Wifi - Trepia has developed a new method for wifi users to
connect to each other. Imagine turning on your laptop and seeing the other wifi users near your physical location and being able to chat with them.
There's only a Windows client at this time. I asked where the Mac & linux clients were and the CEO told me they were coming in the future once the Windows version takes off. I'm betting that
if enough people ask, they'll accelerate their plans.
posted by Argyle
on Apr 15, 2003 -
14 comments
Starbucks announces wireless Internet access in stores and plans to charge customers for it: $29.99/month for access in one store, or $49.99/month for access in all equipped stores nationwide. Seems a little pricey to me. And besides, don't cool coffeehouses offer free wireless Internet access? They're sure getting lots of coverage of the announcement in any case.
posted by tippiedog
on Aug 22, 2002 -
21 comments
WarFlying Well it had to happen eventually didn't it? Have you ever gone on a hunt for wireless networks in your neck of the woods? Find anything you shouldn't have? And have you ever actually seen a
WarChalk yet?
posted by Mwongozi
on Aug 19, 2002 -
7 comments
Don't let child pornographers share your connection! Now that sharing your Wi-Fi connection with the unwashed masses has become so popular - the BigCo's are trying to shut it down. We've talked about this
here and
here but I was blown away by this marketing speak from a AOL Time Warner VP
"By having an open transmission, it leaves you really vulnerable," Digeso said. "If you have a Wi-Fi connection in a public park, what would stop, God forbid, a child pornographer or, God forbid, a terrorist using that network?"
Are terroists using your Wi-Fi connection?
posted by dhacker
on Jul 9, 2002 -
34 comments
Etherlinx, plans to offer high-speed wireless access to the Internet at inexpensive prices. (NYT) Without venture capital backing, in a garage just six blocks from the garage where Steven P. Jobs and Stephen Wozniak launched Apple Computer 26 years ago, Mr. Holt is making his clever and inexpensive radio repeater by modifying inexpensive Wi-Fi cards, the circuitry that sends and receives the signals. Their ambitious target: the cable and phone companies that currently hold a near-monopoly on high-speed access for the "last mile" between the Internet and the home.
posted by semmi
on Jun 10, 2002 -
2 comments
