loose wire blog

The Power Thieves

Why must those of us trying to find a power outlet feel like thieves?

I'm sitting here at KL International Airport at what seems like the only power outlet (found after asking an information officer who clearly had been asked before) in the place, between a vast Samsung TV blaring bad images of Turkey to zero people and the cleaners' entrance.

At least there's a power outlet: given my plane's been delayed an hour, that's the least I could hope for. But why should we have to put up with this kind of thing? Why should we be so inconvenienced? I want to see

• a Wiki style database of power outlets at airports so we can pool our knowledge and
• airports (and everyone else) to wake up to the fact that we're taking up far less power than the Samsung TV.

Anyone care to join me? (Of course you may know a better place at KLIA, in which case I'd really love to hear from you...)

Technorati Tags: outlets, airports, KL, travel, mobile work

What Probably Won't Happen in 2007

The BBC has asked me to make some predictions about the coming year, something I'm always loath to do because I seem to get it wrong. Anyway, here are my notes. They're based in part on my own bath-time musings, and partly inspired by the thoughts of others (tried to credit them where relevant.)

1999 just took longer than we thought, that's all

Web 2.0 is not just about AJAX, mashups, blogs and all that. It's about building a platform. That's now been done. All we need to do now is let people use it. That is already happening, but it will REALLY happen in 2007:

Delivery will get better

RSS will stop being something we have to keep explaining to people, because they'll be using it. It will be seamless -- a way for anyone to join something, whether it's a newsletter, a service, a MySpace group. It will stop being known as Rich Site Syndication or Really Simple Syndication and be Really Simple, Stupid.

Content will get better

The real improvement in computers will be the rise of the dual- and four-core processor, i.e. one that uses more than one chip. Think of it as the computer having more than one brain. This will speed up, and make easier, the editing of video and other multimedia content. Our computer, in a word, will no longer be an expensive typewriter. With faster connection speeds, too, video will be the thing that really makes the Internet compelling to people who were previously uninterested. What we watch on YouTube will get better. Individuals will have their 15 megabytes of fame. But this will couple with a rise of content generated specifically for the Internet, further blurring the lines between TV and computer viewing. Silicon Valley is no longer a tech center, but a media one.

The demise of big software

The rise of online applications will in turn blur the distinction between what is going on in your computer and what is going on at the other end of the line -- the server. Vista will seem more like a farewell than a big hello, as big software from big companies locking in users to specific ways of doing things will give way to open source alternatives like Ubuntu. Microsoft will fight this tooth and nail, but I'm sure they already know it.

The mainstreaming of social media

 Web 2.0 is really all about breaking down barriers by making it easier to do stuff, and to mix it up with other people doing stuff. In a way what the Internet has always been about. Expect the influence of blogs to further pervade those last few citadels that have been resisting it, breaking down walls within organizations -- internal blogs that flatten hierarchies and build up feedback mechanisms for employees to talk back to their bosses. Think government departments. Think universities, schools and anywhere else where hierarchies exist. This won't be a one way street: anonymous bloggers in places like Microsoft and China may find themselves outed and lynched.

The rise of the maven

As the Web gets bigger, Google will need to reinvent itself to keep up. Web 2.0 offers some great ways to find stuff through other means, leveraging the knowledge of others who have gone before. We will acknowledge the contribution, and marketers will acknowledge the power, of the maven: the person who seems to somehow know stuff, and is ready to share it. Tagging, blogging, and other social tools will be recognized as extremely powerful ways to do this.

The demise of the big computer

The cellphone will get better at what it does, and we'll grow to trust it more. We'll stop calling it a cellphone and just call it a wearable device, or something snazzier I can't think of right now. One day we'll think it quaint that we had to sit in one place to do stuff, or near an outlet, or within range of a WiFi signal. Cellphones don't have those limitations and this will start to hit home in 2007:

Teenagers will show us the way. Again

They're already sharing everything via Bluetooth, creating networks on the fly (that, incidentally, fly under the radars of commercial networks and marketers). They share videos, ringtones, songs, games, either by exchanging content or playing against each other.

Space-shifting

The cellphone has already redefined what space is, and that will continue. Sexual liaisons involving public figures will be recorded by one party as insurance against future hard times. Cellphone television will become more popular, not just because it's mobile but because it's personal, a time to be alone under the sheets, on a bus, waiting for a friend, stuck in traffic. Maybe not this year, but soon they'll be pluggable into the hotel TV. This is tied into the idea of personal space being something you control, either through presence, or through intermediary services where you only ever hand out personal details of your virtual self.

The End of the iPod

The iPod will decline in importance as the music-phone takes center stage. I didn't think this would happen because cellphone manufacturers mess up the software on the phone, but they're getting better at it. Even Nokia. So expect most people, starting with teenagers who don't want more than one gadget and probably can't afford them, to switch to one device. This will again throw open the mobile music/MP3/DRM debate, and iTunes will start to look a bit wobbly until Apple gets something sorted out so non-iPod users can download from the site easily and cheaply.

The downsides

It's not all fun and games. Bad things are going to continue to happen, and there's not much we can do about them. It's partly just the normal process of utopians being pushed aside by realists, but it's also about an ongoing debate about how to, or whether to, police a space that seems largely unpoliceable.

A dual identity crisis

Mainstream media's identity crisis will be compounded by an identity crisis among bloggers. The rise of pay-me blogging, where bloggers get paid for writing about specific companies or products, will lead to some scandals and make people explore more deeply the ethics of blogging, and how they're not that much different to the ethics developed by journalists over several hundred years. This won't however, lead to the demise of blogging, but the rise of a sort of online press corps, with its own associations and rules, both written and unwritten. Many bloggers will end up being journalists, and the best journalists will move effortlessly and happily through the blogosphere. Many already do.

Keep up, grandma

Things are moving so fast the slow will look like they're running backwards. If 2004-6 were anything to go by, 2007 will move quite quickly. Some folk I spoke to said that not much has popped up this year that's exciting, and that's true, in a boiling frog type way. It's the earth shifting that is changing, and we need to change with it. Young people just get it, but us digital immigrants need to not just learn the lingo but keep up with the fast-changing slang. Oh, and MySpace won't be the place to hang out in 2007; it'll begin to look like a sad school hall dance arranged by the teachers.

The Rise of the Snoop

We tend to make a distinction between these things, but they're actually all part of the same thing. Spam is getting worse, and it's not just an invasion of privacy but an invasion of our productivity (91% of email is spam.) Music and video files will also rise as vectors of trojans, malware and other PUPs. GPS devices married to phones will enable people to track their employees, spouses or offspring, and further empower stalkers. Cellphone monitoring devices like FlexiSpy will get better at distributing themselves, and will be powerful not just in the hands of eavesdropping acquaintances but identity thieves. The rise of virtual worlds will also lead to the rise of virtual identities and virtual identity theft, along the lines of CopyBot. Expect to see cellphone eavesdropping and data theft from cellphones to surge. And we'll start to realize that Google isn't as cuddly as it looks; it's a snoop, too.

Podcast: Hotel Access

Another BBC World Service recording. This one's about getting connected in hotels.

Mapping Trends With Google

Google’s new Trends search is a lot of fun, and useful too. See how some things have taken off over the past couple of years, like Web 2.0:

and Wikipedia (the lower graph is for volume of related pieces on Google News, the upper for ordinary Search):

while others, such as WiMax, are more gradual:

Interest in others, meanwhile, seems to have peaked. 2005, for example, seems to have been RSS’ year:

whereas folk started to get less obsessed about spam in 2004:

Some terms just seem to have leapt out of nowhere, such as “botnet”:

while almost the whole history of interest in others, like phishing, are captured in the three and a half years covered by Google Trends:

 

 

 

The End of VoIP?

A provocative (or is it prophetic?) piece  from The Register’s Andrew Orlowski who sees the end of Skype and VoIP:

It's small, it's boring and won't turn any heads - but it probably spells the end of the road for Skype, Vonage and any other hopeful independent VoIP companies. It's Nokia's 6136 phone, which allows you to make calls over your home or office Wi-Fi network, as well as on a regular cellular network. UMA, or unlicensed mobile access, is the mobile operators' answer to the threat of VoIP - and now it's reality.

UMA, he says, has the edge because in one phone you will be able “to keep one phone number, one handset, and receive one bill at the end of every month.” In the future phone calls at home — whether you’re on your mobile, landline or online — will be free. This is a neat fit because where quality was worst — inside — you will be able to use WiFi.

Got a signal yet?

This is not good news of course, for those of us who saw the interesting lunatics taking over the asylum. Disruptive technology, it turns out, means just that it disrupts the monsters out of their slumber and they finally get it. As Orlowski concludes: “So long then VoIP, and thanks for the free calls.”

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From Cubicle Slave to Mobile Slave

I kinda liked the irony in this, but at the same time realised it illustrates the sad fact that many of us are slaves to the office even when we’re not there. Reuters’ website reports that the UK’s Trades Union Congress has launched www.workyourproperhoursday.com “where workers can take a quiz to diagnose themselves as a "desk junkie", "stay late sheep" or one of five other types of overworker.”

The idea, of course is to get people to work their proper hours and then go and have a life. While the Reuters photo on the left certainly captures the grimness of cubicle life, the accompanying “5 to 9” Cisco ad on the right suggests that the cubicle isn’t really the prison: it’s our computer, and the “secure collaborative networks” companies set up to get more out of their workers. The blurb at the bottom of the ad, by the way, says “Work anywhere, anytime with secure collaborative networks.”

The End of Airport WiFi?

An interesting battle is going on in Boston over airport WiFi. If one side wins it may spell the end to WiFi in airports — at least those not operated by the airport itself. The Boston Globe reports that Logan International Airport officials' ongoing quest to ban airline lounges from offering passengers free WiFi Internet services is angering a growing array of powerful Capitol Hill lobbying groups, who say Logan could set a dangerous nationwide precedent for squelching wireless services:

Soon after activating its own $8-a-day WiFi service in the summer of 2004, the Massachusetts Port Authority, which runs Logan, ordered Continental and American Airlines to shut down WiFi services in their Logan lounges. Massport also ordered Delta Air Lines Inc. not to turn on a planned WiFi service in its new $500 million Terminal A that opened last March. […]

Massport has consistently argued its policy is only trying to prevent a proliferation of private WiFi transmitters that could interfere with wireless networks used by airlines, State Police, and the Transportation Security Administration. WiFi service providers are free to negotiate so-called roaming deals, Massport officials say, that would let their subscribers who pay for monthly access use the Logan network. But major providers including T-Mobile USA have balked at Massport's proposed terms, saying the airport authority seeks excessive profits.

It all sounds a bit lame to me. My experience of Logan’s WiFi in late 2004 was woeful, although perhaps that has changed, as Massport’s PR later said they were having teething troubles as it had just been installed. But it seems weak to argue that one WiFi service may not affect communications whereas others might;to charge excessively for it seems to suggest the real motive. If interference is the problem, will all those in-office WiFi networks in terminal offices be closed down, and will all onboard WiFi networks be banned too? What about buildings close to the airport?

The scary thing is that if Massport win this other airports are bound to leap aboard. And not just in the U.S. If airport authorities think they can make money out of this, I’m sure they will follow suit. I’m worried. Unless it means better and free WiFi in airports, in which case I’m all for it. Let’s face it, sometimes WiFi services are so bad in airports you feel as if it’s too important a commodity to be left to small bitplayers. More discussion of the issues here and here.

Wireless in Cambodia

I’m in Phnom Penh International Airport for the first time in 15–odd years, and it’s remarkable. They’ve recently renovated it from what it was before, but I’m guessing they’ve been through a few changes since I used to come here to visit the isolated regime of Hun Sen, the then People’s Republic of Kampuchea. He’s still The Man, although he long ditched the ‘Kampuchea’ moniker for the old, lovely name of Cambodia, free of some of the connotations of Year Zero, The Organisation and Pol Pot. It’s a peaceful country again, although problems remain.

Anyway, the airport is now a beauty. I’m gulping a cappuccino on a concourse that would be the envy of many departure lounges, tastefully done to feel a little Cambodian, but with all the things an international traveler would expect: overpriced dutyfree, a good bookshop, a monastic calm, existent (but crappy) WiFi. It’s a long way from what I remember: One conveyor belt, walking to a Russian airplane across the grass-pocked apron, ill-fitting uniforms, international phone lines in single digits and double-digit-hours of waiting for a free one, and a sense that the Khmer Rouge could be fanning out from the treeline on the airport’s edge at any moment. Only the hordes of well-wishers beyond the airport lobby remind me of what it was like before, when the rare flights would take off for obscure fraternal destinations in the Soviet Bloc and half of Phnom Penh would turn out to see who was coming and who was going.

Down to reality: I probably won’t be able to post this in time as the WiFi’s so slow the logon page hasn’t loaded yet, and my flight has been called. (True; it’s coming from a cable connection in Saigon transit lounge.) I should have gotten suspicious when the cafe manager asked me to try an old WiFi prepaid card she said an earlier customer hadn’t been able to use before his flight took off. I think I might be in the same boat. Still, I’m not complaining. It’s great to be back.

Podcast: Myrtle

Here's another podcast of a piece I did for the BBC's World Service 'World Business Report'. This one's on using GPS to drive a car, courtesy of an eccentric woman called Myrtle. Download Myrtle here.

Wikipedia Via Wi-Fi

I enjoyed reading this piece, somewhat belatedly, from Oliver Starr’s Mobile Weblog, where he describes a future where Wikipedia is no longer confined to the webpage but could be all around us: Location

Using your phone, as if it was a PC mouse, you uncover snippets of information from the world around you. You click on an old house in the road and a wealth of digital information comes onto your phone screen. Some contain video and audio links.

The technology that would allow this to happen is discussed, but it seems that Oliver doesn’t mention another option: Wi-Fi Positioning. I’ve been researching this for this week’s column (out on Friday, subscription only, I’m afraid), and it sounds to me a much better option, at least in urban areas.

I imagine it would work like this: Your Wi-Fi device (which soon will be as ubiquitous in a phone as in a PDA or laptop) will figure out where you are using Wi-Fi positioning (or, I suppose, if you’re at Stonehenge, this could be done via GPS).

If you’re prepared, you would have uploaded the PDA/phone ready version of Wikipedia for that part of the world, and the Wi-Fi positioning would pluck passages relevant to where you are (“you’re standing on a cobbled street built in 1765; the cobbles are hewn from a nearby quarry run by elves. Click here for directions to the quarry. Click here to meet an elf”.) Or it could give up a map of nearby entries and routes to them (with Wi-Fi positioning this could be inside a building as much as outside).

If you’re a visitor who hasn’t uploaded anything prior to the visit, participants in the project — local councils, individuals, owners of attractions — could store the relevant information on their Wi-Fi network and allow your unit to download it for viewing. This would not only mean that users who hadn’t thought of downloading the information before would still benefit, but folks who didn’t even know the service existed could prep their devices to make use of it. Needless to say, this downloaded information could also contain advertising.

This is in some ways similar to podcast guides, or sightseeing tours, or podguides, which offer spoken commentary on places. Wi-Fi positioning could make these all powerful tools, with little or no extra outlay on the part of end-users.

'Push Button to Connect'

One of the big holes in Wi-Fi setup has been security. In a lot of cases it’s not on by default and many folk have no idea how to set it up or even that their network is not secure.

Linksys reckon they have the answer with something called SecureEasySetup (SES) technology:

The SES technology enables users to create their wireless security protocols and set up their Wi-Fi networks by pushing just one button on the router and another on the wireless device being networked, the company said. The button enables the unit's Wi-Fi Protected Access security and configures the network's Service Set Identifier (SSID), eliminating the need for the user to manually create a passphrase to enable WPA protection.

Just push the button on each device and you’ve set up a secure connection between the two.

I like the idea of having a physical button, which removes the need for lots of fiddling about in design-challenged menus (most of the software that comes with routers seems to be have been designed by three year olds with premature acne.)

There is a downside to this, of course: It locks the user into buying both access point and Wi-Fi card from Linksys, otherwise it’s not going to work. And how would it work with more than one device? Could you add a non Linksys, SES-enabled device to a SES network?

But the button thing is good. People will like that. Could this kind of thing extend to other areas where technology runs up against usability? Could buttons make Bluetooth pairing easier, say? Press a button on each device simultaneously and hook them up?

Certainly the whole ‘button vs software’ thing has taken an interesting route. For a long time we thought it was better to have no buttons, or at least designers did. Macs have very few buttons, which looks great but isn’t always a good thing, especially if you can’t eject a bum CD, or the computer hangs. iPods are great examples of what to do with buttons, and later models cut down the number of buttons without cutting down the intuitiveness.

But elsewhere things have started reversing themselves. Laptops and external keyboards have toyed with the idea of dedicated buttons, but with mixed results. I’ve never really got excited about them. Some Logitech keyboards have lots of dedicated keys and even reassigned function keys (which are on by default, a rare example of Logitech silliness.) My ThinkPad has an ‘AccessIBM’ button and to be honest I’ve never figured out what it is. But the physical sound mute and volume buttons are necessary, because you may need to get at them quickly, especially if you’re in a meeting.

I certainly think there’s room, as we move more and more to wireless, for a standard button that creates a secure connection between two devices. It could even be protocol-agnostic: press it and the device does its best to connect securely to whatever other device is having its button pressed, so to speak, with whatever protocol it has at its disposal, whether it’s Bluetooth, ZigBee, Wi-Fi, InfraRed or whatever. Could that break the remaining logjams in user acceptance of these technologies?

Getting Frustrated On The Road

The frustrations of tech travel. Some things are easy, some things you think are going to be easy are hard. Like in-room Internet. The last Hong Kong hotel I stayed in had free Internet, but you had to enter a fiddly name and password to get a connection, and even if the account said it was valid for 1000s of hours, it would usually expire after about 24 of them, and you had to troop down to the lobby to get some more.

The hotel I’m now staying in has a much easier setup — just plug and play, no accounts or anything — but you still need an ethernet cable. I usually carry one of these around, but as they took an hour to bring me my luggage I had to hunt around the room for a cable, eventually calling up the concierge.

And then there’s GPRS. Why don’t prepaid cards support GPRS? They support MMS, but the carrier I’m using in Hong Kong doesn’t support it unless you’re a postpaid customer. Why is this? It seems daft to me. Or am I missing something?

Is The Tablet Coming Back Down The Mountain?

This space is getting interesting: The sort-of-tablet-handheld. Nokia unveils Linux based 770 Internet Tablet:

The main attraction of the device is its widescreen, 65K colour TFT touch screen with a diagonal size of 4" and resolution of 800 x 480 pixels. This, along with a navigational array flanking the screen on its left side, provides an interface to the Nokia Internet Tablet 2005 software which powers the device, developed atop Linux by the handset maker to power this new category of devices.

Offering up 64 MB of RAM and approximately 64 MB of non-volatile storage for users, the 770 Internet Tablet also harbours an RS-MMS card expansion slot for the purpose of memory expansion. Whether this will be necessary, however, is another question entirely as the functionality of the 770 appears to revolve mainly around the streaming capabilities as provided by its Wi-Fi 802.11b/g connectivity.

Not content with Wi-Fi, Nokia also integrated Bluetooth 1.2 into the unit, allowing for among other things the ability to connect to the Internet via a compatible handset. Several profiles are supported, including Dial-Up Networking, File Transfer, SIM Access and Serial Port, with the 770 also offering USB as a wired alternative for PC connectivity.

Does this compete with the revived Tablet PC? Or the LifeDrive? What I would love to see is these devices coupled with the wonderful Stowaway XT Portable Keyboard for USB from ThinkOutside, which I’ve never seen in the shops, but which has the same great action and design as its Palm and PocketPC forebears. Maybe they just didn’t sell, which would be a shame. The keyboard coupled with one of these devices would be all you’d need.

Want Some Wi-Fi In Your Shopping Cart?

Amazing how Wi-Fi has come, in three or so years, from a very obscure and slightly geeky thing to something supermarkets sell, both in terms of devices and services.

Robert Jaques of VNUNet today reports that Linksys “will begin marketing a special line of wireless networking products for home users at selected Tesco superstores in the UK”. Linksys, the report says, is “the only consumer networking vendor in all three of the world's top retailers, i.e. Tesco, Wal-Mart and Carrefour”.

A piece in this month’s Grocery Headquarters magazine, meanwhile (yes, I read it all the time) says “the supermarket industry is starting to use wi-fi cafes to drive incremental sales and customer loyalty one latte at a time”. Supermarkets in the U.S., the report says, are using their own wireless LANs to offer customers Wi-Fi. Wegmans Food Markets is already testing the technology in two Pennsylvania stores. Quality Food Centers (QFC), a division of Cincinnati-based Kroger Co., offers shoppers wi-fi access in half a dozen stores in the state of Washington.

Soon Wi-Fi will just be something that everyone has, everyone expects, and nobody pays for. Just as it should be.

My Starbucks, My Love

I love the Starbucks at Jakarta’s International Airport, and it saddens me I won’t be frequenting it all that much from now on.

Today when I grabbed my favourite slot near the entrance (only one with a power outlet, away from the arctic blast further in), I posed my usual question: Is the WiFi working?

The sweet lady behind the counter, who is as creative with her responses as she is with her coffees, replied: “No, I don’t think so. It was raining quite heavily last night.”

I’m still not sure a) whether the two statements are connected, and b) if so, whether the monsoon in the Jakarta area would directly impact the WiFi. Would it?

Sparking The Wi-Fi Revolution

Glancing at the charts on JiWire’s newlook website of the top 10 Wi-Fi countries and cities, I wondered whether it was worth taking a closer look at the figures to see if there’s any conclusions we could draw about the wireless revolution.

The figures only include those commercially available hotspots, as far as I can figure out. But they’re still interesting. In sheer numbers London is way ahead with more than 1,200 hotspots, followed by Tokyo (904) and New York (851) . But all these cities are different sizes. How about hotspots per capita? Taking populations of the metropolitan areas of these cities things look a bit different.

If the figures are correct, then Paris has by far the most hotspots with about 35 per 100,000 people, followed by London  with about 17 and Singapore with just under 16. Of U.S. cities, Chicago comes out ahead of New York and San Francisco .

Aware that by looking at metropolitan areas only these results may be distorted a little, I looked at JiWire's country figures. The U.S. is way ahead in terms of numbers with more than 24,000 hotspots. The UK has less than half that with Japan the only Asian country putting in an appearance in the top 10. But what about when the 'Hotspot Per 100,000 People' rule is applied?

Once again things look different. Switzerland, with only 1,300 hotspots, has more than 17 per 100,000 people which is about the same level of access Londoners have. Indeed, the whole of the UK appears to be pretty well provided for: With nearly 10,000 hotspots, there are more or less the same number of hotspots per 100,000 throughout the country as there are in the capital . Elsewhere the picture is less impressive: The U.S. falls into third place with exactly half the ratio of hotspots in the UK with Germany France and Australia trailing behind. Japan, with less than two hotspots per 100,000 people is clearly not worth traveling around with a Wifi laptop as aren't Italy and Spain .

And finally, without wanting to be biased, the 'country' chart doesn't include Hong Kong and Singapore, both of them separate adminstrative entities that happen also to be cities. Given that, they both put in a good performance in the 'country' chart too, with Singapore coming only slightly behind Switzerland and UK and Hong Kong roughly on a par with Germany.

Conclusion? Looking for a Wifi-friendly place to live outside the U.S.? Try the UK or Switzerland in Europe, and Singapore in Asia.

UK WiFi Users Get Free Skype Calls

Skype is moved into wireless telephony by announceing that a deal with UK wireless provider Broadreach, the BBC reports.

People using wireless net hotspots will soon be able to make free phone calls as well as surf the net.

Wireless provider Broadreach and net telephony firm Skype are rolling out a service at 350 hotspots around the UK this week.

Users will need a Skype account - downloadable for free - and they will then be able to make net calls via wi-fi without paying for net access.

 

Starbucks Comes To Tsunami-hit Aceh

Indonesians don’t have much time for trademarks, copyright and all that kind of thing, but they do have a great sense of humour and a resilience that inspires. Here’s a new cafe that has just opened for business near the airport in Aceh’s Meulaboh, one of the worst hit areas:

(picture courtesy of Radio68H. The full-sized picture is here. )

Warkop is Indonesian short-speak for warung kopi, or coffee stall. I love the scene, the plastic containers of kerupuk (thanks, Wicak!) and donuts, the expression on the face of the guy hanging out on the right, the ears on the little fella sitting at the back on the left, and I just hope that Starbucks, which is contributing to tsunami relief, doesn’t take umbrage. I calculate the nearest Starbucks to Meulaboh is in Medan, about 350 km away, so I don’t think they’re going to be attracting away custom. Still, as one wag pointed out to a friend who spotted the picture: ‘This Starbucks has wireless too. Absolutely no wires.’

WiPhishing: Threat Or Hype?

Is Wi-Fi being used by phishers and other identity thieves? Some folk reckon so, pointing to tricks such as the Evil Twin threat and something called 'WiPhishing', which, according to Information Week, goes like this:

"We call WiPhishing the act of covertly setting up a wireless-enabled laptop or access point for the purpose of getting wireless laptops to associate with it," Cirond CEO Nicholas Miller said in a statement. "Hackers who are on a 'WiFishing expedition' may set the name of their rogue wireless access point (or laptop) to an SSID that is commonly used by wireless laptop users."

For example, a WiPhisher could set the SSID of an access point or laptop to be the same as the default settings for widely-sold access points or hotspot services offered by vendors such as T-Mobile and Wayport, Miller said.

"Hackers are also likely to increasingly post common SSID names on their Web sites as this practice gains momentum," Miller said.

I’m not trying to be cynical here, because I think Wi-Fi security is a real issue, but these kind of statements are more often than not made by folk who stand to gain the more afraid people are, because they sell ‘solutions’. The Cirond statement, issued on the PR businesswire on Feb 4, was quickly picked up by four or five industry websites including Information Week, SYSCON, Internet Telephony Magazine and InternetWeek (and now, of course, Loose Wire Blog).

So, threat, or hype? Probably both. So we should probably call it a Thrype.

Taipei's Wi-Fi Dream

Taiwan is really going for it in the WLAN stakes: Taipei WLAN Wifly Takes off reports that: WiFly, a WLAN (wireless local area network) that will cover all of the main populated areas in Taipei City in its first phase, began operations on February 1. Qware Systems & Services is the builder and operator of the network under a BOT (build-operate-transfer) contract signed in September, 2004, with the Taipei city government.

The plan, the Digitimes says, involves setting up 10,000 access points around the city. The first phase covers about 20% of the population of the city, and the second phase, covering another 30%, will be done by June. By the end of the year, 90% will be covered. For now it’s free, and 10,000 people have already registered.

This figure, according to the Taipei Times, is not overly impressive: Taipei's cyber city project is one of the largest in the world in terms of areas of coverage and the capital spent. Yet Wifly does not seem to have built a large customer base as statistics compiled by the city suggests since Wifly began its trial run in December, an average of 250 people use the service daily, and each user spends 48 minutes.

Still, the project, called the Mobile City Project, or M-City, is thinking big: The paper quotes Mayor Ma Ying-jeou as saying “Taipei will be the world's first and largest mobile city, where users can access the Internet wherever they go”.

Taiwan: First Off The Blocks With Dual Networks?

Taiwan has launched what it’s calling the “world's first dual-network application service”, according to today’s Taipei Times (which charmingly, and perhaps accurately, calls it a Duel Network in its headline).

The network combines wireless local area networks (WLANs) and General Packet Radio Service (GPRS). In a demo set up in Taipei’s Nankang Science Park, workers have access to “various functions, including access to personal e-mails and instant messages or connection to any printer in the park through wireless transmission. Other services allow parents to view their children in the park's daycare center through a surveillance system.” From what I can understand in the piece, the government plans to spend NT$7 billion to build the same thing across the whole country over seven years. Taiwan Cellular, the paper says, will roll out dual-network service packages after the Lunar New Year (early next month).

It’s not clear, and I’m not clear, about how exactly this works, and what it’s for. The point of dual-network devices makes sense — you can use them for VoIP on WLAN hotspots, and switch to cellular in cellular-only areas, but why have both technologies in the same place? I guess, as it implies above, the idea is to offer more options and services atop the existing structure. So you might prefer to have one data connection via GPRS, but print locally via Wi-Fi. Or is there more to it that I’m missing?

 

The Wi-Fi Revolution And Smart Homes

It always amazes me how many home Wi-Fi networks there are. I don’t do a lot of sniffing, but wherever I am I take a look and there they are, whether it’s a Jakarta towerblock or rural England. Wi-Fi, it seems, is as commonplace as any other kind of connection. And now market research company Park Associates seems to have confirmed it: More households, at least in the U.S., have set up wireless networks than cable, or Ethernet, ones:

This study, which surveyed consumers in Europe and North America on technology adoption and use, found 52% of U.S. households with a home network use Wi-Fi and 50% use Ethernet. By comparison, only 32% of Canadian households with a home network use Wi-Fi, 43% use Ethernet, and 26% were unsure which technology they were using.

No mention is made of European homes, but from what I can see, the rest of the world is not far behind. Interestingly, Park Associates credits the bundling of Wi-Fi kits by cable and telephone companies selling broadband service for the surge. Their hope: to bundle other ‘next-generation’ services using these networks, since they are supposedly easier to distribute via Wi-Fi than Ethernet. In short, the Wi-Fi explosion could bring the smart home a step closer to reality.

Wifi For The (Dialup) Masses

You'd think that dial-up Internet access is not the stuff of sexy business models. Not so.

Always On Wireless is about to launch the Always On WiFlyer, an 802.11b-based wireless hub that connects to a phone line and works with all the major dial-up ISPs. It is being touted as Wifi For The Masses, a term I thought we had coined in this blog for Wifi in the developing world. Still, it's not copyright and the more the merrier.

Rudy Prince, CEO of Always On Wireless, is aiming at "both computer users who lack broadband in their homes and 'road warriors' who often find broadband connections unavailable when traveling. It eliminates the expense of hotel broadband connections, and is great for international travel where broadband is often more difficult to find."

The device is smaller, according to Computer Technology's TWICE, than a paperback book for easy travel and also has an Ethernet port, so it can turn any hotel room into an instant Wi-Fi hot spot. Cost: $150.

I actually think these ideas are great, and it's good that people are thinking of dialup customers as well as broadband. Rudy's right: There are a lot of folk out there who can only get dialup access all of the time, or some of the time. This would be a neat addition to their grab-bag, especially since it works with both broadband and dialup connections - especially if you're stuck in a bad hotel room with poor access to phone sockets. I'll take one.

Wine By Wi-Fi

The Wine Spectator Online (via Boingo Wi-Fi Insider) reports that a Sonoma, CA, vineyard is using Wi-Fi to monitor growing conditions at their site:

The system uses 40 wireless units on existing trellising posts around the 30-acre vineyard fitted with sensors that measure microclimate data such as soil and air temperature and moisture content, rainfall and leaf wetness. The data is bounced from sensor to sensor sans wires, forming what is known as a Mobile Ad-hoc Network (MANET), which requires less power and equipment than networks using wires or radio transmitters.

Real-time conditions in the vineyard can then be monitored on a secured Web site. Data can also be poured into a spreadsheet for long-term analysis. The information can help vineyard managers make decisions about when, where and how much to water vines or spray to control mildew.

The system sends alarms via instant messaging software or cellphone. The article quotes Bill Westerman, who works for Calif.-based Accenture Technology Labs which set up the project, as saying that the system could be used in manufacturing, retail and security. "The advantage to wireless is that it allows companies to go places where it was previously too difficult or expensive to run wires," he said. "It can also be implanted in new products so they can automatically communicate with their manufacturer when there's a problem."

Wi-Fi for the Masses Back On The Air

Lee Thorn, the former bomb-loader who I wrote about a few months back ("Wi-Fi is Aiming for the Masses", subscription required) has been trying to help Laotians hook up to the Internet, and other Laotians, using Wi-Fi, tells me that he's back in action again in Laos on a different site after some earlier problems with the military.

He also says he's working on a similar project in South Africa, and, possibly, one on the Navajo reservation in Arizona.

WiFi Whackiness

WiFi is all very well, but I'd argue it's still too tricky for us ordinary mortals to figure out. I've just spent the best part of a day trying to get a LinkSys WRT54G Broadband Router installed in my home network, and it took my resident genius Akbar to figure out that the cable provider had hardwired our setup so we had to try to trick the router into taking on the old address.

At least, that's what I think happened: All we got from the superfast installer wizard was 'You're not connected to the Internet' as we idly surfed the Web waiting for the wizard to complete its pointless and fruitless checks. Anyway, it's working now, and it's great, but I think LinkSys (and everyone else, for that matter) could do a better job of preparing us for oddities we're likely to encounter.

Poor Man's WiFi

Further to my piece on WiFi for the masses, here's another way to cut costs: Make your own WiFi dish out of a Chinese cooking vat scoop, poke a USB WiFi dongle through the mesh, and you can pick up signals more than 10 kilometres away. Total cost: about $40 for the USB dongle, NZ$8 for the dish.

The guy behind this, Kiwi Stan Swan, has previously developed the Sardine Can Antenna. I love the ideas and think he should be marketing them to those parts of the world where WiFi is turning into a bridge from having no communications at all to having Internet and VoIP.

 

FEER: Wi-Fi is Aiming for the Masses

This week I write in FEER about Wi-Fi for the masses. Here's a sneak peek:

 In corners of Asia, away from the bustling business districts, a loose array of activists, entrepreneurs and former dotcommers is cobbling together ad-hoc Wi-Fi networks using whatever suits the environment, from bicycles and sonar panels to power computers, to motorbikes, buses, bullock carts and bicycles, to carry connections where such means are cheaper than installing the infrastructure needed for a network that's always connected. What they offer villages and poorer urban neighbourhoods are connections to the Internet, to local government, to expert medical assistance, to market prices, to relatives overseas, or just a cheap phone call to a neighbouring village cut off by monsoon rains. Consider it a technological leapfrog without wires.

Full text at the Far Eastern Economic Review (subscription required, trial available). I'll be posting updates on the projects I mention in the story on the blog.

Wi-Fi For The Masses

I've been working on a story about Wi-Fi for the masses in Asia (it will be appearing in this week's Far Eastern Economic Review; I'll post a snippet when it comes online), looking at how Wi-Fi is opening up all sorts of opportunities to leap over the traditional problems of the rural and urban poor in this part of the world: A lack of basic infrastructure, such as roads and phone lines. It's a great topic with some inspring characters turning talk into action.

As a follow-up, here's an interesting piece from Robert X. Cringely, who last week pointed out that with an all-in-one router costing about $70 you could become your neighbourhood's own wireless ISP. This week Robert chronicles (via Applied Abstractions) the things that have happened since he wrote the piece. Those include at least one guy who has, since the article apppeared, followed Robert's advice and is running an ISP in San Francisco. Good stuff, but it was just the start.

"Moments later," Robert goes on,  "the Chinese called, and that's when it became clear to me that this wireless stuff is simply ideal for a high-density, low-income urban culture like that found in China. Throw a wireless router in every Chinese Internet café and you'd bring phone service and Internet to hundreds of thousands of people practically overnight. Add a little mesh networking as described last week, and the number of people served could be increased by an order of magnitude."

Indeed. There's a lot of people out there who don't have computers and don't have Internet connections. Wi-Fi is the best news for them in years.

This week's column - Snarf

This week's Loose Wire column is about Bluetooth security:

 Next time you're carrying your whiz-bang Bluetooth phone watch out: Serious flaws mean your contact numbers and other info stored in the phone could be stolen without you even knowing it. This latest threat is called Bluesnarfing.  

Full text at the Far Eastern Economic Review (subscription required, trial available) or at WSJ.com (subscription required). Old columns at feer.com here.

For readers looking for more resources on snarfing, check out the snarf page on Loose Wire Cache.

Logitech, the Bluetooth Hubster

I'm still playing with mine, but on the surface Logitech look like they may be the first to fashion a real Bluetooth hub for the PC. The problem has been to develop a dongle, or some other widget, that can easily turn a non-Bluetooth PC into one that can easily recognise and deal with other Bluetooth devices. I've tried a lot and have yet to find one that works seamlessly. (The word 'seamlessly' and 'Bluetooth' don't usually appear in the same sentence.)

Meanwhile Logitech has announced that its own candidate, the Bluetooth Wireless Hub, now works with the latest Bluetooth phones from Sony Ericsson and Nokia; new PDAs from Toshiba, HP, and palmOne; as well as hands-free headsets from Sony Ericsson, Motorola and Nokia. It's worth checking out, although one word of warning: As far as I can work out, the hub will only work if you connect it directly to a USB port -- and not to an external hub. If your PC only has one or two USB ports, and you're using a lot of (non Bluetooth) USB gadgets, that can be a major no-no.

What Will Keep The Wi-Fi Customer Satisfied?

Wi-Fi Networking News talks about hotspots, and how providers are having to fight to keep their customers in a competitive market. Hotspot operators who charge, they say, are going to have to offer something unique beside Internet access if they want to attract customers. "Higher bandwidth than business-DSL or T-1 may have to be part of it."

I guess so. Most Wi-Fi spots are mere loss-leaders, ways to get people into your establishment and keep them there. Folk who charge may have provide other services to go with it: nice work environments, free coffee, printers -- or else be in places where there's no competition, like truckstops.