June 11 2007

You’d think this is a British joke. But it ain’t! Some dudes over at EM-SEC Technologies came up with this sick idea – WiFi screening paint! EM-SEC 2060 is a water-based polymer security system. When applied as a surface coating to individual rooms or entire facilities, it provides a shield and creates a secure Electromagnetic Fortress against eavesdropping and airborne electronic theft.
A WiFi exec should now rush to get a team of painters abreast of the networking crew. They should also strikethrough the current services price tags because WiFi has become the safest thing around. No more broken deals because their clients fear some bad bad hackers might pry in their shiny, brand new, wireless nets!

Hmmz, I think it’s a cool idea. But since cell phones, radios etc will all be dead in the wireless bunker, there’s few reasons to think it’ll make it on the ’sales’ shelf at your local supply store. Yet again, I hope it comes in Pink and Mad Lila. :) I feel like redecorating, not!

Or better yet, get a good admin (security guy). I happen to know a few in case you have no clue where to start.

Now here’s some fresh Joost vs Apple news! Yeah, ‘I told you so’ is on my lips. Remember the article ‘Joost should be under FrontRow?‘ we published a little ago?

Well, Joost doesn’t play in FrontRow, but it does in BackRow :)
The hottest WiFi gadget around, the AppleTV, has been hacked to support Joost! Hell yeah!
As a matter of fact I’m starting to be interested to getting one even if I don’t have a HDTV nor do I have a lifestyle wrapped around watching TV!
Was planning to write on WiF:)) about the AppleTV when I learned they hacked it to run Firefox or an Apache server on Apples media hub. But you gotta give’em credit, the Joost thing is just amazing! Go on! Go, check those witted guys over at appletvhacks.net!
Pssst! Btw, they run a $500 bounty for the first team to get the open source PBX system, Asterisk, running on an Apple TV.

Have you seen 300? Well, I finally have. All I can tell you is that… they did not have WiFi in Sparta!

Joost launched a new, redesigned, website. It’s more friendly and user-oriented, a step closer to the general release. Go check it out!

We did not rush to posting this as there’s tight lobby promoting the OLPC so this story is far from over. As a mater of fact Romanian PM Calin Popescu Tariceanu brags about having brought the initiative to the Parliament.
What is peculiar is that the media picked up the news poorly, quoting a total price tag of 700 million Euros. OLPCnews.com rushed to accusing the Romanian politics for killing the deal and raised a question about the legit behind the 700 mil figgure.
The answer is rather simple though. Any country that wants to purchase the OLPC has to order a minimum of one million units. Since Romania is a EU member it deals in Euros, therefore one hundred million US dollars goes translated in roughly 70 million EU currency units (Euros).
The darn playful extra zero made it all look like a political trick. Whereas it only comes down to the basics of being an EU member, and the OLPC is not on that priority list for Romania.

Too bad, we say, because we would have liked to see the funny green wireless lappies around. But the reality is that Romania has plenty of computers in schools. Africa or Asia need those computers more than children in Romania do.

Fon apparently solved the compat issues with their shared Skype offer of a WiFi VoIP phone. A firmware available on their page anables the phones to log in on any portal page-enabled hotspot.

Plus, FON WiFi Connection Manager for Symbian devices is out too.

Whisher, on the other hand just released their Linux client. Try it and give us a thought on it!

Today’s question:

Is the recent buzz in HR
- a sign of human capital shortage or,
- demand for skilled workers to tackle new, disruptive projects?

FON is registered at WiMAX World Europe among other future WiMAX operators and is planning to rollout this technology. This news has not been promoted through the official corporate channels so this it’s fresh like a lime squeezed in a Corona.

Faisal Galaria, VP Business Development at Fon, will be speaking about their WiMAX plans as described in the conference program:

Thursday, May 31, 14:30Panel: Digital City Service Provider Business Models
Moderator: Roberta Wiggins, Research Fellow, Yankee Group
Panelists: Rafi Haladjian, CEO and founder, Ozone
Niall Murphy, CTO, The Cloud
Faisal Galaria, VP Business Development, Fon
Ben Murray, Head of Business Development, Seamless Mobility Solutions, Motorola Networks & Enterprise, EMEA
In the past year, a free service provider market has emerged with the expectation that advertising can substitute for free service. Companies like Google and MetroFi in the U.S. are trying to develop a unique revenue stream from local based advertising, and make nomadic broadband a universal service. But while they are giving service away, others are trying to create service revenues. A balance between the two vested interests needs to be created. Can advertising and content sales generate sufficient revenue to support free services? What additional sources of revenue can service providers exploit in building a sustainable business case?

If these guys keep making the news I might make a separate category for them. Hmm..
Yet, I still don’t think WiMAX will make it though! :P

Austria Center, Viena, will host May 29th through May 31st this year a major event: WiMAX World Europe!

We missed last year’s an I will personally miss this year’s also, because I’m a guest speaker at Telecoms Pricing Asia ‘07 that will be held in Singapore roughly in the same period.
Nevertheless, as much as I keep deconstructing the WiMAX (802.16e) hype, there’s good reasons to visit this forum. 2007 is one year closer to the actual rollout of the first commercial networks around Europe.

In Europe, the situation will be particularly interesting, and there are some key events that will help shape the market in this dynamic region over the coming years. Many regulators will make their decisions on how to allocate the important 2.5GHz spectrum, in effect ruling on whether WiMAX will have access to 3G-class frequencies, or will have to focus entirely on 3.5GHz until new spectrum options become available. In the 3.5GHz area, most major economies will have auctioned licenses by the end of 2007, spurring one of the most concentrated build-out programs in the world from the middle of the year, with particular growth opportunities in the eastern part of the continent and the Middle East, the Conference Chairs say.

Get busy to register early as Expo Passes are free of charge if you sign in before 4/13/07!

Mike Puchol (tech.am) revisited the YouTube mith that shows FON’s La Fonera runs so hot that the casing eventually melts, posing a real consumer elecronic hasard.

As unlikely it is, as he concludes, to have the router melt because of its hot inards, he also does a little interesting math, outlining the average lifespan of a Fonera limited to one year due to overheating.

“The capacitors in the Fonera are made by Taicon, a taiwanese manufacturer, and are max-rated for 105ºC. From the datasheet [PDF], at this temperature, the capacitor will fail after some 2000 hours, around 83 days. Following Arrhenius’ Law, and since the area around the capacitors was found to be at around 52ºC, their expected life would be 7800 hours, or about 325 days – what a coincidence, almost a full year, after which your warranty has expired.”

It’s pretty bad news for all enthousiastic Foneros and hey, to the mother company too. That puts a clock on a time bomb in the WiFi industry. The million hotspots Fon wants to plant by 2008 could be just a dream in these circumstances, since half of those will eventually die by the time the deployment is complete. Vaporware, anyone? This is not fun wireless!

Romanian-based outsourcing company, Fortech, is hiring C/C++, Java and .Net developers in an effort to grow its software operations.
Having worked with Swisscom, T-Systems and Symantec, Fortech is a leading outsourcing company in South-Eastern Europe. Check out their HR campaign blog for more info and available jobs: http://www.fortech.ro/wearehiring/

The OLPC was presented today to Romanian officials in the Education Ministry by Nicholas Negroponte.
Should the project pass in the Parliament in the next few days, the Romanian Government will purchase $150 million worth of OLPCs (a million units) by fall.
This is awesome news and we’re supporting the bill – both the political and the tax one – as the machine has some neat features that will empower the less financially fortunate children. Aleso, these kids will later benefit from our free WiFi project – c*free wireless.
We’ll try to get our hands on a sample to provide a more coherent understanding of its wireless capabilities in real life usage.

Tech details:
The laptop runs Linux, the display uses LCOS (liquid crystal on silicon) in the form of a projector and features a 7.5 inch, 1200×900 pixel, TFT screen and self-refreshing display with higher resolution (200 DPI) than 95% of the laptops on the market today. Two display modes are available: a transmissive, full-color mode; and a reflective, high-resolution mode that is sunlight readable. It also features a Video camera 640×480 resolution, 30FPS, an AMD Geode GX-500@1.0W CPU running @ 366 Mhz X86/X87-compatible and a Marvell Libertas 88W8388+88W8015, 802.11b/g compatible, dual adjustable, rotating coaxial antennas (that support diversity reception), wireless interface!

You probably haven’t heard of Flavia Stoian. Well, not if your business is selling icecream in India, no. Otherwise, get ready to plunge into a world dominated by this girl. She just laid her hands on a top notch Sony Vaio to power her mobile life. Why is this important, you ask? Well it’s simply because that’s probably the last toy this girl geek needs to have to redefine the wireless world. Don’t let me say “I told you so” when it’s all done. Just take my word for granted!

Go, kid! Make some magic! ;)

We drink beer at WiF:))
As a social and…productivity beverage we choose beer at times, instead of coffee or energy drinks. Yes, we are made of flesh and blood, go out, spend not more than half a day online and enjoy a good beer and feature chit-chats.

Personally I’ve developed this habit lately. Working at night requires a beverage. Since during the day I spend a long time behind the weel of a 1.3l car, beer is reserved for the evenings. The habit means every other day I try a different import brand of beer.
Today I tried a beer called “Claro!” (5.0% / clarobeer.com). It’s a Corona wannabe, but quite surprisingly, great tasting. As a matter of fact, if I had the eyes tied up I’d say it feels, smells and tastes like a genuine Corona. It’s made in the Netherlands and it’s about a buck cheaper than the Mexican counterpart. Granted, I had no lime to enhance the taste, but that’s fine.
The past week comprised in sessions of Salitos, Corona and Beck’s. Longing for Radler, Bibop, Kostritzer and Tzishke. Maybe next week, provided my favorite retail store has those in stock. Unlikely…

Allright. Claro! – what an awful name! – gets 4 out of 5 grains of rice*. That makes it a fav buy the next time and I’ll make sure to refill. Make this the beer of this week for the great taste and cute “let’s smack Corona in Europe” tryout. Join me next time for the following edition of the most serious series on WiF:)) – “Beating last week’s cerveza!”

* we’ll use grains of rice to define the quality of the beer. 1 stands for “yuck”. 5 stands for ‘exquisite’.

A Duke University graduate missed so much the life he had in the dorm, and decided to build something that would remind him of it. So, he invested about $400 and 150 hours to create a beer tossing fridge! The device gadget has a range of about 20 feet, it’s been tested and it’s fairly accurate, and it’s controlled by a car remote control.

Being Saturday, wireless and fun, this story deserved a quote on WiF:)) and if it’s going to be produced and put on sale, we will definitely get one! We would have it throw cafe lattes during the week, and beers in the weekend of course…
In the meanwhile this is our source (CNN.com) and you can watch a video here. The official web page for this is www.beerlauncher.com and talks about improvements to the device, and selling it on the market. I bet there is demand for it. ;-)

Don’t forget, Wireless is fun!

Sony is going wireless with its Cyber-shot camera presented yesterday at PMA 2007. Cyber-shot DSC-G1 can transfer images to any Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) device wirelessly and has a really interesting search system, which allows you to look for photos with the same face, same color or same composition. The six megapixels resolution is not that impressive and the 3x optical zoom lens keeps it into the amateur area.

Although the lens is stabilized with Sony’s Super SteadyShot image stabilization system you will still feel the need to check them and when this time comes the 3.5 inch LCD with 921K pixels of resolution will be there ready to help. For handling quickly moving subjects or low lighting conditions without a flash, the G1 can shoot at sensitivities up to ISO 1000, but for this you will have to use a tripod or hold it really steady.

The combination of a large amount of internal memory, 2GB, and large LCD mean that this camera is meant for sharing your images with your friends especially because the wireless enabled G1 can communicate with other G1s. A “collaborative” shooting mode lets up to four cameras send each other photos in real time.

Bill Gates: “America will find it infinitely more difficult to maintain its technological leadership if it shuts out the very people who are most able to help us compete.”

Marius pointed me to this article in Financial Times the other day. I kept it in a tab and only paid some attention to it this afternoon. I’m sorry I did so.

We pointed to an ever increasing number of non-US internet startups in our previous posts. It didn’t look like much other than usual headlines. Come to think about it now, I realized that the US stopped being the sole fertile ground for disruptive ventures that rock our online lives.

The ‘buzzes and hypes’ are now global and we can finally use the whole map of the world to place hotspots of innovation and leadership. It’s news that emerged in silence and evolved into a shocking reality that the world (and especially the US) will start to grasp in the months to come: the US is about to lose its tech lead!

Sure, there’s still some quiet mourning in our WiF offices about the fact that most of “the net” is nested in a place called Silicon Valley. If anything is about to happen in the tech world it’s now being designed and tested in the Bay Area, in Texas or Nevada, New York and somewhat Chicago (for all-advertising). We’d love to be there too as geeks have their ways of congregating. But the restrictive US immigration policies make us think twice.
Exactly like we are, fellow entrepreneurs and skilled tech gurus now turn their heads to Europe or Asia as good places to start a flourishing internet business. The economical, human and technological gap is narrowing. There’s countries that support innovation by law and political lobby (like Estonia, for example), countries that have a very louring tax environment (like Luxembourg), some that have great infrastructure like Germany and S. Korea, or some that have very very high skilled but cheap workers like Romania.

This is becoming alarmingly real for the US and great for the world as a global trend. Establishing further ‘Silicon Valleys’ in other non-traditional places is bound to happen in the near future and is a good example that innovation and business leadership are not reserved or restricted to a single supplier.

I reckon this trend will gain more momentum as relaxing the US immigration policy it a long and difficult process. How long until Silicon Valley becomes a historical monument, pilgrimage destination for geeks?

What? They miss wires? What are they thinking? I’m pissed! I have to, otherwise this website’s name would be wiresarefun.com!

CNet’s article called ‘Top 10 tech we miss‘ is like a broken time machine. I have to agree with them on a few things there, but even my grandma loves her cordless phone!

Well, enough with the malice! Interesting read. But I’m not sure my top 10 in tech would look the same. As a matter of fact, I’d say I miss:

1. Real, old fashion cell phones – who needs the new cramped up soap bars that one can find in stores today? Well, everyone, reportedly! The sales contradict me. Still, I’ll stick to my 5-year old Sony-Ericsson t610. I hope it survives a few more years.
2. Cars powered by mechanics, not electronics – With the new cars everyone thinks they’re jet fighter pilots and nothing can beat them. Be advised, airbags might not save you over 40Mph (60Kmph) or so.
3. Good ol’ fashioned paper passport – certainly not the RFID-enabled one.
4. Operating systems without DRM and other f-word crap on to please the ever-hungry “industry”.
5. TV on the … TV set! The tube! The tele! Not on phones, iPods, PDAs, so on. And what the heck? I’d get a 30″ Apple Cinema Display, yes! But plasmas? Huge LCDs with price tags so steep one could feed a small country with? Come on people! Go out, see the sun, trees, grass growing… Shall I go on?
6. Local software. Dear God, if the internet went down for an hour or so….
7. MP3 players you can fill with music by using the very ‘advanced’ drag-n-drop technique. I just hate closed ecosystems. Don’t you?
8. IM clients without banners and advertising.
9. Optimized software! I’ll bash Vista once more! I can’t believe that thing takes up 110% of the most advanced Core 2 Duo 2GB of RAM etc etc system! My beautiful OSX doesn’t need all that and looks a lot better too.
10. Oh, and Made in Japan gadgets that lasted forever!

Yup, there you have them. Going down the memory lane was fun and filled with tear gas. What are your 10 in tech you miss?

Yesterday Skype announced a new update for Skype Beta. It contains the usual bug fixes, and a brand new feature: Skype Prime Beta.

Skype Prime enables paid Skype-to-Skype calls and video calls, in order for experts to be able to gain some revenue from their expertise. It works like a normal free-call at the beginning, and when the “expert” decides he can ask for a “payment request” from the caller, one time fee, or a minute based fee. Everything sounds great so far, not depending on borders anymore to make paid calls to experts, but it has a few drawbacks. First of all, Skype charges 30% from the revenue, so a person who has enabled Skype Prime Beta for his expertise, and stays 100 minutes on the line with a $1 fee per minute will end up with about $70 in his pocket, the rest goes to Skype, and that only if he resides in a country which is covered by PayPal, because you cannot use Skype Prime if you don’t have a PayPal account.

Another thing that comes to mind, are certain people who would just love to use this in a different way. Yes, You’re thinking what I’m thinking, sex calls, video chat, and so on. Is someone at Skype going to monitor that? If yes, where is the privacy between a lawyer who wants to share his expertise through Skype Prime and his customers? lots of questions come to mind right about now.

TechCrunch reported this, and the original announcement is here.

Cut it out, people! Yeah, you! Stop searching for…the iPhone release date in Google instead of going to apple.com! While looking at some stats I found out that a great deal of people end up on wirelessisfun.com because of typing “iphone release date” in the famous search engine! *grin*

Ooook. Here’s the date for ya: June 2007. Put that in red in your calendar and Google no more!

June 2007 June 2007 June 2007 June 2007 June 2007 June 2007 June 2007 June 2007 June 2007 June 2007 June 2007 June 2007 June 2007 June 2007 June 2007 iPhone Release Date June 2007 iPhone Release Date June 2007 iPhone Release Date June 2007 iPhone Release Date June 2007 iPhone Release Date June 2007 iPhone Release Date June 2007 iPhone Release Date

As the official release document from Apple says:

Martin Varsavsky announced today that FON just raised about 10 million euros ($13 million) destined for the growth of WiFi around the world through Foneras of course.

The investment comes from already existing investors, Varsavsky included and some other 4 “strategic” non US investors which will be revealed later.

More about this, on Martin Varsavsky’s blog.

Panasonic is trying to get the attention of all Skype users with the new KX-WP1050 Wi-Fi phone which allows the user to move around the house without worrying about missed calls. Or make and receive calls in a public hotspot, which doesn’t require browser authentication. Although the price is rather astonishing $399.95, the KX-WP1050 includes a cordless handset with an integrated 1.8-inch LCD display for displaying Skype contact lists, call histories, address books, and other elements of the phone interface.
The KX-WP1050 is compatible with free Skype-to-Skype calling, and is capable of placing and receiving calls with normal landlines and mobile phones using SkypeIn and SkypeOut. Still not very convinced that spending $400 on this phone it`s a good deal? Well, maybe the wireless base station, which automatically connects to the handset using 256-bit AES encryption (WPA) so no one can drop in on your calls will give you an answer. Anywhere users can get a broadband connection—whether via Ethernet or 802.11b/g Wi-Fi, using DHCP, PPPoE, or a static IP address—users can guarantee their calls are secure.
The design is not that great (as a matter of fact it’s ugly as hell), the orange buttons and the big round one that controls the menu makes you look at it as if it where for kids, and it`s rather large, but the big display adds a plus to the whole look. The little case for all of them is a little impressive and will sure convince many undecided people.
This new model offers the range and security of WPA encrypted Wi-Fi technology, as well as Quality of Service (QoS) to improve voice quality.

Getting a job in the Internet era is trivial if you’re serious about your skills and really want to go the next mile. It’s a personal matter to choose fun over paycheck, relocation over your home town or country, alternative crew or 9-5 army. Since I deal with the following companies in various ways, I’ve settled on which I’d say yes or no to if they made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. Not all of them are in the wireless field, but they are all Internet players.

The beloved-

1. Skype, because they preserve identity and stimulate individual development, while managing to hold a functional team. Plus, working for Skype is fun.
2. Moo, because they use Macs, are innovative and have a good sense of humor.
3. Meraki, because they’re still young and I could get there in time to make them work.
4. Apple Inc., only if i took Steve’s job. It’s the only decent/thrilling job in Cupertino.
5. A Chinese OEM. I bet that’s fun! :)

The ‘no so much’-

1. Google, because they’re big and matte. Individual identity? What’s that?? So what if they pay, give you free candy and loundry? The paycheck should cover that plenty anyway.
2. Yahoo!, oh no! These guys have lost touch with the 21st century realm.
3. T-Mobile, too big and slow moving, lost in the incumbment’s junkyard. I’d say yes only if they gave me an innovation team to work with and took us seriously.
4. Fon, because they’re only cool on paper. I’m into really changing the WiFi world!
5. Cisco, because only the Japs know the secret of the do-it-all company.
#. Dell, nope! Don’t ask!
#. Boingo. Nope! Innovation??? Ring a bell?
#. Vodafone and the like. No way! Clock tickin for you guys! ;)

I’m off to my favorite caffe downtown to sip on a latte! Which employer would let me out of the cubicle before 5pm?

Update:

I knew my friend Dennis of wirelessjobs.com, senior recruiter at T-Mobile USA will have a word against my “uncool employer” tag next to T-Mo’s name. :)
I give him that! Plus, he makes my point shake further by touting a 4PM out-of-the-office Latte! But still, have any of you ever used T-Mobile hotspots in airports or caffes around the world? Don’t you just hate those hours you have to keep an eye on the bill instead of staying productive or simply relaxing online? Yeah, WiFi should be free! Or nearly! Not 8 Euros an hour ($6 in the US)! I just love Budapest’s Feriheghy Airport where there’s a T-Mo hotspot and a *free* Pannon aside! :)
Since Fon wants to place a router next to every Starbucks in the US I fear T-Mobile has to figgure out something else for their WiFi branch. I haven’t seen a counter-move on their behalf, the one and only reason I placed them in the “not so much” section of my picks list.

Off the record, Dennis: make me an offer I can’t refuse and I’ll prolly say yes! :) But make sure we fix that 20th century pricing. This is 2007!

Oh boy… everybody’s been blogging like crazy but us! The RSS reader is full but not all that stuff is good. Not much has happened in the wireless world this week. Was it the week for going out of town and getting drunk at a chalet? Mmmmaybe :)

Quiz: Why did Montoya leave Formula One?
He said he got bored of the competition!

How does this apply to a wireless tech blog? Here’s how: sometimes the scene is so boring that a pause or shift is welcome. We did that. It was fun. Now back in biz.

So here’s week’s first story:

Meraki will build a square mile mesh to demo their system.

Nope! Of course it’s not going to happen in your city; they’re doing it in San Francisco, USA. Good times!
15,000 people will be covered in “Mission Dolores Park through the Castro and Duboce Park Neighborhoods and up to Alamo Square Park”, wherever those might be. They say it’s going to be fast too, thanx to the 30 business-class DSL lines from Speakeasy Networks, which wifinetnews.com notes have open approval of broadband service sharing without special arrangements.

Great! We’re going to go there and test it! Or start looking for rent and jobs in SF because if anything happens in the WiFi world, it’s happening there! Vote for WiF to move to the US! Vote for WiF! :))

Fon’s founder just blogged about a new IM client that arose his interest.
Whisher has spooked Fon with its social component and I predicted they will pursue a path to replicate the service and integrate it with the current WiFi sharing business model. It’s obviously wiser and faster to brand an existant application, so by blogging about AIM Pro Martin Varsavsky points out he’s interested in finding the developer to buid his social engine. Having the WiFi sharing tools in place, Fon only needs to go the next mile and integrate an IM/content sharing tool with multimedia capab. There’s no official statement about Fon’s will to do this, but sometimes it’s easy to read between the lines!

FON is the largest WiFi community in the world. Our members share their wireless Internet access at home and, in return, enjoy free WiFi wherever they find another Fonero’s Access Point.

Whisher is a software application that you install on your computer and helps you get free WiFi access all around the world.