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Steven Levy, a criminal? Naw!: Newsweek's Steven Levy offers a personally directed piece on how he used a neighbor's Wi-Fi access and then wondered about the implications by talking to the FBI, Tim Pozar, and others. A good article as it represents the kind of ambivalence I have about using other people's bandwidth. (The fact that Levy had MacStumbler, however, could make him a criminal in some people's eyes and possibly in some states. It's one thing to pull down a network from a menu your software provides, but Levy didn't ask, "What if I passively scan for networks, open and closed, and whether they use passwords?").
Wi-Fi Driving: Harold Gilchrist wonders about putting Wi-Fi into cars so that as you drive through clouds of Wi-Fi access, you pick up a variety of information about the places you're in. I look at this as another in the class of opportunistic networking ideas: equipment that, when a network is around, regardless of the speed, it starts sending and receiving spooled activities.
Resonext announces two-chip 802.11a/b/[g] chipset: One of Atheros's main competitors in the nascent 802.11a chip market now plans to ship in first quarter of 2003 a two-chip CMOS chipset that handles a and b, and will handle g when available.
Denver airport switches to paid model: Jim Thompson, long-time wireless industry guy and a man who knows where the bodies are buried and skeletons closeted, wrote in to note that on passing through Denver a few days ago, he spotted a pale blue sign "proclaiming the existence of 802.11b (Wi-Fi) service at the airport, and inviting me to sit down and login...The service is called GoPort...The webpage (above) says that DFW, SEA, SJC and AUS will come on-line soon." Nokia built out Denver, as well as Vancouver and Ottawa, and the airport authority told me last October (2001) that the network was tested out and ready to go in July 2001.
More international wireless words: Drew Tick writes in that the Hebrew word for wireless is al-chuti; Damianos Tsigkanos says that the Greek word is asyrmato. Keep 'em coming! (And, oh, for a UTF8 keyboard!