Spokane decides against expansion: The Eastern Washington city had an early large-scale hotzone courtesy of gear from Vivato. The network's size has remained at about 100 city blocks--ostensibly, no testing has been conducted I know of--and the city apparently has no real idea of the level of usage, to judge by remarks in the article. (Vivato's assets, by the way, seem to have be resold yet again, the article reports. I'm assuming there are patents that are of interest, as a $50 access point has many of the features only found in a multi-thousand-dollar Vivato unit a few years ago.)
Another silly Wi-Fi product from ThinkGeek: I love the retailer, but this item is just plain ridiculous. The Wi-Fi Detecting Watch has a display reminiscent of 20 years ago, coupled with a Wi-Fi detector. Not that it tells you the network name, cycles through what's available, or provides more details. Nope. Press a button and you get a number from 0 to 8 indicating signal strength. Signal strength of what? Hard to say.
The last of the first-generation analog cell networks are finally being powered down starting in Feb. 2008: Only about 1 percent of current cell phones (about 2.5m) are analog only. Automotive cell systems, however, were largely analog with model years 2003 and earlier; and home alarm systems with cell links apparently (says this AP story) didn't get digital radios until 2006!
Shuttle Express to launch Seattle-Portland van run with Wi-Fi onboard: Given the rural stretches along I-5, a route I know well, I'll be surprised if there's more than GPRS/1xRTT along a good hunk of the route. Still, at $180 round-trip for the 360 miles involved, it's barely more than gas and wear and tear on your car. Train service runs that route several times a day, but without an Internet hookup, and taking typically 5 to 6 hours instead of 3.