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SMC Networks to ship dual a/b adapter in October: For $130 and using Atheros's a/b chipset, SMC Networks will offer a CardBus Adapter in October that can use either 802.11a or 802.11b. The press release notes that the card supports the AES encryption standard, although how this integrates with current generation technology, I'm unclear. The unit supports both standard 802.11a and 802.11b, as well as an out-of-the-standards-body Turbo Mode for a that runs up to 108 Mbps of raw traffic.
ZDNet on Microsoft's wireless gateway: better than average: ZDNet praises with faint damns the new Microsoft wireless gateway, noting what the review cites as an exemplary manual (96 pages and easy to follow), and good out of the box configuration. The review dings them for requiring a floppy backup of a unit's configuration.
Frank Catalano deconstructs Wi-Fi: Frank's created a permanent URL outside of his Yahoo mailing list for his excellent column from last week that looked across the entire horizon of Wi-Fi industries, users, and challenges.
Nicholas Negroponte on Wi-Fi's disruptive effect: In the Sky Dayton-cover issue of Wired, Negroponte writes about how Wi-Fi is a harbinger of unclenching the fists of telecommunications companies on ubiquitous or at least widespread data networks. He talks about mesh networking, and its utility, although ad hoc mesh networks require communities: you won't have a device that arbitrarily links you into a grid; you have to make that choice. Wai Sing Lee forwarded me the link, and offers a variety of rebuttal and accuracy checks to it (read the third post by IronMac).
Pronto Networks partners with Boingo Wireless: Pronto appears to be a network of networks itself, handling services for its partners. The 11 partners Pronto already has plan to install 400 hot spots over the next year, including one partner specializing in kiosks.
Keep on top of the news with Google: Google took its news analyzer out of beta yesterday, and it's worth a close look. I've added links at the left for common networking terms: Wi-Fi, 802.11b, and 802.11a. Google's system scans news sites and updates the information constantly, providing you an effective shortcut. Because they scan so many sites, I've found otherwise for-fee articles from the Wall Street Journal and other publications available through republished sources, like Yahoo News.
Microsoft's corporate WLAN down as consumer product launches: Smell the irony, but things like this happen. The headline about the company being in a tizzy seems to overstate the story, which pointed out that folks just plugged in. Still, odd to be down for 36 hours without it being a scheduled problem. Security hole?
England's Birmingham Airport goes wireless: The article notes that the airport is one of the first public hot spots in England, which only recently approved commercial network use of the unlicensed spectrum.