ZDNet AnchorDesk: Dealing with technology in real life
interesting column...
also concerning "always on, everywhere!"
here is the news from SF....
And what have you seen recently that's interesting?
james
**************
"October 27, 2004
The end of the hot spot
Already famous for his backing of same-sex marriage and his wife's recent overshare, San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom is finally making tech headlines instead.
"We will not stop until every San Franciscan has access to free wireless Internet service," Newsom said in his state of the city address last week. "Every San Franciscan" equals about 740,000 people in 46.7 square miles. Beyond being a generous offer from the mayor, the announcement points to a fundamentally more useful way to think of Wi-Fi: hot spot-free and seamless .
When Wi-Fi is seamless, everything changes. You won't have to screw with glitchy, goofy, 3G cell phones for a data connection on your hip. A device like a Treo becomes much more useful. And instead of using a cellular phone, you might just run VoIP software on a Wi-Fi PDA. Tasty.
The cellular carriers and phone makers have been overpromising 3G for so long, I'd love it if we just skip right over it as consumers. Besides, digital cell phones sound so bad, VoIP on your hip has to be an improvement in audio quality.
With seamless Wi-Fi, the in-car radio business could really be turned on its ear. I've spoken to several start-up stage firms that want to make Wi-Fi the new car radio, opening up your commute to thousands of interesting Webcasts instead of the tedium the major broadcast companies have made radio. I'd love it if we could shove those 22-minute commercial loads and junk syndicated content right up their greedy, overleveraged, Wall Street-beholden asses.
And finally, seamless Wi-Fi will also improve our appreciation for coffee. You'll actually be able to find a place to sit at Starbucks once the high-tech hoboes realize they can get a Wi-Fi connection somewhere else.
"
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