Archive for September, 2008
Monday, Sep 22nd, 2008
Categories: Media
Today’s One Web Day
On the third annual “Earth Day for the Internet”, communities across the country are holding events to learn about and advocate for that marvel of modern infrastructure, the Internet.
Peoples’ lives now are as dependent on the Internet as they are on the basics like roads, energy supplies and running water. We can no longer take that for granted and we must advocate for the Internet politically, and support its vitality personally.
The theme of this year’s OneWebDay is online participation in democracy, coinciding with the U.S. elections.
Melbourne is the only Australian city participating with their Future Melbourne project.
Almost twenty years on, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, creates the World Wide Web Foundation, the Web as humanity connected by technology:
The World Wide Web Foundation seeks to advance One Web that is free and open, to expand the Web’s capability and robustness, and to extend the Web’s benefits to all people on the planet. The Web Foundation brings together business leaders, technology innovators, academia, government, NGOs, and experts in many fields to tackle challenges that, like the Web, are global in scale.
The mission of the Foundation is:
- to advance One Web that is free and open,
- to expand the Web’s capability and robustness,
- and to extend the Web’s benefits to all people on the planet.
In a world where Net neutrality is under threat, and the intertubes are being censored, this is a welcome initiative. I believe Free Australia Wireless fits perfectly in the Web Foundation’s “Web for Society” and “Friends of the Web” programs.
Read the Web Foundation’s concept paper.
Meraki posted some interesting metric tidbits on its product blog last week:
In the course of building Free the Net in San Francisco, we came across some compelling metrics. Since its birth about a year ago, nearly 150,000 wireless devices have used the network. The percentage of those devices made up by iPhones has grown from 6% to 20% in just the past five months.
San Francisco, or California for that matter, isn’t indicative for iPhone usage around the world (with Apple and Silicon Valley around the corner). But it is an obvious trend that more and more devices have integrated Wifi, mobile broadband is still too slow and too expensive, and people want to connect, preferably free. Free, ubiquitous wireless internet, municipal or community driven, offers opportunity for social interaction, information gathering and innovative services we don’t know of yet. The iPhone hype, and any other Bold move by Blackberry, may well be the driving force for more free wireless Internet (one can hope and dream), even in Sydney.
Meraki will be developing a separate iPhone splash screen which Meraki users will be able to set up and customize soon.
Sunday, Sep 14th, 2008
Categories: Social
Good times are coming. In just over a week Web Directions South, the major Australian Web development conference, kicks of with 2-day workshops and a 2-day conference at the Sydney Expo in Darling Harbour. Free Australia Wireless will be meshing the conference area, so meet us there!
The traditional Port80 pre-Web Directions South (night before the conference) drinks are on again on September 24th, 6.30pm at the Harlequin Inn, with a sponsored bar-tab (thanks Clever Starfish, Radharc and Free Australia Wireless):
Harlequin Inn
Cnr Harris & Union Streets
Pyrmont NSW 2009
After a 12 month hiatus, Webjam v8 is back for a splendid night of quick-fire presentations of new, innovative web projects, September 25th, the first evening of the WDS conference. If you haven’t registered yet, do it now, ’cause places are limited and sure to fill up quickly! And while you’re at it, why not register to pimp your project! Upstairs at Bar Broadway at 7:30pm.
Bar Broadway
Cnr Broadway & Regent Streets
Ultimo NSW 2007
Next weekend, right before Web Directions South, Oz-IA, Australia’s Information Architecture conference, takes place at the Stamford Plaza in Double Bay.
Saturday, Sep 13th, 2008
Categories: Media
The Register writes that a BT study found that about one-third of US enterprises are deploying 11n:
“The unprecedented level of early adoption of a corporate technology seems to indicate a genuine and urgent need for high speed communications, and the maturity of this sector, moving to mission-critical deployments and in some cases, seeing companies moving to wireless as their primary network rather than a back-up.”
Read on at The Register.
Once business users get used to high-speed wireless data at the office, they will want it out of the office too.
Click Chick (Alison Stewart) writes about a new free Wifi project in Hawaii:
As of last week, CB Richard Ellis became the first commercial real estate company to provide free Wi-Fi in public areas of its managed buildings.
Last year Kokua Wireless provided more than 100 Meraki wireless receiver/transmitters to the city at no charge to launch the Chinatown coverage we have today.
Messaging, wireless metering and monitoring are only some of the managed services a real estate company can offer their customers with an Internet connection. Free wireless Internet is a great bonus.
Any Aussie telco’s willing to distribute 100 access points for free?