Tags: wifi

A Quick History of Digital Communication Before the Internet - Eager Blog

A potted history of communication networks from the pony express and the telegraph to ethernet and wi-fi.

Museum of Wi-Fi

The Museum of Wi-Fi exists to preserve these vestiges of our neighbourhood battlefields.

Some are brilliantly smart, some are just purely gross. They all belong in the museum.

The right to flight: why I’m flying a balloon over London this summer

Watch the skies: James Bridle’s balloon will be hovering above London distributing wifi.

Today was a travel day, but it was a short travel day: the flight from Tucson to San Diego takes just an hour. It took longer to make the drive up from Sierra Vista to Tucson airport.

And what a lovely little airport it is. When we showed up, we were literally the only people checking in and the only people going through security. After security is a calm oasis, free of the distracting TV screens that plague most other airports. Also, it has free WiFi, which was most welcome. I’m relying on WiFi, not 3G, to go online on this trip.

I’ve got my iPhone with me but I didn’t do anything to guarantee myself a good data plan while I’m here in the States. Honestly, it’s not that hard to not always be connected to the internet. Here are a few things I’ve learned along the way:

1. To avoid accidentally using data and getting charged through the nose for it, you can go into the settings of your iPhone and under General -> Cellular, you can switch “Cellular Data” to “off”. Like it says, “Turn off cellular data to restrict all data to Wi-Fi, including email, web browsing, and push notifications.”
2. If you do that, and you normally use iMessage, make sure to switch iMessage off. Otherwise if someone with an iPhone in the States sends you an SMS, you won’t get it until the next time you connect to a WiFi network. I learned this the hard way: it happened to me twice on this trip before I realised what was going on.
3. I use Google Maps rather than Apple Maps. It turns out you can get offline maps on iOS (something that’s been available on Android for quite some time). Open the Google Maps app while you’re still connected to a WiFi network; navigate so that the area you want to save is on the screen; type “ok maps” into the search bar; now that map is saved and zoomable for offline browsing.

This Recycling Bin Is Stalking You by Siraj Datoo in The Atlantic Cities

I, for one, welcome our new recycling bin panopticon overlords.

You might want to put your phone’s MAC address into this form.

» Explaining the iOS and Android mobile browser usage disparity Cloud Four Blog

A really fascinating analysis by Jason into the apparent disparity in web browsing between Android and iOS devices: it turns out that the kind of network connection could be a big factor.

Mobile Apps Must Die | Blog | design mind

Scott writes up some of the things he talked about at the Breaking Development conference: the just-in-time interactions that are inevitable in a heavily-instrumented world.

Immaterials: Light painting WiFi on Vimeo

Timo Arnall has some fun mapping WiFi signal strength with long exposure photos.

Brighton Wifi Hotspots (and WEP/WPA passwords)

WiFi hotspots in Brighton (including passwords where required) courtesy of Josh.

Eye-Fi Wireless Camera SD Memory at The Photojojo Store

At lunch the other day, Josh was telling me about this magic new WiFi-enabled SD memory card that allows you to upload pictures to Flickr straight from your camera.

ThinkGeek :: Wi-Fi Detector Shirt

Dear Santa Claus, I have been a relatively good boy this year. Please may I have a t-shirt that actually detects and displays WiFi signal strength? No, I'm not kidding. Give my love to the elves, Jeremy.

Wireless City (from The Argus)

Sounds like Brighton is ready to become one big WiFi hotspot.

Google Secure Access

Looks like Google is getting into the WiFi game.

Brighton WiFi trains

It looks like the much rumoured WiFi enabled trains on the Brighton-Victoria line are a reality.