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Eye-Fi Expands Product Line and Features - Wi-Fi Networking News

Eye-Fi Expands Product Line and Features

Eye-Fi has added a new high-end Wi-Fi card for digital cameras, updated its software, and added an auto-delete option: I've been a fan of the Eye-Fi, a Secure Digital (SD) format memory card with Wi-Fi embedded since its release. But I've always had some nits to pick about how it works. Over time, Eye-Fi has addressed most of these.

The last appear to be resolved in the release of new software, and a new high-end card, the Pro X2. The software is available today, and pre-orders for the Pro X2 are being taken online now.

The Pro X2 (list $150) shifts its Wi-Fi to 802.11n, almost certainly the single-stream variety, which improves range and speed separately and together. The card includes 8 GB of storage, and is rated Class 6 for its read/write speed. This is a leap from 4 GB with its Pro card (see a comparison of all Eye-Fi cards).

 

Call it the law of unintended consequences, but the good kind. Or the rule of 1+1=3. That's what you get when you combine Wi-Fi with digital photography.

With the Eye-Fi Secure Digital (SD) fomat memory card, a Wi-Fi card that snaps into many popular digital cameras, photographers get something truly new—"Endless Memory".

Sure, we've graduated from the old days where each shot had to be budgeted against a limited roll of camera film-- 24 or 36 frames. Now we have plentiful memory on our digital cameras, and concerns about running out of space are almost a thing of the past. That is, except when you forget to clear old pictures off of a memory card and you suddenly find yourself almost out of storage for new pictures or videos. When that happens (and it seems to happen to me at the moments when I really want to capture that special event), it's back to the bad old days. What should I delete? How many shots should I take so that I don't run out of memory?

Enter Wi-Fi, and an innovative application by Eye-Fi. With "Endless Memory" the SD memory card uploads pictures to the Internet cloud when you're in range of a hotspot. Then it automatically deletes the old pictures from the camera's storage so that you always have room for new pictures. As Glenn Fleishman points out: "For a photographer with a hotspot subscription or a laptop nearby for uploads, you could shoot, well, endlessly."

Who would have guessed that Wi-Fi could have such a nice impact on photography? Certainly the creative folks at Eye-Fi did, but for the rest of us it's another example of the unexpected ways ubiquitous broadband changes our lives and behavior. For the better.

More about Eye-Fi, here.

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Why Free Wi-Fi Marketing Is Smart – GigaOM

4091331439_32bfd22abe.jpgMaybe we should chalk it up to the upcoming season of jolly, but lately it seems like everyone wants to give away free Wi-Fi access to travelers. Well, free as long as you watch an ad or a promo for whichever company is sponsoring it, such as Yahoo, Microsoft and now Google. But while we might roll our eyes at what looks like just another way to serve up ads, the idea of free WiFi-based marketing is actually pretty smart. Among the current offers:

  • Starting today, visitors to Times Square in New York City will be able to get free Wi-Fi on their computers and mobile phones, courtesy of Yahoo. If you log in from your mobile phone, it is going to take you to http://m.yahoo.com. On a computer, you end up at a Yahoo page filled with ads.
  • Google is offering free Wi-Fi access on Virgin America through Jan 15, 2010.
  • eBay is sponsoring free Wi-Fi on 250 flights on Delta Airlines during the week of Thanksgiving. Wi-Fi users will get access to the eBay home page and an invitation to shop there.
  • Microsoft is working with JiWire to give away free Wi-Fi in premium hotspots in hotels and airports as long as they use Bing for search via their connection.
  • Google is giving away free Wi-Fi in 47 airports across the U.S., including hubs such as Miami, Seattle, Houston and San Jose, Calif. The promotions will last through Jan. 15, 2010.

via gigaom.com

Just a few years ago the conventional wisdom was that 3G (or WiMAX) would "kill" Wi-Fi. But in fact, just the opposite has happened and Wi-Fi hotspots (especially the free ones described in this article) are popping up everywhere. Their biggest backers: mobile carriers with 3G networks. That may seem like a bit ironic, but it makes good sense: Wi-Fi enables the carriers to offload broadband-hungry customers to a cheaper (and faster) alternative infrastructure. With 3G and Wi-Fi it's not either/or but both/and.

The move toward free Wi-Fi, increasingly seen as a form of customer engagement, will only accelerate the growth of hotspots. Wi-Fi is a way to touch customers directly, and free Wi-Fi hotspots represent an exchange of value where both parties win. I give your brand some attention; you give me broadband.

The examples provided in the article illustrate the importance major online advertisers and resellers place on this value exchange. May a thousand-- make that a few million-- Wi-Fi hotspots bloom!

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Filed under  //   Wi-Fi Trends  

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New Sputnik web site, phone system & office move (pardon our dust)

We're starting off the new year with a new web site, PBX, and office!

New Sputnik web site

Our web address is the same (www.sputnik.com), but the new site hasn't been fully indexed (yet) by Google. We apologize for any "page not found" (404) errors. We've moved pretty much all of our documentation and other content to the new site, but if something is missing, let us know!

Sputnik phones

Our number is the same:

+1 415.355.9500

... however we're still working out the kinks with our extensions. If you have trouble getting through, please leave a message in the general voicemail box, or send us an email.

We also have a handy new 800 (well, 888) number. If you want to call us toll free from the U.S. use:

888.99.SPUTNIK, or
888.997.7886

Sputnik office Address

We've also moved to sunnier offices right down the hall in the same building. So our address stays the same, except for the suite number:

650 5th Street 
Suite 301
San Francisco, CA 94107

We're looking forward to settling in to our new digs, our new PBX, and our new virtual home. Happy New Year and all the best in 2010

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Sputnik Holiday Hours

Happy Holidays from Sputnik! Sputnik offices are closed the week of December 28, 2009 to January 1, 2010.

During this time:

  • open orders will ship out as long as UPS service is available
  • we'll respond to support cases online (no phone support)
  • all SputnikNet services will be available

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GigaOM: Consumers Making Wi-Fi Hotspots Hot

“The ubiquity of Wi-Fi has created hotspot coverage as an expected amenity at many places of business,” says Frank Dickson, In-Stat analyst. “While consumer or leisure users do not often carry a laptop, they do have Wi-Fi enabled handhelds and are using these devices to access hotspots. This, coupled with the service being bundled with mobile plans, is making hotspot access much more consumer-oriented compared to the service’s former business focus.”

Handhelds accounted for 35 percent of all hotspot connections in 2009, up from 20 percent in 2008, and are forecast to account for fully half of them by 2011, according to market research firm, In-Stat,. The research firm estimates that the hotspot usage on the whole will increase 47 percent in 2009, bringing the total number of connections to 1.2 billion. A report by JiWire estimates that during the first half of 2009, the number of Wi-Fi hotspots around the world grew by 9 percent.

According to In-Stat research, WiFi-enabled devices such as game players, personal media players and cameras are going to see a sharp increase between 2009 and 2013, rising from 108.8 million to 177.3 million.

There is a predominance of mobile carriers in the hotspot market, resulting in promotion of Wi-Fi enabled handset devices on their networks. New dual-mode Wi-Fi phones are coming to the market. Growth in applications, such as content download, or even more so VoFi, will drive usage of handheld devices over the coming years. Finally, markets, such as China, are opening for hotspots that have previously restricted Wi-Fi usage on handhelds.

Om Malik's profile of the Wi-Fi hotspot market yields some interesting numbers:

▪ Handhelds accounted for 35% of hotspot connections in 2009, up from 20% in 2008-- a 75% relative increase
▪ Hotspot usage increased 49% in 2009
▪ 1.2 billion hotspot connections were made in 2009
▪ Wi-Fi enabled gadgets-- game players, personal media players, cameras-- will grow by 63% in the four years from 2009-2013

Om also notes that mobile carriers will be huge players in the hotspot market. AT&T's actions over the past year and Verizon's more recent moves show that it makes great business sense for mobile carriers to offload bandwidth-hungry applications from their expensive 3G infrastructure onto cheaper Wi-Fi networks.

However, if you look at the total numbers of public hotspots, I would guess that the combined share of all the carriers is still just a fragment of the whole market. There are so many small and regional players, and more are bringing up new networks every day.

Looks like 2010 is going to be a great year for Wi-Fi!

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Filed under  //   Wi-Fi Trends  

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Wall Street Journal on Wi-Fi in the air

The Wall Street Journal compares Wi-Fi to food on airplanes: passengers were happy to chow down when food was free, but skip meals when they have to pay.
 
So too it appears with Wi-Fi. Once you charge-- even $1-- usage tanks.

Given that airplane Wi-Fi service providers have to entice 8% to 10% of travelers to pay for Internet access to make a profit, there could be some turbulence ahead.
 
Of course, there are some things that will certainly help paid forms of Wi-Fi usage. One is accepting logins from subscribers of Wi-Fi aggregator services, such as Boingo or Trustive. Another is offering power ports at all seats (Virgin America does this now).
 
For me, though, the real insight came at the end of the article:

Mr. Planey [consultant on in-flight tech amenities] believes that ultimately Wi-Fi will be free for most fliers, and the best use for airlines will come in having that seat-back connection to customers. A Wi-Fi hotspot can allow airlines to sell tours and tickets in destinations travelers are flying to, and could one day allow in-flight updating of flight connections or baggage problems, for example, letting customers know in the air how they have been rebooked if a flight is running late.

That's an idea that will take flight: Wi-Fi is a medium that enables new ways to connect with your customers.
 
Full article (behind paywall) is here: http://tr.im/xopH

 

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Get more information about your Wi-Fi network: Leopard

It turns out that the Wi-Fi menu in Mac OS X Leopard (that's right-- Leopard, not Snow Leopard) has some hidden super-powers.
 
I didn't notice them until yesterday, the day before Leopard was officially made obsolete by Apple's release of its snowy cousin (tip 'o the hat to Glenn Fleishmann, http://tr.im/xobg).
 
If you hold down the option key and select the Wi-Fi menu, you can see more information about the particular Wi-Fi network that you're associated with.

Here's what the extra information means:
 
AP MAC address: the wireless MAC address of the device you're associated with. It will (usually) have a wired MAC address too, which is typically off by 1 digit. (And that's the MAC address we use to identify the AP in SputnikNet).
 
Wi-Fi channel: shows the channel of the signal (1-11, though generally speaking there are only 3 truly discreet channels, 1, 6 and 11).
 
RSSI or Received Signal Strength Indicator: shows the signal strength. Apple's scale (which is vendor-specific) varies from 0 (good) to -100 (bad). Not sure whether Apple's scale is linear (probably more understandable by end users) or logarithmic (more realistic, as the inverse square law applies to how radio frequencies propagate in free space).
 
Transmit Rate: shows the data transfer rate in Mbit/s, in this case 54 Mbit/s, the theoretical maximum net bit rate of 802.11g.
 
But wait, there's more! If you hold down the option key, select an an alternate Wi-Fi access point and hold, you can get a bit more information about it, too...

In this case, you get both RSSI information and the security method.
 
Snow Leopard adds several new features... I'll document those as soon as I update. But for those who plan on using Leopard for a while, it provides some useful (if rather well hidden) Wi-Fi information.

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Wi-Fi in cafes is here to stay (but please don't stay too long)

The Wall Street Journal writes (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124950421033208823.html#):

"Amid the economic downturn, there are fewer places in New York to plug in computers. As idle workers fill coffee-shop tables -- nursing a single cup, if that, and surfing the Web for hours -- and as shop owners struggle to stay in business, a decade-old love affair between coffee shops and laptop-wielding customers is fading."

Glenn Fleishman (@WiFiNetNews) tweets that there is nothing new here, that it's been a love-hate relationship between cafe owners and Wi-Fi users-- especially when the coffee drinkers morph into cyber-squatters who demand table space for hours without buying anything.

But there are many ways to rekindle the love, as cafes with Sputnik-powered networks (among them Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf) can attest. Here are some of the ways cafes use SputnikNet to moderate Wi-Fi usage:

  • Link Wi-Fi access to purchase 
  • Limit time or bandwidth, and require a new purchase in order to top off the Internet access 
  • Create "coffee breaks" - intervals when Internet surfing is blocked, so customers can stretch their legs, get something to eat or drink-- even chat with the person sitting next to them 
  • Block peer-to-peer applications that soak up bandwidth 
  • Identify and block network abusers 
  • Use custom-branded Wi-Fi access to engage customers, sign them up for online newsletters, build goodwill

Broadband addition is probably only second to caffeine, and customers appreciate having access to both. But it's a two-way street. Most people understand that reasonable Wi-Fi restrictions are necessary and are more than happy to comply.

 

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Netflix on iPhone? Good news for Wi-Fi.

Rumor has it that Netflix will soon launch its "watch instantly" feature as a new iPhone app: http://tr.im/vool. So we'll graduate from mobile tweeting to "The Birds".

Only don't expect to do that on Edge or 3G. AT&T is likely to insist that the service be restricted to Wi-Fi.  

And that's good news. More great content, more opportunities to access it, more demand for wireless broadband, more Wi-Fi. Netflix in your pocket would be perfect for waiting rooms and public transportation.
 
Lets hope Netflix makes it happen on the iPhone!

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AT&T's Wi-Fi Stats - Wi-Fi Networking News

That's a neat trick by AT&T to offload 3G data to a Wi-Fi network, reducing congestion in the intersection of heavy availability of Wi-Fi hotspots and heavy 3G usage--city and neighborhood centers.

AT&T processed 26 million Wi-Fi connections in the first half of 2009. That's 30% higher than the number of connections they saw in all of 2008. Wi-Fi is indeed a growth business.

Glenn Fleishman @WiFiNetNews was one of the first to develop the idea that Wi-Fi is complementary to 3G, even providing a "heat sink" that could help carriers offload data traffic from overtaxed cellular towers. Looks like AT&T has fully caught on.

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