Eye-Fi adds Web features, geotagging to Wi-Fi SD cards

Eye-Fi, the company behind the Wi-Fi SD card that debuted early this year has branched out its offering with added features.

Now, instead of offering only a single 802.11g-equipped memory card, two new models have been added, and all three cards fit into categories depending on their functionality: Home, Share and Explore.

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Free AT&T Wi-Fi hotspots for iPhone still unofficial

AT&T "officially" posted information about free Wi-Fi hotspot access for its iPhone customers on Thursday, and summarily removed it.

In February, Starbucks and Barnes and Noble stores dispatched the six-year partnership with T-Mobile for Wi-Fi hotspots in favor of AT&T. In addition to the free access given to AT&T broadband subscribers, iPhone users were reportedly going to be granted the ability to use the AT&T-provided hotspots for free.

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Another muni Wi-Fi rollout on the rocks

Plans to bring wireless Internet to Boulder, Colorado and the surrounding metropolitan areas are being put on hold over funding issues.

The consortium called Colorado Wireless Communities was tasked with getting the funding to build out the networks in 10 cities from Lakewood to Boulder, a roughly 150 square mile area. The group is now unsure whether it can raise enough money.

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Boingo next to offer free Wi-Fi service to iPhones, iPods

Wi-Fi provider Boingo will offer Apple iPhone and iPod Touch owners the opportunity to enjoy 15 minutes of free Wi-Fi service at 28 airports located in the United States, United Kingdom and Canada.

What's the catch? Users interested in the service will have to watch 15 seconds of video advertisements before having access to the Internet uninterrupted for 15 minutes.

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Milpitas, California joins the great muni-Wi-Fi reclamation

An April 15 vote by Milpitas, California's City Council was 4-0 in favor of transferring the Earthlink Wi-Fi assets back to the city. In 30 days, Milpitas will be the among the first cities to assume ownership of Earthlink's network.

Earthlink's Milpitas launch took place in December 2006, opening the ten square mile mesh network of Tropos Wi-Fi routers to residents for rates raging from $3.95 an hour to $21.95 a month. This service will no longer be offered once Milpitas has assumed control, and total coverage will be stripped down to a size that will not present operating costs that are too restrictive.

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Corpus Christi to take back control of Muni-Wi-Fi network

Officials for the city say that it has come to the point where Corpus Christi will move ahead with its municipal wireless network without EarthLink.

Corpus Christi signed an agreement with the ISP in March of last year for about $5.7 million in total. While the network was said to be completed in August, plans were thrown into chaos after EarthLink backed out of muni Wi-Fi.

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St. Louis gets its Wi-Fi network, but scaled down

It's a sign of the times: the city's Wi-Fi network has been turned on, but nowhere near what it was initially billed to be.

The mesh network covers a single square mile of St. Louis' downtown from North Tucker Boulevard to the Mississippi River from west to east, and Carr Street to Highway 40 from north to south.

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Software purports to convert 3G phones into Wi-Fi hotspots

TapRoot Systems today announced new Windows Mobile and Symbian S60 smartphone software, claiming it enables users to convert their 3G phones into mobile Wi-Fi hotspots for a handful of users at one time.

The company said its software allows users to have up to five connections to the same Wi-Fi connection at a time. TapRoot is reportedly working on a free trial edition that lets users try the software with just one connection at a time. The company hopes to approach mobile providers and have them deploy the software as a service for a monthly fee.

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Earthlink's muni Wi-Fi pain may be Houston's gain

Earthlink paid Houston $5 million after failing to meet contractual obligations to build the network last August. That money may be used to jumpstart the municipal Wi-Fi project once again.

Houston was an unfortunate casualty of Earthlink's sudden exit from municipal Wi-Fi, a initiative it once considered the future of the company. It was said that the entire network would require approximately $50 million to build out.

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Accidental Wi-Fi access still a criminal offense in Maryland

If you're sitting on a coffee shop patio with your laptop, and you find out later that you happen to be accessing the Wi-Fi from the attorney's office upstairs by accident, should you go to prison? A Maryland legislator says no, but his bill is facing opposition.

A bill introduced by a Maryland state delegate that would hold users innocent when they accidentally access the Wi-Fi services of portals other than the one they think they're logged onto, faces trouble today after an unfavorable report to the state's House Judiciary Committee.

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Apple updates AirPort Express to support 802.11n

The company's tiny wireless base station has been updated with technology to support the high speed connectivity standard, as earlier rumored.

Apple enthusiast sites including AppleInsider began hinting at a possible release of a new version of Airport Express over the weekend. The overall design of the player has not changed much, nor has the price -- it remains at $99.

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AT&T gets a new BlackBerry Pearl with Wi-Fi

AT&T announced that it will begin selling RIM's fourth edition (and counting) of its BlackBerry Pearl, the 8120.

The BlackBerry Pearl 8120 is almost identical to RIM's other Pearl offerings, with the main difference being that it supports 802.11 b/g Wi-Fi connectivity. Verizon's counterpart, the 8130 is the CDMA/ 1x EV-DO version of the 8110, the Pearl "standard edition."

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One ABI analyst still sees a future in muni-Wi-Fi

Researchers from ABI seem to believe that municipal Wi-Fi may still have a future, and that by 2012, if all current issues are resolved, its global service area will extend to around 30,000 square miles, a 60x increase.

"Rumors of municipal networks' death is premature," ABI Research director Stan Schatt told BetaNews this afternoon.

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In Portland, Oregon, another city-wide Wi-Fi network bites the dust

In the latest of a lengthening string of failures in city-wide wireless projects across the US, MetroFi of Mountain View, CA has reportedly stopped work on a project in Portland, Oregon.

After installing 590 functional wireless access points (APs) in Portland, MetroFi has asked the city to provide $9 million in public funds to finish the job with an additional 2,000-or-so APs.

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Vocera announces a shareable, Wi-Fi-only handset

It may share a name with James Cameron's classic cyborg villain, but Vocera's new T1000 Wi-Fi phone system has more in common with communicators of the Gene Roddenberry variety.

Vocera's system of wireless handsets and communicator badges is built upon a Windows server and integrated with both the PBX phone system and the patient monitoring/supply management/point of sale systems. The server handles the call management, user profiles, and speech recognition commands. Devices are interchangeably assigned to a user profile and phone number, making them instantly re-assignable when shifts change.

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