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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After putting several of its municipal Wi-Fi partnerships on hold last year, Earhlink has decided to escape from this market entirely, concentrating instead on dial-up Internet access and partnerships with broadband carriers.

And now that Time Warner wants to spin off its Internet access business, Earthlink is placing itself in a position to acquire the access lines and customer base of Time Warner's AOL division, or perhaps some other current dial-up providers.

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Customers who buy a cup of joe using a Starbucks card will now receive 2 hours of free Wi-Fi at the ubiquitous coffee shop thanks to a new partnership with AT&T.

Starbucks is ending its six-year relationship with T-Mobile, and inking a deal with AT&T instead. Starting this spring, AT&T will be providing the Internet access at over 7,000 Starbucks locations across the United States and in the process making the Wi-Fi more attractive to customers who balked at paying T-Mobile's $10 per-day fee.

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AT&T announced today that its U-verse fiber-to-the-node Internet service will begin offering more bandwidth and higher speeds to top-tier subscribers, and free Wi-Fi hotspot connectivity to all of AT&T's broadband customers.

The AT&T Yahoo! High Speed Internet Max tier will cost $55 a month when bundled with U-verse TV, and will now have downstream speeds of up to 10 Mbps, and upstream speeds up to 1.5 Mbps.

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The memory chip manufacturer will use technology from Eye-Fi to add network connectivity for users of its own memory cards.

With wireless built onto the card, users will be able to send pictures directly from the camera to the computer. While Eye-Fi already has released its own card based on its technology, it sees Lexar as a way for Eye-Fi to gain mass appeal.

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After Earthlink and Google scrapped plans to offer wireless in the city, many weren't so sure. But a start-up is promising to finish the job.

Silicon Valley-based Meraki, which has financial backing from Google, says it will attempt to complete the citywide network within one year. The company says it plans to lay out its plans on Friday.

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The low-cost business-centric airline plans to outfit its planes with Wi-Fi so that passengers can access portions of the net while in the air.

While the full Internet would not be available, customers will be able to access their Yahoo e-mail accounts and Yahoo Messenger. Those with Wi-Fi capable Blackberries can access personal and corporate e-mail.

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While EarthLink says it's now considering new "strategic alternatives" for its municipal Wi-Fi projects, the Philadelphia Inquirer is reporting the company could very well leave that city with a partly-finished project if it backs out now.

"We will not devote any new capital to the old municipal WiFi model that has us taking all the risks," said EarthLink CEO Rolla Huff in a statement late last week. "In my judgment, that model is simply unworkable."

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Using its billboards across downtown New York City, CBS is creating a Wi-Fi hotspot that will give nearly 20 city blocks free wireless Internet access.

The service, called the "CBS Mobile Zone," will extend 20 city blocks from Times Square to Central Park South, and 6th to 8th avenues when it is fully complete. Portions of the network are already up and running.

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As major US cities and American carriers still struggle for what's looking more and more like the same piece of the Wi-Fi pie for revenue, two more municipal projects appear to be slowing down. The Boston Globe reported Wednesday that the non-profit organization set up to manage that city's project now says it's unlikely to be completed at any time in 2008.

This just days after interest from carriers in Cleveland's project is reportedly waning after that city's mayor decided to reject any bids from companies that would require the city to be their anchor tenant - to sign on to a long-term project, usually with plenty of funding up-front. The term comes from the world of real estate, where site management firms make commitments to build shopping malls once they've secured anchor tenants to guarantee customers. A dispute over anchor tenancy provisions is believed to have killed a deal between Earthlink and the city of Chicago last August.

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A Canadian technology licensing company called Wi-Lan Inc. launched an assault today on no fewer than 22 companies, including both equipment vendors and consumer electronics retailers. The claim isn't new - patent infringement - but the strategy is certainly unique.

Each of the company's three infringement suits deal with individual patents, two of which were actually invented by the co-founders of the company, dealing with Wi-Fi/OFDM and multicode applications.

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Beginning today, Boingo Wireless is offering Wi-Fi for select Nokia mobile devices. The Boingo Mobile application is available for the N95, N80, and N80 Internet Edition smartphones. It can also be downloaded from mobile.boingo.com for select Wi-Fi enabled Nokia S-60 based devices.

"Millions of Nokia customers worldwide can use Boingo Mobile to effortlessly connect to Boingo's hotspot network, allowing them to enjoy bandwidth-intensive applications at blazing-fast speeds," said Boingo president and CEO Dave Hagan.

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McDonald's said over the weekend that it planned to offer free wireless access in its restaurants across the UK. The company already offers Wi-Fi in many of its US locations, however it is only free to those using the Nintendo DS - others are charged a nominal fee. All 1,200 restaurants in the region will offer the service, which would make it the largest provider of wireless access.

When complete, the restaurant's network will account for about 10 percent of all hotspots in Britain. The country currently has about 12,000 hotspots, provided by The Cloud, BT, and T-Mobile, along with other smaller carriers. The average price for an hour of usage is around 5 pounds ($10.18), so a free McDonald's service with such wide reach could have the effect of lowering access prices for other premium services.

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Broadcom announced today a new addition to its Intensi-fi line: the groundbreaking BCM4322, not only the smallest and most cost-effective 802.11n solution available now, but also the first to enable Wi-Fi products to achieve over 200 Mbps of actual wireless throughput.

This chip combines all the elements of a wireless LAN subsystem on a single silicon die, which means that manufacturing costs will greatly decrease, thereby driving down the price of common 802.11n products. It also means that other electronic devices like TVs, cameras, set-top boxes, even dishwashers, if you're so inclined, can be cheaply equipped with WLAN functions.

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With its new iPod Touch sporting wireless capabilities, Apple on Wednesday introduced the iTunes WiFi Music Store, which will allow users of the device to purchase and download songs directly to the device. The service will not only work with the Touch, but also for the iPhone through an update that will be provided later this month. For Starbucks aficionados, new integration could prove a godsend.

When near a Starbucks with Wi-Fi, Touch and iPhone users would be able to see the songs that are playing and download them through a special Starbucks section that would appear. Additionally, users would be able to view the last ten songs played and also be able to buy those songs as well.

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