TechFold - Bold tech & web commentary

Bold tech & web commentary

TechFold is technology discussion, commentary, reviews, and opinions from well outside the valley. There's no koolaid to drink here, and TechFold is not in SL, or on Twitter.

Safeway has good, free Wifi

Safeway (the grocery store) features both Starbucks outlets and free, anonymous log-in WiFi access (in Canada/Manitoba/Winnipeg at least). I don’t know what Starbuck’s wireless rates are like in the US, but here they’re exorbitant ($9/hr, etc.) - so if you hang out at the grocery store instead, you can sip the same coffee, nibble the same snacks, and surf for free. I tried it out today, and it was fast and as free as promised. I was only there for about 20 minutes, but there’s no stated maximum time policies or whatnot, and my location had plenty of electrical outlets about.

safeway, wifi wireless

Any-Port Wireless Web for your docked yacht

Here’s a business model I love: pick a beautiful location, provide wireless internet access for a premium. Any-Port is on it, serving the yachting community of the Mediterranean and Carribean:

This popular anchorage spot [Villefranche-Sur-Mer in Southern France] for everything from private yachts to cruise ships is an ideal spot for a picnic lunch or a bit of snorkeling in the clear azure waters. Any-Port clients can now access the company’s guaranteed broadband service throughout the bay and port, further consolidating their position as the leading provider of wireless broadband services to the international yachting industry in ports and anchorages around the Mediterranean and Caribbean. (from Press Release)

I wonder if they’re making money at it? Oddly enough, they’re not using WiFi, its a proprietary signal/antenna system requiring a hardware installation. I would have though it would be more effective just to pepper the docking area and surrounding beaches with cheap, off-the-shelf WiFi routers and extenders, but Any-Port does claim a multi-kilometer range.

anyport, france, wifi, wireless, yachting yachts

BBC on RFID / WiFi Gateway - Exactly what I’m talking about - the Semantic World

The BBC has an article today on the utility of combining RFID tags with WiFi for location tracking of people & resources.

Add to that presence-profiles (i.e.: changing your contact preferences based on whether you’re in a meeting room, your office, or the parking garage), and you’ve got the “Semantic World” where people, places, objects, and actions have meaning, properties, and methods - all of which can interact with each other.

I wrote on this a few weeks ago:

There’s a number of trends in technology that have the potential to come together and enable some truly radical changes in our day to day lives. I’d throw out RFID, location-aware devices, and pervasive wifi as primary examples. What I’ve really been hunting for, however, its a way to bring it all together - essentially a small, location-aware RFID-to-WiFi gateway.

Read the rest of that post here.

Sadly the BBC missed my blog post… and the larger implications of this combination of technologies.