Boston is city where blogs flourish most
According to OutsideIn.com, a website that tracks neighborhood blogging, Boston was the “bloggiest city” in America for the two-month period it examined, March and April. OutsideIn.com said it tracks blogging activity in about 60 urban areas. It based its rankings on a “blogging quotient” that factored in a metropolitan area’s population with the number of blog posts tied to specific locations. By that measure, Greater Boston had 89 posts per 100,000 residents, edging out Greater Philadelphia, which had 88 posts.
Source: Chris Reidy, The Boston Globe, August 14, 2007
Community Wi-Fi comes to San Francisco
While EarthLink and Google are still hammering out details of their citywide Wi-Fi contract with San Francisco officials, a company called Meraki plans on blanketing the city with free Wi-Fi using volunteers who will deploy and manage the equipment themselves. The company, which sells indoor and outdoor Wi-Fi routers, will expand its free Wi-Fi router giveaway in San Francisco starting Wednesday in an effort to create a free community-based citywide Wi-Fi network throughout the entire city.
Source: Marguerite Reardon, CNET News.com, August 14, 2007
British rail passengers to get free Wi-Fi ride
Rail passengers on the London-to-Scotland east coast main line will get free Wi-Fi as part of National Express’ 1.4 billion-pound ($2.8 billion) winning bid to run the franchise.
Source: Andy McCue, Silicon.com, August 14, 2007
Eye-catching new Taser sparks controversy
It resembles a handheld electric razor and is available in metallic pink, electric blue, titanium silver and black pearl. But it gives out a 50,000-volt jolt that short-circuits brain signals and momentarily incapacitates. Meet the sleek new C2 stun gun from Taser International in Scottsdale, a controversial device aimed mainly at women consumers that has sparked widespread concern among U.S. law enforcement and human rights groups.
Source: Reuters, August 15, 2007
The End Of Work As You Know It
You have no idea how you’d get any work done on business trips if you didn’t have a laptop. You can’t remember quite how you lived without your BlackBerry. Your cell phone might as well be surgically attached to your ear, it’s so crucial to your job. Then there’s the Internet. It’s hard to conceive of getting through the day without Google — or, if you’re under 40, text messaging or even joining Facebook to stay in touch with your extended network of colleagues. In just a decade or less, technology sure has done a number on the way you work, hasn’t it?
Well, brace yourself. Over the next decade, the relentless march of computer power and Net connection speeds will bring more profound changes to work than anything we’ve seen so far.
Source: Robert D. Hof, BusinessWeek Magazine, August 20, 2007 issue
Technology Review’s Humanitarian of the Year
Tapan Parikh has created information systems tailored for small-business people in the developing world — systems with the mobile phone, rather than the PC, at their core. His goal is to make it easier for these business owners to manage their own operations in an efficient and transparent way, and to build connections both with established financial institutions and with consumers in the developed world. This will help them — they’ll be able to get money to expand their operations and, ideally, find better prices for what they sell — and it should be a boon to development as well.
Source: James Surowiecki, Technology Review, August 16, 2007
Domino’s Pizza delivers SMS ordering: ‘DBL PEPERONI 4 ME PLS’
Hungry customers of Domino’s Pizza are now able to place their order via SMS, building on the chain’s internet ordering service which now accounts for more than one in 10 of its pizza orders. According to Domino’s IT director, Jane Kimberlin, the aim is to add sales through providing multiple channels to the customer. She said: “It’s about matching our offer to customers’ lifestyles.”
[Note: this service is only available in the UK.]
Source: Julian Goldsmith, Silicon.com, August 17, 2007
