Word: wi
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...devices are getting better. As if BlackBerrys and Treos weren't hard enough to put down, Apple will start selling the iPhone in June, and the new category of ultra-mini PCs like the FlipStart and the OQO2 is threatening to make computers as portable as cell phones. Two, wi-fi is becoming ubiquitous. Google and Earthlink have a deal in place to supply all of San Francisco with free wireless Internet access. Philadelphia, Anaheim, Calif., and Madison, Wis., already have it, as do dozens of other cities and towns. Within 10 years, most of urban and suburban America will...
...door handle shaped like the letter D at the new Dunkin' Donuts shop in Sarasota, Fla., you might think you had stumbled into a Starbucks. Bags of beans and oversize coffee mugs near the door? Check. A waiting area for lattes and cappuccinos? Check. Heck, there's even free wi-fi and a rack of gift cards by the register...
...give shape to that new paradigm is MobiTV's adoption of the WiMAX standard, a.k.a. "wi-fi on crack." It combines unicast (a stream to a single user at a time, like the Internet) and broadcast, increasing capacity to allow higher data rates, two-way communication and so on. "We're just beginning to scratch the surface," he says. Maybe he'll eventually get it to download chocolate bars...
...service isn't perfect: some ISPs have balked at subscribers sharing their Internet access, and while fon.com's searchable maps help you pinpoint every FON-friendly hotspot in the world, there are many areas where service is thin on the ground. Still, for the cost of an ordinary wi-fi router, it's like getting a wireless couch to crash on in dozens of major cities...
Next time you find yourself in Irkutsk, the former administrative capital of Siberia, one pit stop should be high on your list: Café Fiesta, tel: (7-3952) 20 30 33. For a start, customers enjoy free wi-fi access. Add to that friendly servers (by local standards), ease of ordering (just go to the counter and point at the dish you want) and comfortable banquettes for snuggling away from the cold, and you've found the sweetest spot in the town center-especially if you're a non-Russian speaker...