O'Reilly Network: Web Services We'd Like To See. [November 26, 2002] In a recent CNET article, Margaret Kane reports on Google and Amazon's success with Web services. After Google and Amazon, probably the widest deployed and successful web service is the Blogger API. Then there's all the other Weblog systems like weblogs.com. I can't really count RSS as a web service, although with >10,000 feeds it's probably the most widely implemented XML format. Anyway. In the article, Timothy Appnel suggests a few other companies that ought to expose their core systems as publically accessible web services. eg eBay, PayPal, FedEx, UPS, MapQuest, Yahoo. I bet we can think of a few as well. How about Alexa, IMDB, MSN? [from: JB Ecademy]

The five biggest myths about Web services.  (I like no.2!)

Myth No. 1: Web services is brand new.
Fact: Web services is the distillation of knowledge and experience gained from decades of working with distributed technologies.

Myth No. 2: Web services has so many shortcomings, such as security, that it will prove to be a disruptive element in an organization's IT efforts.
Fact: Actually, organizations are moving toward Web services because IT operations can be so disruptive so much of the time today.

Myth No. 3: Interoperability will never happen. We've all got to have the same operating system to make Web services work best.
Fact: Web services exists because interoperability is not only possible; it's happening on IT systems every hour of every day.

Myth No. 4: Getting Web services means getting rid of all your current software and developing new programming languages to handle the Tower of Babel you're going to face.
Fact: This is no more true than Myth No. 3. When we log on to the Internet for personal use, we don't think about whether our software will be compatible with whatever is on the other end of our web browsers.

Myth No. 5: Web services is the endgame--the goal we're aiming toward.
Fact: That makes as much sense as saying in the 1920s that a propeller-driven airplane that could get us across the Atlantic nonstop should be the goal of aviation.

  [from: JB Ecademy]

If you have a PC with a webcam, a PocketPC PDA and especially if you have a cam on the PDA, check out Microsoft Portrait It's an experimental package from Microsoft Research mainly aimed at turning internet connected PDAs into videophones. [from: JB Ecademy]

Cantenna is a commercial antenna styled and designed after the famous Pringle's can design but rather better made than most homebrew attempts. There's a discussion on WABUG about whether it is legal in the USA to sell these things as they do not appear to have been FCC certified with specific WiFi cards, APs and cable setups. It appears that for consumer electronics WiFi gear to be sold in the USA it must be certified as a complete setup including the antenna. This perhaps explains why so few Cards and APs have an antenna socket as standard and also why perhaps brand name antennas are fairly expensive.

Does anyone know the corresponding legal restrictions in the UK? Is it legal to:-
- Build and attach your own antenna
- Mix and match electronics and antennas from different manufacturers?

Of course, now we've got the legalities out of the way, we'll all just ignore them and do our own thing on the basis that we're highly unlikely to get caught. But even with WiFi's relatively short range, it's important that you have a little clue about what you're doing as particularly if you get into power amps and overdriving the output stages, it's fairly easy to generate large amounts of interference. [from: JB Wifi]

Too many words (images, thoughts) , not enough time. Have you got half an hour?

Kevin Werbach is on a roll. In a day's blogging we've got;  Advertizing driven TV has 5 years to live; We need a third way in politics because technology changes exist outside the traditional left-right euclidean way; A link to Tools for the mob, following up on an essay on Mobile blogging. The End of Free about AOL Time Warner ending free access on the net to their printed copy; And the resurgence of Video On Demand.

Do you like cartoons? Check out e-Sheep, especially Spiders and Delta. Then move on to MegaTokyo and then go to Get Your War On.

Need to know when the the cluetrain pulls in? Try Britt Blaser and Doc Searls on the Creative commons and the difference between Customers and Consumers. Then compare a deconstruction of Fox CEO Peter Chernin's keynote at Comdex, with Lawrence Lessig's challenge to spend equal amounts on content and people trying to keep content free.

For laughs there's always the image of what happened when Bush asked "How do you want to govern your country today?"

After all that you'll need a WTF? T shirt or hoodie from Thinkgeek. Though perhaps a miniature tracked remote control webcam is more to your liking? [from: JB Ecademy]

Internet "nearing 655 million users" 30% year on year growth.

Gosh! [from: JB Ecademy]

Free office space - but coffee's extra Nice little story about startups in Boston who don't have any office space. They use the local Starbucks for space (and coffee) and use their WiFi for internet access.

So where would you go to do this in London (or other cities)? Do you have a favourite place to sit, work and have meetings where you can get WiFi access to the net?
[from: JB Wifi]

Most of the manufacturers now make and ship a combo WiFi box aimed at the home networking and broadband market. These typically have a WiFi Access point, 4 10/100 Ethernet ports, and a NAT firewall gateway. Some of them also have an ADSL modem or a Cable modem built in as well.

If anyone has got one of these, could they please get in touch and let me know their experiences. Or alternatively post an article here about how they go on? I'm particularly interested in any problems or issues with the firewall and how well it works in practice.

For instance, I've heard one story that the firewall didn't support UPnP and so couldn't cope with Microsoft voice and video from MSN Messenger and Netmeeting. [from: JB Wifi]

Slashdot continues to amuse. Hidden in an article "Smart" Billboards Debut in Sacramento : I found this tidbit of wisdom.

I cannot believe that your argument for listening to the radio vs. CDs is that CDs have just "the same songs repeated forever." I mean, have you listened to the radio, ever?

If you live in London, you might like to note that the giant US pigopoly, "Clear Channel" is in negotiations to buy Capital Radio. Now Clear Channel has bought up so many radio stations in the US that the radio landscape has completely changed over the last few years. They now effectively control the listening habits of the nation and restrict output to a comparatively narrow play list. Once upon a time, I used to listen to Capital but I can't stand it now so I'm not especially worried about this one purchase. But I'd hate to see Clear Channel work their way across the UK buying up all the non-BBC radio stations.

In theory, there's an alternative here in Internet radio. In practice, it's good for either microcasting or for people with deep pockets, but not much in between. And in the USA, the music industry has been going after net radio stations for absurdly large performing rights payments. [from: JB Ecademy]

Surprise!

BBC NEWS | Technology | Efforts to stop music piracy 'pointless' [from: JB Ecademy]

P-to-p's next frontier? Combining P2P, WiFi, Meshnetworks, SOAP, Jabber, Groove, VoIP, Encryption, this article reads like a roll call of all the most interesting technologies around at the moment. One particularly interesting experiment is this one. Mesh Networks has begun trials with Orlando, Fla., city buses, using off-the-shelf 802.11 radios and a variant radio it has developed that utilizes real-time equalization and a multitap rake receiver -- which can handle multipath and fading -- to enable multihopping networks at vehicle speeds as fast as 70 mph. Combined with relay devices posted on light poles (two per square mile), the system can provide a QoS (quality of service) sufficient to stream video and to support VoIP calls, Stanforth claims. [from: JB Wifi]

Where is the definitive list of public WiFi Hotspots ? Now maybe this is an exercise worthy of King Canute, and maybe there will come a time when it's unnecessary because WiFi access will be everywhere. But right now I feel the need for a definitive list of hotspots world wide. This should include every commercial hotspot showing the company operating it and with a link to it's terms and prices along with every deliberately free to air service. I think this requires some manual collation rather than simply war-driving. The problems are many. All the current directories I've found are seriously incomplete. Each provider lists it's own hotspots but not competing provider's. Lists such as Consume.net have too many non-working nodes. And we're in the middle of explosive growth so keeping the data up to date is going to be hard.

I think this is one of those "should exist" systems. I wonder who's going to build it? [from: JB Wifi]

Howard Rheingold Interview on "Smart Mobs" Essential reading. And an add on to the website of the book. Dave Hughes also gets a good chunk of space about his project to cover Wales with WiFi broadband. [from: JB Ecademy]

e-fro - The Welsh Wireless Broadband project A project to flood Wales with broadband access via community run WiFi nodes.

[from: JB Wifi]

Voyager2000 No word on delivery yet, but they've set a price of £199. It appears to be a combined ADSL modem, firewall, router and WiFi access point. They've also got WiFi PCMCIA and USB cards for £79.99 [from: JB Wifi]

BW Online | November 21, 2002 | Europe's Clueless Wireless Operators

Well who wouldn't bite on a headline like that!

I have to say I really hate the cellphone industry. Both my kids managed to break their cellphones this month. Trying to choose a handset, plan and facilities was a complete nightmare. It's refreshing to hear that the latest GPRS, 3G and other internet access is equally hard to understand, over-priced and ineffective. Not! What's wrong with these people? Have they grown so big and owe so much debt that they can't create and sell a simple product that the customer (remember them) might want to use? [from: JB Wifi]

Comdex Puts Wi-Fi Weaknesses on Display

WiFi was huge at Comdex this year. And yet almost none of the Las Vegas hotels had WiFi support and allegedly WiFi access was pretty thin on the convention floors as well. Doh! Looks like the industry missed a trick there. [from: JB Wifi]

I keep seeing the same idea being promoted that HotSpot providers (such as BT Openzone) intend to, or should, provide managed VPNs so that corporate customers can feel safe about using WiFi. I have to say I just don't get this. Here's why:-
- The first concern is email and email security can be assured without going to a full VPN simply by using SSL and SMTP Auth.
- Any company that is exposing internal systems to home workers will already have a VPN in place. Just because the final 100m is via WiFi makes no never mind.
- Providing a managed VPN means the third part will need access to the company's firewall. Unless this third party is managing the organization's entire security infrastructure, why would anyone ever allow this?

So given that this comment is so common, I must be missing something. What is it? [from: JB Wifi]

An open letter on BAWUG prompted a warning on terminology. Just because it involves the Internet, data comms and it's wireless doesn't mean it's WiFi. WiFi refers specifically to the 802.11a/b/g standards at 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz. There are several companies and experiments being done with things like very long distance links or wireless broadband provision that are not WiFi even if they are in the same general area of spectrum. So for instance the recent 72Km link off San Diego is not using WiFi due to timing constraints in the protocol (although in this case they were using hacked WiFi hardware). Similarly there are several companies producing hardware and systems for remote broadband provision that use 2.4Ghz, 3.6Ghz and 5 Ghz for point to point links. Again this is not WiFi.

But it's all wireless TCP/IP so we can talk about it here! [from: JB Wifi]

IOL: O2 to launch public wireless services : Following trials, O2 Ireland has announced the commercial availability of public WLAN services for business customers from January 2003.

More strange cross over. O2 Ireland is of course part of mmO2, the cellphone service that was spun off from BT. And of course BT run BT Openzone in the UK. With Vodaphone in Germany and T-Mobile all over the place are the cellphone companies a natural fit to manage a network of WiFi hotspots? Can we expect to see SIMs in WiFi cards soon so that they can identify us and charge us for usage? [from: JB Wifi]