Some coverage on Reiter's Wireless Data Web Log and WiFi Networking news Here's the conference website and the main reports.

As Jupiter run weblogs for their analysts and they're organising/sponsoring the show, I wonder where their coverage is at. [from: JB Wifi]

According to The Register, the RIAA in the US is preparing for mass law suits against people who run file sharing programs such as Kazaa and are sharing large numbers of music files. Right now, they've essentially failed to take down the networks by going after the software providers. And they've won a ruling to get users names and addresses from ISPs.

This is going to get interesting. It's also going to be hell for a large number of private individuals. Will we see everyone hit the checkbox that says "don't share my files" resulting in the collapse of the networks? Or will we see the US courts stop the RIAA in it's tracks? And will the litigation spread outwards from the USA to the rest of the world?

And as an aside, will we see the RIAA attaempt to do more to reduce the 30% of all physical CDs sold worldwide that are counterfeit? [from: JB Ecademy]

The new Google Toolbar has a blog this button that is hard coded to work with Blogger. This seems inevitable, but also sad. It would be very cool if someone could hack this to work with other blogging systems.

While we're at it, here's a couple more lazyweb requests.
- A version of the Google toolbar to work with Mozilla and Firebird.
- A version of the Alexa toolbar again for non IE browsers.
- An open method of obtaining the Google page rank.

Seen on DailyWireless - Cable's Wi-Fi Play. Motorola have two new boxes available. They combine a cable modem with the usual 802.11b or 802.11g access point, router, 5 ethernet ports, firewall etc etc.

The article points out that very few cable companies allow you to share the link. However NTL at least don't mind you sharing using WiFi as long as you only use it inside your home with no more than 3 devices that you own. [from: JB Wifi]

I just found Captive Portal WLAN Access Server via the Google ads on Alan Reiter's site. It looks like a captive portal system somewhat similar to NoCat but runs on an MS Windows server. [from: JB Wifi]

Listen to Cory Doctorow and talk about blogging on the BBC Radio 4 Today program from yesterday morning. [from: JB Ecademy]

We've been running for a couple of days now and one issue that's cropped up may be a serious flaw in Google's adsense program.

If you run a website that sells a product or service and you've done a good job of optimising your site for Google, then it will appear high up in the list when searching for keywords about your industry. It's then quite likely that ads will appear on the search for those same keywords from your competitors. So far so good. If you then put the Adsense banner on your website, Google will use the same relevance criteria to put your compeititors ads into the list.

Now you can ban ads from specific websites but this might be awkward if you're in a busy area and of course it will reduce your ad revenue. But still, placing ads for your competitors on your website is probably not what you had in mind!

As for Ecademy, I'm still waiting for the ads to appear for Ryze, Friendster and Linkedin. Nothing yet. but we have had comments from people where that person's competitors ads appeared on their profile page. At least those profile pages were well written even the Google effect was not quite what we might have liked. I'm still thinking about what an appropriate approach to this might be. [from: JB Ecademy]

In You've Been Ripped, a reporter uses a packet sniffer and a WiFi card to grab 2Gb of data from the air at a convention. The trawl included, 3 email affairs, 7 credit card numbers, reporters uploads, 4 PCs with viruses, too much porn and loads of email addresses.

So if you use an open WiFi hotspot,
- Use SSL for all email
- check there is a closed lock on your browser when buying stuff
- run a personal firewall
- And imagine that everything you do is being watched

Now since exactly the same should be true at home this shouldn't be hard. [from: JB Wifi]

We've had a problem on the last two nights so I'll be taking Ecademy off line at 12 noon. Hopefully only for a few minutes. [from: JB Ecademy]

I've been getting a few reports from people about IE6 crashing when completing an Ecademy form. given the amount of activity we have on Ecademy, it's hard to see what's happening as it clearly doesn't happen to everyone. I've got a sneaking suspicion that it's the javascript in the text entry field that's doing it. But I really shouldn't be able to crash your browser with anything I can put into a web page.

Can anyone throw some light on this? [from: JB Ecademy]

Inexplicable Flash Crowds enabled by the net, cellphones, IM and SMS.

How it works is this. A group of organisers come up with a plan and print some instructions. They then run a phone tree where each phones 5 people, who phone 5 people, who phone... telling people where to meet. The instructions are handed round at the meeting place and then they converge on the performance. The first one was 10 minutes in Macy's rug department discussing the group purchase of a $10,000 rug for their group living quarters in a warehouse. After exactly 10 minutes the crowd breaks up and everyone goes on their way. There are photos and a description of the first event here.

Two things come to mind. The first is using this for Ecademy networking meetings!

The second is to organise flash demonstrations. I have in mind a demo about motorcycle parking in the City and Westminster. One afternoon, we start the phone tree telling all the motorcyclists we know to congregate at a particular landmark at a specified time. Then to mill around disrupting the traffic for 15 minutes before dispersing. The key is that up to 60 minutes before nobody knows it's going to happen. [from: JB Ecademy]

Lovely.

EE Times UK - Wimbledon scores Wi-Fi ace : Three WLAN access points are positioned next to key locations at Wimbledon's Centre Court and Court 1. These will allow the 50,000 expected visitors to connect to their office or home e-mail or the Internet during the Wimbledon tournament.

Although I do find it slightly hard to imagine the average Wimbledon attendee collecting email while guzzling strawberries and champagne. But then with a digital camera, you could capture the moment when Henman loses and post it straight up your weblog... [from: JB Wifi]

I've added the Google ads banners to Ecademy as an experiment.

Thoughts?

Here's a few quick ones.
- WiFi and Beyond Bricks are producing very well targeted ads. Ecademy less so. I guess this means that Google can't work out what the main Ecademy site is about.
- I can ban certain ads from the list. I've already removed Kleeneze. If there's any you have a problem with, then let me know.
- I'm almost afraid to say this. Clicking on links in the ads turns directly into money for us to help keep the website going. I'm not suggesting you deliberately abuse this, but if this works right, the ads should be well targeted and wirth reading.
- I figure you'd prefer this style of advertising to busy graphics rich animated banners from Oracle and IBM. [from: JB Ecademy]

When Google News provides search results in XML[1], which format of RSS will they use? Will it be funky? Or will they feel compelled to invent their own "Google news schema"?

[1]You read it here first. By September?

Another directory for the well connected traveller. This one is user created and lists hotels with high speed internet access. G E E K T O O L S: GeekTels [from: JB Wifi]

The BBC covers rural broadband via wireless efforts in BBC NEWS | Technology | Broadband entrepreneurs wire the nation [from: JB Wifi]

DailyWireless - Linksys Power Booster Unplugged

According to this, the Linksys Amplifier has been pulled from the market because the FCC are concerned it could be used with non-Linksys APs. The problem is the FCC regs that say that a complete system including antenna must be tested end to end to make sure it doesn't break the power rules. I can't help thinking that there's something wrong here. This is an attempt to regulate the market at the supply end when the devices are now a commodity. All it's done is result in a proliferation of odd connectors from the manufacturers while vaguely "illegal" antennas and amps are freely available. it can be hard but all the odd connectors are also freely available making home builds easy as well. The alternative of policing finished rigs that break the rules and cause interference is much more difficult.

The situation in the UK and Europe is much the same but with dramatically lower power output limits. It's even easier to put together a rig that breaks those rules just by buying or building a moderate gain antenna and attaching it to an approved device.

The real story here is that you should always go for a higher gain antenna over an amplifier as the narrower beamwidth is less likely to cause interference, while the receive gain is likely to be much more. So taking the amps off the market is actually doing everyone a favour. [from: JB Wifi]

BT! and! Yahoo! in! BB! marriage!

Goodbye "BT Openworld", hello "BT Yahoo! Broadband"

I have to wonder why. But then I'm one of those reactionary old bigots who thinks that the killer broadband app is the Internet. And that captive portals and broadband "launch pads" are hopelessly 1997. Hopefully BT Retail's "no frills" broadband only offering won't change except maybe to go down in price. Talking of which, where are the consumer retail price cuts? [from: JB Ecademy]

Another blog search tool has appeared with some funky features and featured funk. Here's the profile page for Ecademy. BlogStreet : Blog Home [from: JB Ecademy]

This is one of those posts about business ideas that might as well be a Lazyweb request. I'll toss it out because I'd really like it to happen in the real world and I'm unlikely to make it happen myself. But if you pick it up and run with it, offer me a job, ok! At the moment it's one of those dotcom business plans Step1) Have Idea. Step 2) ????. Step3) Make Loadsamoney!

Ever since I first discovered computer adventure games, RPGs (Role Playing Games) and MMRPGs (Massively Multiplayer Role Paying Games) I wanted them to leak out into the real world. I wanted some of the puzzles and clues to be out there in the real world, eg "Go to Reality Checkpoint at 7:07 on 7-7 and get X" or "23rd word, pg23, penguin edition of Decline and Fall". Then I came across a group in Finland who had combined Dungeons and Dragons, SMS, paintball and the primitive geo-location of cellphones to make an online game where you picked up virtual weapons at specific locations and attacked people who were physically near you all via SMS.

Yesterday, I heard about an ICA experiment that unfortunately has just finished. "Uncle Roy Is All Around You is a game to be played in the streets of London: Street Players search for Uncle Roy through the back streets, the tourist traps and the leafy boulevards of Westminster with a handheld computer. Online Players cruise through a virtual model of the same area, searching for the Street Players and looking for leads that will help them find Uncle Roy. Using web cams, audio and text messages players must work together. They have 60 minutes and the clock is ticking..."

Today, I came across a Multi-level marketing group called C4 Game Club that among other things is franchising WiFi hotspot equipment specifically aimed at people who want to have LAN Party group gaming sessions (Counterstrike, Team Fortress, Unreal, Quake etc) in public places.

Then there's those TV programmes with the gorgeous Suzy Perry racing about and being directed by people in the studio trying to solve puzzles.

So I'm putting all this together and seeing the potential for a game that involves roaming yoof armed with camera cellphones, WiFi/GPRS connected PDAs and such like, playing interactively with people who are broadband connected but at home and/or laptop connected and at a WiFi hotspot. Mix in a bit of the background from the Playstation game "The Getaway". Add IM, VoIP, speech synthesis and a soundtrack. You'd have online people communicating and directing offline people and vice versa, working in teams and in real time.

Somebody please build this. I want to play it. [from: JB Ecademy]