billso.com

Tech: From the AP: “Small companies, some publicly traded, are burning cash trying to turn Wi-Fi into viable business. Some have already shut down. Faster than you can say “industry bubble,” skeptics are asking whether wireless Internet connections will become similar to the wired Internet of the late 1990s — hot but rarely profitable. “Anyone trying to build a stand-alone business on Wi-Fi access should be worried,” said analyst John Yunker of Byte Level Research. “It’s not a stand-alone business, it’s an add-on to other communications businesses, the cable bill or the DSL bill.”“

Tech: Yahoo! News - Five Short-Range Wireless Standards Seen Combining: “Five short-range wireless connection technologies are fighting for the industry limelight, but sector specialists said on Friday that companies would eventually combine the five to make life easier. Automatic wireless connections between electronic devices are the Holy Grail of the computer and consumer electronics industry.
Companies hope consumers will buy new devices once they are able to listen to their music collections anywhere in the house or on the road, see DVDs and photo albums on any screen, or program their hard disk recorders from a Web site. This brave new world, in which a car’s lights, speakers and cell phone are all connected to the dashboard with wireless chips, may be here in a few years, or in some cases sooner.
‘We haven’t even scratched the surface,’ Paul Marino, manager of connectivity at Philips semiconductors unit, told Reuters at a Wireless Connectivity industry show. ” Bye-bye Bluetooth?

Tech: Yahoo! News - Complaints Over Cell Phone Service Abound: “Consumers complain of frequently dropped calls, lousy customer service and exorbitant penalties for exiting a contract. Then there are the fees - Verizon Wireless plans to collectively charge customers more than $173 million a year in fees for number portability alone.

The complaints range from mundane to dramatic.

After Julie McMurry’s husband died last summer, Verizon Wireless told the Enumclaw, Wash. woman that she would have to pay an early termination fee on his cell phone contract. ‘I said, ‘This isn’t an arbitrary thing, I’d be glad to fax you a copy of the death certificate. The man’s dead.”

The Verizon rep said McMurry could either pay the fee or give the phone to another family member.

She called Carl Hilliard, president of the Wireless Consumers Alliance. “I just happened to be in a meeting with Verizon Wireless’s attorney and mentioned it to him,” Hilliard said. “It was reversed.”
 ”

US: From the NYT courtesy of CNN, Thomas Friedman asks “Is Google God?” I don’t think so, but with on a wireless device, Google is certainly handy, and its use is growing quickly outside the US:

While we may be emotionally distancing ourselves from the world, the world is getting more integrated. That means that what people think of us, as Americans, will matter more, not less. Because people outside America will be able to build alliances more efficiently in the world we are entering and they will be able to reach out and touch us — whether with computer viruses or anthrax recipes downloaded from the Internet — more than ever.

IT: From the Economist, sentient computing sounds like pervasive computing with a European twist:

By adding sensors to today’s computing and communications technology, sentient computing seeks to take account of a machine’s environment in order to make it more responsive and useful. Sentient computing systems are always on, ubiquitously available, and can adapt to their users. In short, they seek to become real help-mates. To quote a European Commission report, the aim is to create ‘convivial technologies that are easy to live with.’

… Similarly, Microsoft researchers have given wireless PDAs (personal digital assistants) new user interfaces by adding tilt sensors and accelerometers. Users can scroll through documents by tipping the PDA back and forth—as if they were controlling the ball-bearing in a toy maze. Lifting the PDA to the ear creates sensor outputs that cause the device to make a phone call. Researchers have even used the accelerometers to recognise walking patterns so that the PDA can decide whether to accept or divert a phone call.