Oklahoma town provides real-time streaming from cop cars, free WiFi to residents

Traffic wardens over in the UK have been wielding handheld camcorders for well over a year now, but Ponca City, Oklahoma is making waves here in America with a slightly more sophisticated alternative. In conjunction with Honeywell, the town is implementing a broadband mesh network comprised of over 490 wireless nodes and gateways from Tropos Networks, and aside from providing free WiFi to some 30 square miles of residents, it's also hoping to use the abundant connectivity to help public safety. For instance, the city has installed wireless video cameras in police vehicles so "dispatchers and supervisors can monitor activities during traffic stops, and quickly deploy additional officers and resources if necessary." 'Course, that's just the official word -- everyone and their mother knows this is just the beginning of "C.O.P.S.: Live in Oklahoma."
[Via: Slashdot ] [Tag: citywide wifi, CitywideWifi, cops, honeywell, mesh, mesh networking, MeshNetworking, muni-fi, oklahoma, police, ponca city, PoncaCity, safety, wifi ]

Proxim Orinoco AP-8000 Doubles Wi-Fi Throughput With Two 802.11n Radios [Wi-Fi]

This one's more for the IT dudes, but is interesting as an indication of how we may see more speed squeezed out of the 802.11n wi-fi spec: a new enterprise access point from Proxim uses two 802.11n radios simultaneously, effectively doubling throughput to 320 Mbps (a single wireless N radio maxes out at around 170 Mbps). But it can't just be that simple, right? No. The bottleneck in a setup like this is the centralized wireless controller chipset architecture that routes all of the data coming in and out. Proxim's solution, instead, uses a new distributed wireless architecture for which enables it to smartly share the burden over the two radios. It uses two standard Atheros 802.11n radio chips and a controller processor from Freescale. Of course, your computer only has one radio, so you won't see double the speeds on your local machine. This just helps cram more data onto a huge enterprise network without bringing it down, but an interesting strategy that could, theoretically, find its way into more consumer-type gear. The dual-radio AP-8000 costs $1,099, and also looks like a Dungeness crab after I've eaten four delicious legs already. Sold! [Via: Gizmodo, The Gadget Blog ] [Tag: ]

Starbucks Free Wi-Fi Officially Launched [Starbucks]

Just like we told you yesterday, the Starbucks free Wi-Fi program with AT&T is officially a go today. If you go to sign up for a Starbucks card, you get the option of with or without Wi-Fi. As long as you use the prepaid card once a month, you get two hours of free Wi-Fi a day. Welcome to 2008, Starbucks. [Harbucks]

[Via: Gizmodo, The Gadget Blog ]
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Eye-Fi Announces Explore, Share and Home Models

Not so long ago we reviewed the Eye-Fi, a 2GB SD card that adds Wi-Fi to any digital camera. Now the company is expanding their product line with the Eye-Fi Explore ($129), Eye-Fi Share ($99) and the Eye-Fi Home ($79). The big news? Eye-Fi is now supporting hotspots and geotagging with the Explore.It should be noted that even though the cards are set at different pricepoints, the Explore, Share and Home all feature identical hardware (that's actually the same as the original Eye-Fi). So instead of making hardware differentiations, the company is pricing the cards according to the backend service.The Explore
Through a partnership with Wayport, users will be able to automatically upload their photos in about 10,000 hotspots through the US. Through the partnership, the user will not need to accept terms and conditions at every coffee shop, and the user can receive email notifications for successful uploads. But the catch is that the Wayport service is only good for one year (Eye-Fi is looking into longer term partnerships with more hot spot companies which they may or may not charge an additional fee for).Geotagging comes with the Explore as well through Skyhook's Wi-Fi triangulation (the same thing we see the current iPhone using instead of GPS).The Share
This model is pretty much identical in features to the current Eye-Fi. You get automatic syncing with your PC as well as services like Flickr.The Home
The Eye-Fi home is made for the guy who just wants to sync their photos with their PC, not upload them automatically to the web or hit up hot spots. It's essentially offering a price drop to consumers who aren't interested in the additional services.The cards will be available starting June 6th. And unfortunately, current Eye-Fi owners will not be able to simply upgrade their cards to have Explore capabilities.
[Via: Gizmodo, The Gadget Blog ]
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