Hasta La Gadget!

 Google is apparently planning to offers subsidized, commercial-grade Wi-Fi hardware to small and medium-sized businesses, The Information reports, alongside software to help greatly improve the quality of the Wi-Fi experience at places like doctors’ offices, restaurants, gyms and more. The hardware would be the only cost involved, as it would use the businesses’ existing… Read More

This backpack may not look much, but it has impressive hidden depths: it contains all the kit you need to establish an ad hoc mobile network in just ten minutes—perfect for those working in disaster areas.

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The networked home is something of an emerging zeitgeist, offering today’s consumers a domestic dreamworld in which every object in your house can be remotely controlled, synced together, and activated according to preset patterns, from heating systems and coffee makers to alarms and personalized lighting.

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Before Ma Bell came to town, and long before DSL, it was barbed wire, of all things, that brought rural communities together. A Sears telephone hooked up to barbed wire—miles of which were already conveniently strung along fences—connected far-flung ranches in the recently settled American west. Thus an ingenious and unregulated telephone system sprung up a hundred years ago.

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Tom Wheeler, the newly crowned chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, has ambitious plans. He’s already on a crusade to get carriers to allow cellphone unlocking, and now he plans to rewrite the technology that supports the nation’s ageing landline phone network.

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