Hasta La Gadget!

The Big Apple already has a candy coating of free WiFi, between permanent providers, transient offers, and the million coffee shops (et al) with a router inside. If there were any dead zones left in the city, GOWEX probably has them covered, with its 1,953 free WiFi hotspots now live throughout Manhattan, Queens, Staten Island, Brooklyn and the Bronx. Repeat: this isn’t a plan, the network is up and running right now. Each connection gets 1Mb of bandwidth, and you can jump on access points with GOWEX’s app (also free) for iOS and Android, which also hosts content like a hotspot map and other city-specific info not related to WiFi. The company has other major cities in the US on its to-do list, and expects to bring free internets to two additional locales during 2013. Not that it matters to users, but GOWEX ain’t doing this for fun — it’ll be profiting from advertising, its “Smart City services,” and charging carriers for lightening traffic on their data networks. Who needs a data plan, anyway? It’ll soon be impossible to find anywhere in NYC without a free WiFi hotspot, or seven.

Filed under: Wireless, Internet

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Source: GOMEX

Libratone’s speaker line hasn’t been convenient at all for mobile users who don’t swing the iOS way — not unless they’ve got a very long audio cable. The audio designer hasn’t quite achieved the Holy Grail of full wireless control for other platforms, but its new Android app provides the next best thing. The release lets Android 2.3 and beyond set up Live, Lounge and Zipp speakers on the WiFi network, and it can tune their sounds to match a physical space or musical tastes. There’s still a distance to go when the speaker needs an aux-in connection just to change the volume. Still, we’ll take a free app if it saves us a few walks across the living room.

Filed under: Cellphones, Peripherals, Portable Audio/Video, Mobile

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Source: Google Play

Sick of overloaded public WiFi? So is the FCC. Back at CES FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said we were heading for a WiFi “traffic jam,” and promised to work with Government agencies to score public networks a little extra spectrum. In an effort to make good on the pledge, the FCC has now proposed a 195 megahertz expansion of the 5GHz band, giving unlicensed wireless devices (that would be your tablets, laptops, phones etc) a little bandwidth to share. The move would give devices a wider channel, which should translate to faster connection speeds. It isn’t all just for the sake of your local coffee shop’s network congestion, however — the proposal also fulfills requirements laid out by the Middle Class Tax Relief and Jobs Creation Act of 2012, which called for expanding spectrum for unlicensed use. Sounds like a winning move to us. Check out the FCC’s official press announcement after the break.

Filed under: Wireless

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Getting data is still a pain while abroad: it usually involves either popping a local SIM into an unlocked device or simply paying through the nose for roaming rates. AT&T wants to meet visitors to the UK halfway through a new WiFi deal with BSkyB’s The Cloud. The pact offers AT&T subscribers 1GB of free WiFi access per month at The Cloud’s hotspots in the UK, as long as they’re using the American carrier’s WiFi International app. The catch? As with AT&T’s normal approach, travelers need to have an international data plan already in place — which means The Cloud is more a way to raise the limit than a true replacement for a roaming bundle. Nonetheless, anyone who just needs that much more data for an Instagram shot of the London Eye can get their fill through the source links.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, AT&T

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Via: The Next Web

Source: App Store, Google Play, AT&T

Leaning towards the Samsung Galaxy Camera but don’t think that cellular connectivity is of much use for you? Well, Sammy‘s just taken the covers off a new variant, dubbed the EK-GC110, forsaking the 3G / 4G modem and making the device more affordable in the process. Other key specs remain the same as its sibling, the EK-GC100, including a 16.3-megapixel CMOS sensor, 21x optical zoom, 4.8-inch display, 1.4GHz quad-core processor and Android 4.1. The all-important pricing and availability information is still TBA, however. And while this WiFi-only iteration is even less likely to make you set your smartphone aside, hopefully it won’t hurt your wallet so much.

Filed under: Cameras, Samsung

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Source: Samsung