The American authorities are fond of requiring warning stickers on everything. Take for instance, McDonald's coffee cups with "Warning: May contain hot fluids". And yet cars seem to be relatively free of this apart from the famous "Objects in mirror may be closer than they appear".

I was leafing through the latest Wired just now admiring the adverts for GM and the Chevrolet Suburban among others and it occured to me that there really ought to be warning stickers on SUVs. Perhaps something like the old WWII Jeep stencils "Sudden turns equals sudden death". Or maybe "This vehicle's excessive fuel consumption may be responsible for war in the Middle East. Please use responsibly". Or how about "This vehicle is not a weapon".

Why do people buy SUVs? [from: JB Ecademy]

Bruce Sterling has an interesting article: Barbarians at the gate in this month's Wired. He cites 4 problems for Europe.

It lacks a real government. Managing Europe by remote control through 15 national authorities was unwieldy, but 25 looks downright impossible.

European countries that haven't yet been absorbed are in steep decline.

Europe is lightly armed. Although Europeans in general scorn the American cowboy tradition of blowing the living daylights out of bandits, the EU's fringe hosts its share of vigilante bloodletting - thanks to church-burning Balkan bandits, tin-pot dictators in Belarus, Albanian heroin gangsters, and cold-eyed al Qaeda theology students.

Today's children are the citizens of the future, and Europe has very few of them. While Asia's population spills out of its own borders to colonize the West, Europe's is aging and shrinking.

He finishes with a comment I've raised before. "And it doesn't have to stay put on any particular continent, either." Where are the natural borders of the EU? I'd say the Urals, The Sahara and the Gulf. What would Europe be like if everything inside that was absorbed?
[from: JB Ecademy]

Chris Lydon runs a radio show in the USA. He's been interviewing the A-List bloggers and putting the results up on his site as MP3s. Worth a listen if you have a few hours to spare. [from: JB Ecademy]

Flash Mob London Soho Main Site Aug 7th [from: JB Ecademy]

There's some cold hard facts here for hotspot operators and networks. VC Returns -- Do They Exist in Wi-Fi? :: AO : The fully loaded cost of offering free Wi-Fi access is less than $6/day. Operating a billable hotspot costs over $30/day. Now if we understand that the $6/day includes bandwidth costs. And that bandwidth would have been available anyway for the use of the venue, we get down to maybe $4/day.

So what we have is that WiFi at a hotspot is either too cheap to charge for or too expensive to sell. Tricky. Especially if you're doing a competitive analysis of pricing. It would be easy to compare WiFi pricing with notional 3G pricing. But the real competition is the people giving it away either for free or free with a purchase from the venue (buy a sandwich get 30 minutes).

As AO put it, "By viewing Wi-Fi as an entirely new network, the mobile carriers have exaggerated Wi-Fi's profit opportunity. Realistically, Wi-Fi is simply an extension to the high-volume, low-margin IP-over-Ethernet business, not a new, large profit opportunity." [from: JB Wifi]

I was mulling over this morning's crop of emails and came up with this. There's a mismatch here that has spilled over into technical discussions about RDF, XML parsers and such like. I'd like to present two views of FOAF. They're not mutually exclusive and there are others.

1. FOAF is RSS for people.
I'm not the first and I won't be the last person to come to FOAF and go "Wow, this is RSS for people. That's totally awesome. I want to play." This approach says that FOAF is potentially an easily writable, easily parseable standard format for coding up information about people and the relationships between them. And since people and their relationships have huge applicability, this could end up being very widely implemented. Bigger than RSS. And that will enable people to build all sorts of apps that we haven't thought of yet. Like the potential to let us build de-centralized versions of the social networking sites that are "This Year's Big Thing" or at least to link them together. And to link all the blogs together. And to...

2. FOAF is yet another namespace.
A number of people working in the RDF metadata area found there was a need for a bunch of RDF classes and properties to describe people and the relationships between them. There didn't seem to be anything useable in existing namespaces and there weren't any that could be obviously extended in this direction. So they created one. FOAF will get used by people who find RDF useful and need a namespace like it for the data they're working on. As RDF grows and becomes more widespread, so will FOAF. And because people and their relationships appear in a lot of problem domains, the FOAF namespace will probably get used a lot in RDF data.

Incidentally. If you're following this, I can strongly recommend reading the following to help understand the issues.
Missing isn't broken: data validation and freedom on the Semantic Web
Parsing FOAF with PHP [from: JB Ecademy]

From a press release from Airpath
Internet Magazine - News/Advice/Reviews/ISPs/Hosting

BT Openzone customers will soon be able to use WiFi access points in the US, thanks to a new deal between BT and Airpath Wireless.

Airpath has already secured 1,500 hotspots in the US, and plans to have 4,600 in place within a year. BT customers will initially have access to 350 of them in September.

BT customers can already access 660 hotspots in Scandinavia, France, Belgium, Thailand and London, thanks to a roaming agreement with European operator TeliaSonera.
www.bt.com/openzone
www.airpath.com

British Telecommunications (BT) and T-Mobile have also joined an Asian consortium called the Wireless Broadband Alliance (WBA) that offers WiFi roaming in the Far East. [from: JB Wifi]

Just had a press release from MyZones - The world's first integrated Wi-Fi Internet Service Provider

"On 25 July 2003 changes to part of the EU Regulatory Framework (or "Telecoms Package") will allow
MyZones to provide full commercial Wi-Fi broadband services.

Changes to this act will allow our customers to act as resellers of their own Wi-Fi broadband
connections. Share the connection, share the price.

Share your broadband over Wi-Fi with one person and pay under £18 each per month, share with two
and pay under £12 each per month, share with three and pay only £8.81 a month!

Why not have Wi-Fi installed during the summer? ….enjoy the freedom of broadband internet access
without the wires, connect any device within 300 feet... Surf in the garden, connect your second PC,
share your broadband with your neighbours, lose the wires, and be free." [from: JB Wifi]

We've now got 10 people with a link to an external FOAF file in their profile. I've had to remove the data for a few people who obviously didn't understand what that is as they had put in their web home page.

If you want to play, take a look at Foaf-a-matic, then go to the profile edit page and put in the url of the file you've just created under "External FOAF file" just above the field for fifty words. [from: JB Ecademy]

CATTERICK VILLAGE GETS BROADBAND
04 July 2003

The first phase of the community broadband network in Catterick Village is now installed and ready to offer a super-fast Internet connection to homes, businesses, and the new LearnDirect centre.

Community champions, local business people, and the DigitalDales.co.uk team have worked together to raise the necessary funding locally and to bring broadband to the village using the latest satellite based services together with innovative wireless technology. Wi-fi, the wireless technology used, eliminates the need to use the telephone system for delivering broadband to each user, and means that a community network, run by the community for the community, can be set up without requiring BT or other telcos involvement. In Catterick Village, Purple Technology Limited, a local business, provides the broadband connection to the Internet using Aramiska's unique satellite system. A key feature of the system is its scalability, allowing upgrades as more people subscribe to use the network.

Community networks are springing up around the country in response to market failure, and such networks create local employment, keep investment within the region, and encourage new enterprises. The initial capital investment required is minimal, meaning that even the smallest rural community can create their own sustainable broadband network. The Catterick Village network is a flagship project, leading the way for other regional projects to bring broadband and its benefits to rural areas in the near future, enabling communities, and encouraging regeneration.

Phil Upton, Managing Director of Purple Technology, said "Broadband allows both business and residential communities in Catterick Village to have the same advantages as larger towns. We now have educational and training opportunities, as well as being able to compete as businesses in a global market place."

Digital Dales is holding a conference on July 17th at Harlow Carr Gardens in Harrogate entitled "Broadband in Yorkshire". This includes updates on the developments in the region, the central Government rural broadband agenda, news from industry and communities, followed by the DIY Broadband workshop. This workshop covers all the required elements for setting up your own community network - funding, business models, technology options, licensing, case studies, best practice, and much more. All are welcome. Register now on digitaldales.co.uk/broadband

The Digital Dales team spokeperson, Lindsey Annison, who is also co-founder of the Access to Broadband Campaign, said, "This is a really great achievement in Catterick Village. In just 3 months, the initial funding has been raised, the village surveyed, and the equipment installed. This should give hope to all rural communities that broadband is available to everyone, now."

The LearnDirect centre in Catterick Village main high street will be opened by the Rt Hon William Hague on Saturday 5th July at 10.30am, Purple Technology and the Digital Dales team will be on hand to answer questions, advise and encourage other communities to follow the lead of the broadband pioneers in Catterick Village.

FOR EDITORS

Purple Technology is a local business based in Catterick Village offering a range of services to the region including Sales & Marketing, Information Technology & Software Development and Management Training Courses.

Digital Dales is a community project started in the Upper Dales, with a national reputation. The team of local people is responsible for organizing national broadband seminars, promoting and educating businesses and citizens about broadband, and installing wireless broadband networks with its partner organisation Digital Fells, e.g. the DTI/NWDA-funded EdenFaster (www.edenfaster.com) project in Upper Eden valley. Investigations are now under way into providing broadband access along the Wensleydale Railway.

Lindsey Annison, Program Manager for Digital Dales, is also co-founder of the Access to Broadband Campaign (www.ABCampaign.org.uk), and will be speaking at the ABC Rural and Regional Broadband conference in London on July 17th.

Aramiska is a European Internet Service Provider for businesses. It offers Internet services via satellite, based on the advanced two-way open standard DVB-RCS (Digital Video Broadcasting-Return Channel System). Aramiska controls the end-to-end connection and is available everywhere. Aramiska's head office is located in Eindhoven, the Netherlands with local offices in UK, France and Spain.

Funding for the Catterick Village project has come from the LSC, European Objective 2 Priority 3 and the Vital Villages programme.

Contact Details:
Purple Technology - www.purple-technology.biz
(info@purple-technology.biz)
Phil Upton - 01748 812547

Digital Dales - www.digitaldales.co.uk
(team@digitaldales.co.uk)
Lindsey Annison - 07967 670759
Joel Smith - 01423 712591 / 07768 803758

Catterick Village - Community Works Office
(rose@communityworks.fsnet.co.uk)
Melva Steckles - 01748 810050

Aramiska Broadband - www.aramiska.com
(p.gumm@aramiska.net)
Peter Gumm - Marketing Communication Manager
020 8313 7717
[from: JB Wifi]

DorneyWeb Wireless Broadband
13 July 2003

Today marks the start of 145 rural residents receiving high speed, always on, broadband internet access. Dorney Reach, in Maidenhead, Berkshire is the location where this service is based. Out of reach from traditional ADSL based services, the community was stranded with dial-up access or costly satellite connections. Today marks the start of change - a high speed 2Mbit wireless broadband service was made 'live' for residents to connect seamlessly to the world wide web. Using no more than a Wireless LAN adaptor (WiFi) each resident accesses the internet using a Mesh topology network, which in turn connects to a high speed wireless backbone.

Using open source technology from LocustWorld (www.locustworld.com) helped reduce startup costs, meaning PoundHost could offer broadband to a low number of residents at a very competitive price. £25 per month for a high speed 2Mbit service is one of the lowest broadband costs in the UK, for such a high speed.

The local 2.4Ghz 'mesh' network connects to a high speed 5.8Ghz backbone link over two miles, straight into the PoundHost Data centre where internet access is readily available.

Matthew Munson, Managing Director of PoundHost Internet Services said 'we are pleased to be in a position to help the local community gain a high speed internet connection. We have received praise from a number of local residents who can now easily work from home without delays introduced by normal dial-up modems, or the cost of expensive satellite based services'. 'We've also extended our coverage to a local primary school as well as areas of the River Thames and Monkey Island who were without broadband access, using our existing network as the starting point.' 'It's great to be able to utilise our resources to benefit the community in such a way.'

DorneyNet and PoundHost are to hold an official launch event, including live demonstrations and a rural Internet Café. If you would like invitations to this event, please contact us.

Contact Details:
DorneyNet Website - www.dorneynet.co.uk or www.dorneybroadband.co.uk
E-Mail: Info@dorneynet.co.uk
Telephone: 01628 777730

PoundHost Internet Services:
PoundHost Website - www.poundhost.com
E-Mail: Info@PoundHost.com
Telephone: 0870 744 1700
PO Box 2154, Maidenhead, Berkshire. SL6 0BQ
[from: JB Wifi]

Stop reading right now and take a look at your desktop. How many things are you doing right now in addition to reading this blog? Folks, this isn't multi-tasking. This is an advanced case of Nerd Attention Deficiency Disorder or NADD. I am unable to function at my desktop unless I've got, at least, five things going on at the same time. If your count came close, you're probably afflicted, as well. Most excellent.

Uh, what was that? No, I can't fix your computer problem now. Can't you see I'm busy. [from: JB Ecademy]

One for the cypherpunks. Crank the paranoia level up to 10, combine weblogging software with GPG and the Mixmaster anonymous remailing system and you can post in relatively complete anonymity. Not even the site owners know who you are. Great for whistleblowing or political activism in repressive regimes.

invisiblog.com (beta) - anonymous weblog publishing [from: JB Ecademy]

A little while ago it came to light that the Linksys 54G series run Linux. Here's a report at O'Reilly Network: Linux on the Linksys [July 16, 2003] that Rob Flickenger and the NoCat crew are getting close to adding utilities to it, but need some tech information from Linksys to be able to upload their code to the box.

Rob's absolutely right when he says "If the open source community were provided technical details about your
firmware file format, I believe you would see an unprecedented interest in your 54G line. The ability to run custom Linux software on a commercial access point would certainly make it one of the most desirable access points on the market"

The question I have is whether there's enough ROM and RAM on the box to do anything useful. A lot of Locustworld's early work was similar to this but at the time the boxes that could be hacked didn't have enough resources so they went down the route of using a more general purpose PC instead.

So come on Linksys, do the right thing. You've kept to the letter of the GPL. How about making the upload parameters open as well? [from: JB Wifi]

CYBERFROST.net | Business News and Technology Reports reports on Yahoo! BB in Japan. 12Mbps for $21 per month. With dirt cheap VoIP thrown in and Video on demand over IP just starting. And they're getting 7000 new signups per day. [from: JB Ecademy]

Yesterday we had Smart Posses. Today it's Smart Flocks at FlockSmart.com

Beaahh! Beaahh! Why am I thinking about sheep with brain electrodes and laser guns attached to their backs, rampaging round the countryside? Of course, it's the feral Smart Sheep(tm) you really have to look out for. [from: JB Ecademy]

Vivato have a very interesting product. It's an electronically steerable high gain antenna combined with a switch. It effectively means that each client is served by it's own high gain antenna at the access point. In a recent demo in Spokane, they covered most of the downtown area with just 6 antennas. This ought to be very interesting to people trying to provide metropolitan WiFi access. There's quite a few of these now in Europe.

On one of the mailing lists, I recently asked whether Vivato's switches would be legal in the UK and Europe given the EIRP restrictions of 100mW. I've just been contacted by one of their people to say that approval under ETSI looks very unlikely in the next two years at least.

Yet another example of how the excessively tight ETSI regs are holding back development and deployment of WiFi in Europe.

If anyone out there can help Vivato get through ETSI or can help get ETSI relaxed, contact me and I'll put you in touch. [from: JB Wifi]

Jim Moore's Weblog writes about an idea called "Smart Posse". You've maybe heard about Smart Mobs; technologically facilitated mobs that come together quickly at short notice. You've maybe also heard of Meetup.com; a system to manage regular club meetings worldwide. Put the two together and you'd have a system for getting a handful of like minded people for some purpose at short notice. Another one in this area that never really took off was local2me; a mailing list system where you send and receive messages based on how close your zip codes/postcodes are.

Not sure if there's really something here, but I like the name [from: JB Ecademy]

The Register has a story about MyZones. These guys were at the Olympia Wifi show. They have a managed access point that lets you share your Broadband connection with neighbours. "A typical MyZones customer would have full always on 512K broadband service for two people sharing at £17.62 per month, three people for £11.74 per month, four people for £8.81 per month (all charges include VAT)." The equipment comes from Netgear and the package includes "a Wi-Fi broadband starter pack including an ADSL modem, Wi-Fi access point, a USB wireless adapter and the MyZones client software" There's also an upgrade pack for existing broadband customers but they need to "check with their existing broadband service provider if their broadband terms and conditions allow sharing" and they pay extra to use the MyZones software.

I still think there's something in here that doesn't quite ring true. [from: JB Wifi]