Wifi

Apple has announced that its iPad will be available in an additional nine countries from Friday, July 23. All varieties of both the Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi + 3G models will hit Apple’s retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers in Austria, Belgium, Hong Kong, Ireland, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand and Singapore.  Read More

Unsurprisingly, the Australian outback doesn’t exactly boast the greatest mobile phone coverage in the world. But researchers down under have managed to make mobile phone calls in this remote landscape without the use of towers or satellites. Instead of relying on expensive infrastructure, the researchers created a mesh-based phone network between Wi-Fi enabled mobile phones that allowed them to communicate with each other.  Read More

Passengers boarding either a Cathay Pacific Airways or Dragonair jet in 2012 will be able to make use of broadband connectivity. This week, the airline confirmed an agreement with Panasonic Avionics Corporation to provide broadband access across its entire fleet with download speeds of up to 50Mbps (to the aircraft – not individual passengers), as well as call and data access for cell phones.  Read More

Accessing the Internet while away from the home or office has never been easier. When there’s no Wi-Fi available users can jump on 3G broadband to get their online fix. And that’s the way it has generally been, with the two main mobile communications technologies acting as complementary services. But with the advent of Wi-Fi based municipal wireless networks some experts say there is a strong possibility that Wi-Fi will compete with the 3G cell phone network in city areas and perhaps even become a substitute.  Read More

Billed as “the first truly portable internet radio on the market,” View Quest’s WIFI200 lets you listen to over 12,000 radio stations and 7,000 podcasts, wherever you can get WiFi. Pretty cool. The wallet-sized gizmo even won an International Forum Design Award, so it must be doing something right. The bottom line is, you need never listen to Top 40 again... unless you really want to.  Read More

The outlook for piping music into office space or the shop floor is about to get a lot brighter. Lighting solutions company Osram Sylvania and audio innovator Artisan have teamed up to produce the MusicLites system - a 10W LED light bulb with a 70mm full range hi-fi audio speaker built in. The inclusion of a 2.4GHz wireless transceiver means that compatible audio devices can send music sound signals to the unit, which then pumps out both sound and light.  Read More

If you like to find out what else is on radio, the Grace Digital Solo Wi-Fi Internet radio tuner could be one to add to your collection of music devices. Solo connects to practically any home stereo system or powered speaker set via its stereo RCA jacks and promises easy set up with its built-in Wi-Fi 802.11g card that connects directly to any 802.11b/g/n wireless router. There’s also an free iPhone app that turns your phone into a remote that allows you search, skip, and power the Solo anywhere within range.  Read More

Ok well maybe it isn't quite music, but it certainly sounds interesting. Created by Yoshi Akai, the Wireless Catcher is a sort of analog synthesizer that detects nearby WiFi signals and outputs a sound that varies according to the strength and direction of that signal. It's almost reminiscent of a theremin in how it created tones without any visible vibration or physical contact.  Read More

If you’ve stacked on a few too many pounds over the festive season, this could be just the thing to help turn the tide. Withings, maker of the world’s first WiFi-connected personal scale has integrated its product with the Google Health service. The Withings WiFi Body Scale can provide updates to a user’s Google Health profile in real-time using its built-in WiFi connection.  Read More