WiFi On Two Wheels 200
MeGaBiTe1 writes "Yury Gitman is not the average cyclist from Brooklyn. His goal is to bring more easily accessible free wireless hotspots to the masses. To do this, he has created what he calls the Magicbike, a bicycle equipped with a laptop, power supply and antenna. Gitman's bike has allowed people in NYC to browse the internet freely in local parks and gardens. 'I am like the ice cream man, but with no music and I deliver free wireless access and not ice cream'."
Not that his effort isn't appreciated but... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Not that magical (Score:2, Interesting)
Does anyone remember a bike called BEHEMOTH? (Score:4, Interesting)
Big Electronic Human Energised Machine, Only Too Heavy
Check this out [microship.com]
Why not free Wi-Fi on Caltrain? (Score:4, Interesting)
PointShot (http://pointshotwireless.com), the folks that provided ACE passengers with the country's first Wi-Fi train service, is in the process of trying to bring a Wi-Fi service to Caltrain here in Silicon Valley.
But according to Caltrain management, it is going to take a year to find a free provider:
"Caltrain is currently working on a request for proposal to provide wi-fi on its trains. Our goal is to be able to attract a provider who will provide free wi-fi service through more than just a pilot period. If the entire process goes smoothly, we may be able to offer wi-fi within about a year.
Our long-term vision is to provide complimentary wi-fi and work with companies along our corridor to allow their employees to start their workday by logging on while on the train. We believe this will be a huge quality of life benefit to our customers and their employees."
For those of you that don't know, Caltrain is the Silicon Valley commuter train that serves passengers from San Jose to San Francisco.
If you find "a year" to be entirely too long or you know of interested Wi-Fi providers, email boardsecretary@caltrain.com or go to http://www.caltrain.org/contact.html.
Re:why not city busses? (Score:3, Interesting)
Managing multiple links intelligently is the key.
At work we have a SUV with a DirectPC dish on the roof under a radome, 1X, GPS, and 200 mW 802.11b
We already have it on trains: PointShot Wireless [pointshotwireless.com]
Re:Sounds good.... (Score:5, Interesting)
At first glance, you're right. The whole thing lacks practicality. That is, until you realize that someone riffed off of the MagicBike and found an innovative and economical way to deliver internet access to rural Cambodia by strapping wifi to a bike and riding through villages [dailywireless.org] twice daily like the mailman.
And all of a sudden, MagicBike seems like the work of a visionary.
I like my bike mod better (Score:4, Interesting)
Oh yeah, and how does he get his connection while on the road, cellphone? Even with Vision or Edge it wouldnt be that great internet access now would it.
Nomadic computing (Score:2, Interesting)