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Buzzword:
Get ready for the Wireless MAN, baby. Or short for Wireless Metropolitan Area Network.
> All About The MAN

Spam Overload Dept:
According to a recent survey, about 65 percent of Net users spend 10 minutes or more a day dealing with spam. About 37 percent of respondents get 100 junk messages a day, and 63 percent get 50 or more.
Source: Symantec and Insightexpress

Alice Hill's Technology Watch

Thursday, August 26, 2004

Buzzword Altert: The "Cantenna" WiFi Booster

This all started as an act of desperation. College kids in search of free WiFi piggybacking rigged Pringles potato chip cans on their rooftops to find wireless signals that would normally be out of range. They dubbed the devices "cantennas."

Now the Super Cantenna lets you do the same with a more polished $19.95 version. No chips included. According to the company, here is why you would upgrade from the snack variety of antenna:

"Why not a "home made" Cantenna? The Super Cantenna's dimensions, shielding, and polarization have been engineered for maximum signal strength and distance, using only high-quality and lab-tested materials to manufacture the outer shell and inner parts. This ensures consistent and superior performance over typical homemade 'Pringles' type antennas."
# Posted at 3:44 PM

Major Shift in Embedded Wi-Fi Market

Looks like WiFi is going inside, or rather is becoming embedded in most new PCs and handhelds. Beats those add-in WiFI cards that bent or got lost. Some stats to consider from In-Stat/MDR:

* The market for embedded Wi-Fi clients (including mobile PCs, PDAs and phones) will grow at a 66.2% Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) to 226.0 million units shipped in 2008.

* After five years of healthy growth since its mainstream commercialization, the worldwide Wi-Fi hardware market (i.e., network infrastructure and adapters) finally surpassed $1.0 billion in (4Q 2003) quarterly revenues.

* There has been a significant growth in Wi-Fi-enabled notebook PCs, as 55.0% of the 32.1 million notebook PCs shipped in 2003 contained embedded Wi-Fi adapters.
# Posted at 3:29 PM

Tuesday, August 24, 2004

High Tech Wine Chiller

The Angelshare WA-1 wine cooling unit is only sold in Asia right now, but it is definitely cool in the literal sense.

Then again, it also looks a bit like a high tech coffin which may be a disturbing image as you crack open your prized Bordeaux. It may also be overkill, when you consider that people have been cooling red wine for centuries without giant table cooling units, but we have to applaud any company that puts a new spin on an old concept.

# Posted at 10:02 AM

Monday, August 23, 2004

Pills to Go

This product would have been great in the 1950's when people didn't buy water and took tons of pills.

For those trapped in the 50s or just without a water bottle, "Pills to Go" is a new combo pack that includes aspirin and a little vial of water. Our question: what happens if you need more than two aspirins or can't get the pills down with that tiny amount of water?
# Posted at 2:49 PM

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