Inside View

Dublin Wi-Fi through San Jose

IRISH TIMES -- Danny O'Brien made some interesting observations about Dublin Wi-Fi while watching free Wi-Fi service being rolled out in San Jose last week.

• The mayor off San Jose is rolling out free Wi-Fi access to downtown San Jose, but anybody with Net Stumbler quickly discovers a host of overlapping signals already in the same spectrum.
• It costs San Jose hotel guests the same to connect to Wi-Fi there as upmarket hotels charge in Dublin--around EUR 10 for a half day.
• Dublin is slowly filling in with Wi-Fi points. BitBuzz and O2 have strong points of presence. Dublin WAN offers a community option as well.
• The brick and granite walls of Dublin severely curtail the coverage of each local node.

O'Brien acknowledges the enthusiasm of local citizenry who are well-able to configure local nodes without requiring big government to kickstart their efforts.

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Danny O'Brien -- "Royston kicks to touch on Dublin emulating San Jose's WiFi initiative" in The Irish Times Wired on Friday, March 26, 2004.
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Profit through media mix

UTV -- Ulster Television posted profits last week of EUR 22.7m, uo 4% at a time when many peer struggle for growth. Media analysts consistently point to UTV outperforming its peers. A small new media business supplying news content to plasma screens continues posting moderate growth.

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Una McCaffrey -- "UTV chief points to geographic and media mix as key to success" in The Irish Times Business This Week, March 26, 2004.
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Free culture

LESSIG -- Several blog authors told my news aggregator that Larry Lessig's Free Culture was out, so I saved a few trees and ordered a hardback copy through Barnes and Noble. (One day later, B&N told me the book had shipped.) Our library deserves a few copies, so I will crank out purchase orders for it to. That's only fair, since the text will become an essential reading in our Mass Communication and Culture module. Nicola Corboy (at left) knows that might not be welcomed (click to get her explanation). The third year culture class could benefit by following along with Lawrence Solum's blog-class on "Free Culture." Friends simply do not fathom that you can download the 328 page book before it arrives on the Irish shelves. They do not believe Lessig will profit by offering a free download concurrent with hardback sales. But he will. Moreover, he has done this before.

Connect home broadband

KILKENNY -- Today marks the end of a one-month GPRS browsing experiment. As I canned the project, Eamon Dalton reflected how he was stunned to see a megabyte of GPRS data trickle through his Nokia phone during a short 10-minute browsing session. For the record, you burn up around 400kb when linking into an online Lotus Notes mailbox. The GPRS browsing pushed me through my 5MB monthly allotment. Browsing speed is anemic.

Bottom up feeders

ROSS -- "The bottom-up phenomenon" gets another round of thumbs-up from analysts, this time at the PC Forum 2004 Eventspace. This year's theme, The Big Picture, explored topics from technology, politics, and globalisation. In doing so, the event indirectly validates the courseflow of our BSc in Computing (Multimedia and Communications).

Very local radio

KILKENNY -- Several local citizens are drafting a submission for a community radio license to replace the failed Radio Kilkenny submission. It will be a low-powered transmitter, limiting its reach from Kilkenny City. But what if another flavour of community radio also floated a submission--one whose broadcast extended only 100m from its antenna?

Note to John Hearne

SILICON REPUBLIC -- I work in County Tipperary and spend the equivalent of a workday in Thurles once a fortnight, which gives me an opportunity to see things that could be at variance with the marketing brochures about the place. That's not unusual as we always market ourselves with a difference.

Dick Clarke tells the truth

SLATE -- I agree with Fred Kaplan. "I have no doubt that Richard Clarke, the former National Security Council official who has launched a broadside against President Bush's counterterrorism policies, is telling the truth about every single charge." I will never forget a radio interview with Daire O'Brien when I dutifully vouched for the veracity of satellite imagery flashed around the UN by Colin Powell. In a previous life as an Air Staff analyst, you showed less than you had. It appears no one had real evidence of a compelling reason to invade Iraq and that everything was being done through the prism of the WTC. As Sidney Blumenthal puts it, "Bush is the Oz behind the curtain, but unlike the wizard, the special effects are performed by others. Especially on terrorism and September 11, his White House is at battle stations to prevent the curtain from being pulled open."

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Richard Clarke -- "Against All Enemies"
Fred Kaplan -- "Dick Clarke is telling the truth"
Sidney Blumenthal -- "Bush's brand new enemy is the truth" in The Guardian, March 25, 2004.
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Bogged down by inclusion

DUBLIN -- Ireland will showcase information and communications technologies in a series of events at the end of April, demonstrating how technology integrates to life. Without attending the myriad of events, you could cut to the quick with this "We wear our ICTs" list of observations that I cross-check every time I visit a major Irish population centre.

1. The biggest example of personal ICT is manifested by ring tone. Irish love their mobile phones. The operators point to increasing higher levels of mobile phone penetration (above 80% according to the last hype I checked), without acknowledging that many of the "new" accounts have actually migrated from other networks.
2. The second example of personal ICT manifests through earbuds. Irish students and young professionals carry their personal entertainment with them as MP3s and ripped CDs.
3. Home broadband usage through increased sales of DSL is increasing. Gamers and downloaders love it. You can save money by doing things online. Plus you can avoid queues by paying motor tax and exploring planning applications online.

Wi-Fi Dublin

DUBLIN -- Buswell's Hotel offers free Wi-Fi service until 23 April. The centre city hotel is familiar to anyone in the Dublin chapter of the National Union of Journalists because it offers a venue for regular meetings. The pub area is a great place to capture strings of conversation related to important items of business affecting the national agenda as government buildings are located all around Buswell's. I have never seen a laptop being used in the pub area. I wonder if free Wi-Fi service will change anything--much of the clientele is very set in its ways and not the kind of a crowd associated with early adoption of technology.

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Anthony Quinn -- "New Dublin wireless hotspot goes live" covered by ElectricNews.net and SiliconRepublic.com
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