Just in time for the new iPods, BayAreaFreeFi has announded the WiPod, which is basicallly "an iPod-based guide to free wi-fi in the San Francisco Bay Area." It's a Note File with all the info from their site about where you can get your wireless groove on. The downside to this, obviously, is you need to regularly download the file and replace it on your iPod to have the most uptodate version (guess we'll have too wait for the wifi enabled iPods that will auto sync with the master file!), but otherwise it actually sounds pretty handy. If there was an LA version I'd be using it in a minute.

Tom Bridge just posted over at MacSlash about the first 5 minutes or so of playing with his brand new Apple AirPort Express. Most of it we all know, some of it we don't, but it's all pretty interesting and lust-inducing.

It's a light little device. Really light. Strangely light. Range is pretty decent, even through walls, 50-100 feet is pretty easily doable. Running through the AirPort Admin Utility, I caught this screen and wondered just a little bit. So, if this is a true access control list…does that mean a RADIUS implementation from OS X Server is far off?

It has more than one name. It's got both an AirPort name (Dionysus) and a Room name (Roaming, for iTunes). However, when it shows up in the AirPort Admin Utility, it appears as the Room name, likely to help preserve continuity of the interface.

Apple's new 802.11g base station / wireless USB printing hub / home stereo speaker hooker upper is coming to a home near you. 80,000 of them to be exact. That's how many pre-orders Apple has for the $130 device which they started shipping yesterday.

Can I just point out how bummed I am that I had to go buy a new base station LAST WEEK and this thing is shipping now?

Earlier this year, PalmSource announced that it would not provide Mac OS synchronization software with Palm OS Cobalt (Palm OS 6). Mark/Space, Inc. announced that it would provide new synchronization software for Mac OS X and Palm OS 4, Palm OS 5 and Palm OS Cobalt devices. This new sync software would not only replace HotSync Manager and Palm Desktop, it would offer far more features than what Mac users have had available.

Rather than waiting for Palm OS Cobalt (Palm OS 6) devices, Mark/Space is pleased to announce The Missing Sync for Palm OS, version 4 with support for Palm OS 4 and Palm OS 5 devices and lots of new "Mac First" features!

This is great news for anyone who has been suffering recently with their PDA and Mac not playing nice, and to have a bunch of new "Mac First" features, well that's even better. What are these features you might ask? Bluetooth & WiFi sync support, Desktop mounting of memory cards, iPhoto plug in, iTunes plug in, USB & Bluetooth internet sharing, a Dock icon, and more. Sounds like it's well worth the $30 or so that it costs. If that rumored Treo 610 (or 660, or "Ace") with Bluetooth is released I'll be sure to give a full report on this. (via MobileWhack)

By now everyone should know that Lufthansa is offering hi speed wifi on many of it's flights. People love it and planes aren't dropping out of the sky so the FAA should really consider changing their policies on this - but that's a rant for some other time. Outside of working online from a plane, chatting with friends on the ground seems to be the option everyone wants to explore. Apple has just put up a page about what might be the first video chat.

In what might have been the first in-air commercial videoconference, Apple product manager Kurt Knight, on the ground in Cupertino, hooked up over iChat AV with product line manager Eric Zelenka, returning to San Francisco from Munich, by leveraging Lufthansa's new wireless high-speed broadband connection service.

As of this posting, my friend James McMurry is actually on a flight from Munich to LA and blogging it live. He hasn't been able to get iChat AV to work, but is irc-ing with no problem! He says:

I am wondering if the plane seamlessly switches me from one satellite to another, or will I notice a drop off. Hard to tell when it would occur (if at all) and since I only have 2 fully charged batteries (equal to around 6 hours) on a 12 hour flight, I dont think I will have enough juice to find out :)

According to KisMAC there are 5 802.11b access points on board, all with the same SSID.

This is definitely the future, and kudos goes to Lufthansa for being one of the first to offer this.

With the release of Apple's AirPort Express base station, a lot of people are cratching their heads trying to figure out which is the product they need. I know I've gotten no less than 20 e-mails from friends asking just that. MacMinute fired off a few questions to Apple spokesperson Nathalie Welch on the topic.

MacMinute: As far as determining needs, what criteria should a user consider when determining whether to buy an AirPort Extreme Base Station or an AirPort Express.

Welch: If you travel for business or fun, or are interested in streaming music then AirPort Express is the one to choose. AirPort Extreme is ideal for stationary uses and perfect for small business and educational institutions.

Apple has been pushing the move from 802.11b to 802.11g since releasing their Airport Extreme. Looks like now there's even more reason to switch, I mean, in addition to being extreme.

A serious wireless network technology flaw has been identified that could lead to the breakdown of some critical infrastructures. The flaw, which was discovered by the Queensland University of Technology's (QUT) Information Security Research Centre, affects the 802.11b standard.

...

"Any organization that continues to use the standard wireless technology (IEEE 802.11b) to operate critical infrastructure could be considered negligent," Professor Looi said. "This wireless technology should not be used for any critical applications as the results could potentially be very serious."

Apple's Newton Message Pad, which was discontinued in 1998 sure has been getting a lot of press lately. It seems like everytime I turn around some other Newton freak has figured out a way to keep these devices current. Wired is running a story about Mike Manzano, a blogger who is using a Newton as his main input source.

Manzano fitted his MessagePad with a Wi-Fi card that sits in one of the Newton's two PC Card slots (it uses a driver written by a Newton user in Japan).

Manzano writes in longhand, running his posts through the Newton's spell-checker. "It's got really, really great handwriting recognition," Manzano said. "Natural and accurate."

Manzano e-mails his posts to his TypePad account, a hosting service run by Six Apart, publisher of the popular Movable Type blogging tool. The TypePad service does a lot of the magic; it's set up to accept blog entries by e-mail, making it very easy to maintain a blog from just about any e-mail-capable device.

The story goes on to talk about other Newton-based bloggers, and how people are soldering bluetooth chips into the motherboards to allow them to transmit images from digital cameras and blog those.

Starting today, for $15, Mac users can get a driver from OrangeWare that is supposed to jack up their wi-fi connection speeds. They say their 802.11a/b/g driver can reach speeds of 108 MB/s which is noticable better than Apples' Airport Extreme 802.11g which only reaches 54Mb/s. The downside is you will need an additional wifi card that uses the Atheros wireless chipset, since the built in ones don't support this "Super G" mode. Reading over the press release, I have to say I'm a bit skeptical. WiFiNetNews is too:

We here at Wi-Fi Networking News remain dubious about the efficacy of Atheros's Turbo mode, which bonds two Wi-Fi channels and has been shown in some studies to cause interference. Atheros continues to assert there is no interference.

Maybe not Airports, but wi-fi hotspots at least. Over at MacMove.com Mike has been talking about traveling and using the access provided at some Airports and how it's making his life a lot easier.

I'm now in Green Bay, WI at the airport waiting for the flight back home. The wi-fi network here is absolutely free - the way it should be. My Airport Extreme card found the connection and immediatley connected at three bars.

This is the way I predict wi-fi will eventually be everywhere. It's relatively cheap to set up and as more free hotspots come online, those places that charge will be perceived as needlessly profiteering.

This seems to be a ccommon topic right now, as Doc is in Dublin talking about the same thing.

wants to know what's next for Apple. Good thing the New York Times is running a story that looks into that very question.

WHAT new products will be unveiled? No one outside this famously secretive company may know for sure. But because Mr. Jobs has been so publicly critical of tablet computers and hand-held video players, some outsiders have suggested that Apple may choose to offer a Macintosh-style interactive television system for the living room, competing with Media Center PC's, designed by Microsoft and Intel, and with the PSX video game and digital video recorder, soon to be released by Sony.

But another avenue is more likely, according to several people close to the company. Mr. Jobs is legendary for being idiosyncratic and unwilling to follow industry trends. Wouldn't Apple's co-founder want to avoid the crowded market for digital entertainment products, they suggest, and turn his laser focus on a mobile digital communications product?

Last year, the company quietly added two new wireless standards, known as 3GPP and 3GPP2, to its QuickTime software for sending and receiving multimedia over digital cellular networks. Because Apple was an early leader in the Wi-Fi market with its airport wireless networking base station, the reasoning goes, the company may be hard at work on a line of digital mobile phones that would take the company into the fast-growing voice-over-Internet-protocol, or VoIP market.

It's a false notion that since many standard wardriving apps are PC only that you can't search out hotspots with a PowerBook or iBook, but that's just not the case. There's plenty of Mac only software that does the trick. TechTV did a story on KisMac and all the search and crack features built into this OS X based bad boy.

Apple just released AirPort software 3.4 which "offers improved antenna output control, enhanced logging from your base station which is compatible with syslog, and performance improvements for WPA security implementations. It is available via the web and via the Mac OS X software update for Mac OS X 10.3 only." At the same time they have updated the AirPort Extreme Base Station to include a model with no 56K modem but with Power over Ethernet.

Everyone knows the wireless range was inproved with the switch from Ti to Al shells on PowerBooks, but what if that's still not enough? MacMinute has the scoop on a new external antenna for 15" and 17" AlBooks that should double or tripple reception range on the laptops. Quickertek's $89.95 antenna even comes with software to measure the performance.

This is kind of interesting considering that most airlines freak of you turn your CD player on before they say it's OK – it looks like Boeing is working on providing in-flight hi-speed internet via wifi available in various time chunks for about $10 - $30. Their service is supposed to include a VPN so you won't have to worry about the dude 3 rows behind you reading your e-mails. Lufthansa will be the first to kick this off, followed by SAS, Japan Airlines, ANA with China & Singapore Airlines following shortly. Connection via ethernet is something they are talking about adding down the line.