mattw.fn_blog()

Last night at the PTP monthly, Don Park was elected president of the Personal Telco Project for the next two years. Daily Wireless has the writeup.

Congrats Don!

Tonight we got to take a quick look at a Iomedex MobileIRIS, a handheld GPRS/WiFI device for first resonders. Iomedex recently got some coverage over at KOMOTV (click for story and video.

Also on the agenda was a bit of talk about cell carrier data plans, the different technology used (EVDO, 1xRTT, GPRS and EDGE) and of course, the FreeNetworkers’ methods of getting all those bits around, WiFi.

Additionally, as some sound transit riders may be aware, Casey has been having some troubles with the Train Node. It looks like it’s definitely a power problem. Be careful plugging stuff in on those trains, no power at all might be a lot better than running dirty power to your brick.

Matt Peterson (Founder of BAWUG and Fellow FreeNetworker) is Blogging from Bhutan.

Although it’s not obvious in his posts, Matt is attending SANOG VI, held in Thimphu, the capital city of the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan.

Thoughts from Free Press via Sascha Meinrath’s blog.

If the phone companies succeed, the Brand X case will stand as the trigger that reversed a century of communications policy and undermined the bedrock principle of democratic media –nondiscriminatory access for all. Every major technology in the history of this nation designed to facilitate the transport of goods, services and information has operated as an open access network. The railroads, the highway system, the telegraph, the telephone and the Internet all have followed this principle. And in all of these instances, open access rules increased competition.

The FCC’s plans –with the blessing of the high court– would permit cable and telephone giants to cement their control over the communications infrastructure and cut out their competitors. The cozy duopoly of cable and DSL that controls more than 90 percent of the broadband market will be entrenched for a generation. There will be no competitive broadband carriers. There will be no independent ISPs. The thriving new market for Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) telephone service may be destabilized. The owners of the wires will be handed the Orwellian power to determine which content is appropriate to travel over their networks.

I put in a little work on iMob today to fix some of it’s speed problems, let me know if it broke anything. Additionally, Second Life players can now send snapshots from in the game to any topic.

At tonight’s Hacknight, we talked a little bit about wireless, a little bit about off-the-grid power systems, and a whole lot about the virtual reality environment known as Second Life. For those of you that aren’t sucked in yet, Linden Labs just had their 2 year anniversary, and is giving out free basic accounts starting 12 AM PDT July 7th, 2005 through 11:59 PM PDT July 13th, 2005 (7 AM GMT July 7th thru 6:59 AM July 14th GMT).

Update:

Sorry, this forum requires a login, here’s the full text.

Join Linden Lab as we celebrate our Second Anniversary FREE Account Giveaway! For a limited time new subscribers can join Second Life for free.* Starting 12 AM PDT July 7th, 2005 through 11:59 PM PDT July 13th, 2005 (7 AM GMT July 7th thru 6:59 AM July 14th GMT), simply visit Second Life (http://secondlife.com) and sign up.

The Fine Print: As part of this new subscriber promotion, Affiliate Credits (http://secondlife.com/corporate/affiliates.php) and Basic Account referral credits will be suspended during this promotion. The Free Account is only for new subscribers (only those that do not have a current Second Life account) and is limited to one free account per new subscriber over 13 years old.