In other words, a computer or other wireless device that taps into the Vi-Fi system would select one base station at a time as an anchor. Using a complex algorithm, the system will calculate the probability that a packet received by an auxiliary base station was not received by the anchor. If the probability is high, the auxiliary will relay the packet to the anchor as a backup.

Microsoft hopes that their research will lead to the first truly reliable Wi-Fi system for vehicles, and recent tests conducted on their campus have been extremely successful. The next step is to scale up the project around the campus, but how or when a Vi-Fi system could be implemented in the real world has not been determined. Of course, one major hurdle would have to be that a serious municipal Wi-Fi infrastructure would be required to get the project off the ground. [SeattlePi via DailyTech via Newlaunches]

The Price: $200

The Verdict: It has been a long time since I last shopped for a printer, and if Brother's new addition to their Professional Series line is any indicator, consumers are getting a lot more for their buck these days. For less than $200 you can expect a 4-in-1 device that does all of its tasks exceedingly well.

Setting up the device on a home network was no problem at all, and exchanging / printing files between multiple computers, media cards and USB drives was a smooth process. The print quality for both documents and photos was impressive for its class (6000 x 1200 dpi printing /19200 dpi on scans) and it cranks them out at a good clip (35ppm black and 28ppm color on printing / 23cpm black, 20cpm color on scans ). It also has some useful added features like scan to JPEG, TIFF and PDF as well as the ability to print on 11x17 ledger size paper, which means you won't have to make a trip to Kinkos if you need to print something on that scale. Plus, it has a decent 150 sheet paper capacity for large printing projects.

On the negative side, it isn't the smallest or sturdiest printer out there, and you will have to factor in the cost of a pricey four cartridge ink system down the line (available in standard an high yield versions). It is also compatible with 802.11b/g networks only, so if you are running draft-N you are out of luck. The software wasn't anything to write home about either—I found myself doing most of the work directly on the flip-up 3.3-inch color LCD display. At any rate, these are not huge problems in the overall scheme of things, so the Brother MFC-5890CN is definitely something to look into if you have a small business or a need for a more feature-rich printer at a relatively low price point. Expect to see it on store shelves starting on August 27th.

Surely, you can do better. [LiveJournal via Gawker]

Expect a 30GB version of the 605 Wi-Fi with the GPS receiver in May for $400. If you currently own a 605 WiFi, you can pick up the navigation add-on separately for $130. The Web TV and radio plugin will also be available next month for the 605, 705 and ARCHOS TV+models as a $19.99 download. Speaking of the TV+ device, it will get a separate TVportation upgrade that will let users watch their home TV anywhere—similar to the Slingbox. TVportation will be available for $49.99 (or free if the device is registered to the Archos website). Right now, it'll work with laptops and Archos 605 and 705s, with Windows Mobile support launching soon, and Symbian shortly thereafter. As for the Flash 9 and WMV9 capability, you can enjoy that free of charge when the firmware update is released.

Finally, Archos has struck up a deal with Paramount to pre-load movies on its TV+ devices. The box still be stocked with about 50 flicks, but you've still gotta purchase them—the idea is instant VOD, not giving you free shit. They've got a total catalog of about 250 in the pipe, and they're working on deals with other content providers. Oh, and it's still all in standard def.

From the press release:

ARCHOS Introduces GPS, Mobile TV, and Flash Video for Portable Players

ARCHOS announced today several new ways to move your media from the home, to the road, in the car and beyond, with services that are unseen in any other portable media player.

Announced today at media events in New York and Paris, new ARCHOS products let you watch live TV on smartphones, laptops and ARCHOS portable devices wherever you go; stream favorite TV and radio shows from the Web for free; and help you get to where you're going with GPS navigation, and then entertain you once you arrive.

Turn Your ARCHOS Portable Media Player Into a Mobile TV
The new TVportation feature lets consumers watch their home live TV wherever they go using the ARCHOS TV+ as a streaming media server. Consumers can now watch their favorite shows live on their ARCHOS 605 and 705 WiFi portable players, smartphones, and laptops, giving them the freedom to watch TV anywhere.

Need Some Direction? ARCHOS Introduces GPS
The new ARCHOS GPS In-Car Holder turns the award-winning ARCHOS 605 WiFi portable player into a full-fledged navigation system. With more than 50 times the hard drive size, twice the screen resolution, and similar pricing as stand-alone GPS navigation products, the ARCHOS 605 GPS is the ultimate navigation and entertainment device.

Want YouTube and Web TV Shows on the Go? No problem.
For the first time, TV fans can catch up on full-length TV episodes, music videos, sporting events, news, Web TV shows, and even favorite radio stations for free on their handheld ARCHOS players. ARCHOS portable media players are the first to support Adobe Flash 9, letting consumers enjoy the millions of online video and Flash games available on the Web — from YouTube, Google Video, TV network Web sites, and more.

Paramount Opens its Movie Vault
A global relationship with Paramount Pictures brings more than 300 Paramount movies to ARCHOS portable players. Covering North America and Europe, ARCHOS will provide select Paramount movies for its handheld devices and ARCHOS TV+ WiFi digital video recorder, with Paramount movies pre-loaded for immediate playback on the TV — no download required.

"We want to make the radio itself a WiFi port," whatever the hell a WiFi port is. We're guessing the spokesperson meant WiFi connectivity will be coming using a modified internal radio. Whether Chrysler will trick out their own navigation systems with an internet browser to make use of the functionality is not clear, but using WiFi instead of EDGE on your iPhone whilst driving has got to be a help, even if it isn't great for general road safety. [Washington Post]

AT&T is promising fatter pipes to boot—a necessity with the certain spike of wireless leechers. If you're not in the privileged classes, monthly subs that work at any AT&T Wi-Fi spot go for $20, while a two-hour hit runs $4. This all hits in the spring.

Am I the only one who finds it strange to suddenly see a Wi-Fi war in 2008, when we should be talking about mobile broadband, 4G—something a little less five years ago? That said, I'm not exactly one to complain about more, free internet access, however it gets to me, and it's good to see AT&T palpably improving its network assets.

More Than 12 Million AT&T, Starbucks Customers to Get Free Wi-Fi Access for a Rich In-Store Experience

New Offering Includes Two Hours of Free Wi-Fi Service Per Day for Starbucks Card Holders Beginning this Spring

All 100,000 U.S.-Based Starbucks Partners to Receive Free Wi-Fi at Starbucks Stores

Seattle, Washington, San Antonio, Texas, February 11, 2008

AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) and Starbucks (NASDAQ:SBUX) today announced plans to deliver AT&T Wi-FiSM service at more than 7,000 company-operated Starbucks locations across the United States. The initiative brings together two of the most recognizable global brands to create a powerful and convenient online experience for consumers and business customers. Starbucks and AT&T will offer a mix of free and paid Wi-Fi offerings at Starbucks stores to meet the needs of both frequent and occasional Starbucks Wi-Fi customers.

The initiative further expands the AT&T Wi-Fi network, already the largest in the United States, to more than 17,000 U.S. hot spots and more than 70,000 globally.

Beginning this spring, Starbucks Card holders can enjoy up to two hours of free Wi-Fi service per day at Starbucks locations offering Wi-Fi access, while more than 12 million qualifying AT&T broadband and AT&T U-verseSM Internet customers will have unlimited free access to the Wi-Fi service. In addition, more than 5 million of AT&T's remote access services business customers will be able to access Wi-Fi service at Starbucks locations. AT&T will soon extend the benefits of Wi-Fi at Starbucks to its wireless customers.

"People want to stay connected to their world 24/7, and Wi-Fi hot spots, broadband and wireless make that mobility possible," said Rick Welday, AT&T chief marketing officer, Consumer. "Laptops and smartphones give us the online mobility we crave, and now millions of AT&T and Starbucks customers will get Internet access free from the comfort of their neighborhood Starbucks."

"This is what our customers have been waiting for — free Starbucks-quality Wi-Fi," said Chris Bruzzo, chief technology officer, Starbucks Coffee Company. "Through our new partnership with AT&T, we also welcome their millions of current customers who can now come in and enjoy free Wi-Fi as part of their daily Starbucks Experience."

As an added benefit for the more than 100,000 Starbucks partners in the U.S., all Starbucks partners will receive free AT&T Wi-Fi accounts allowing them to use the network in Starbucks company-operated locations offering Wi-Fi access.

"Our new relationship with AT&T gives us the opportunity to expand and enhance the range of digital entertainment experiences for our customers as well as our partners, including the continued rollout of the iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store at Starbucks," said Ken Lombard, president, Starbucks Entertainment.

In addition to the free Wi-Fi access for qualifying AT&T customers and any Starbucks Card holder, customers will be able to purchase tiered access to the AT&T Wi-Fi network at Starbucks at attractive price points. For a two-hour period, customers will pay just $3.99 per session. Monthly membership will also be available for $19.99 per month, and will include access to any of AT&T's 70,000 hot spots in 89 countries around the world.

AT&T business customers who subscribe to remote access services can also enjoy unlimited, flat-rate access plans at any Starbucks location offering Wi-Fi service or at other AT&T Wi-Fi hot spots.

Additionally, AT&T is providing Starbucks an enterprise-class network with increased bandwidth and redundancy. AT&T's underlying network technologies will enable a wide range of business applications and help Starbucks stores operate more efficiently.

"Delivering networking capabilities to help a world-class company such as Starbucks achieve greater business velocity is what we do," said Welday. "Our work with Starbucks is collaborative innovation at its finest."

The availability of AT&T Wi-Fi service at Starbucks will take place on a market-by-market basis with store implementation beginning this spring and completed by the end of the year.

It sounds sort of fun but also sort of awkward, as I can't really imagine running around aiming my phone at some stranger on a crowded street. It would also be really annoying to get attacked while you were out on a date or something, having to explain that it was just some guy who was engaging you in your phone's virtual first person shooter. In any case, there's a beta open for this, although with no Android phones out yet I'm not sure how you can participate in it. [Product Page via Ubergizmo]

Supporting both WEP and WPA encryption, the PHS300 rocks a built-in firewall to protect you and communicates with Wi-Fi devices using 802.11b/g. There's also an optional 12v car adapter available. Shipping December 20, the PHS300 will cost $180. [Electronista]

The Good:
Overall, this thing is great. The interface is responsive, songs download as fast as the normal iTunes store and the Wi-Fi store is designed in a clean and logical manner. It is easy to move through the interface and find what you're looking for. The store is organized into for basic categories—Featured, Top Tens, Search, and Downloads.

Featured has New Releases, What's Hot, and Genres as subcategory. The screens in each subcategory are simple to figure out. Two artists are prominently featured at the top (custom graphics), with 10 other artists/albums below. For albums that have them, the average score for user reviews is also displayed. Very Nice.

Top Tens stays pretty true to form and display the top ten songs and albums in various categories and genres. One nice feature here is that if you're unimpressed by a particular top ten category, you can click a link that keeps adding ten albums at a time to the list.

Search is a standout highlight of the Wi-Fi store. When you enter the search menu, the keyboard comes up and allows you to enter a search string. As you type, it narrows down your search in real time. At any point while typing you can scroll through the list of artists or albums or songs and find what you're looking for. I actually like this better than searching in the normal iTunes store.

Downloads are self-explanatory. When you elect to purchase an album, the songs appear here and keep you updated on its status. When the song finishes downloading, it is automatically transferred to your purchased folder. There is also a link on the download screen that will take you directly to your purchased songs playlist. Very nice.

Previewing songs is easy. Tapping on a song will automatically start the preview, and if you came upon it in a search, double tapping will bring up the album. This all is very responsive and fast, with little to no delay between your action and the store's response.

The Bad:
No iTunes Plus. Seriously, this is a major oversight. There is not a plus or $1.29 to be seen around the Wi-Fi store. If you're opposed to DRM, this makes the Wi-Fi store pretty much worthless aside from previewing tracks. We don't know what else to say about this, except that it is baffling (firmware update, plz!?). [Update: ITunes Plus is available via the Wi-Fi store. You have to have iTunes Plus activated on the computer you sync with (iTunes store>Account Info>Manage iTunes Plus). Once you turn it on and resync, iTunes Plus content appears in the Wi-Fi store. Thanks, Sir Crumpet.]

The Wi-Fi store lacks some of the cooler features of its full-fledged brethren. Free download of the week is absent, no celebrity/featured playlists, and no spotlights that break down an era/artist/genre in depth. It's certainly not a necessity, but going through these features is a good time killer, and would be nice if you needed to kill time away from your computer.

Lastly, when you hit the buy button to purchase a track, the confirmation box pops up in the same place. Though it won't happen often, it's not out of the realm of possibility to double tap by accident and download a song you don't want.

It would also be nice if the store allowed you to download your Wi-Fi purchases on your computer without syncing your iPod to it. Because there are those situations where...say...you're trying to install App Tapp for the iPhone on your iPod and it puts it in recovery mode and forces you to reformat the iPod before you can sync. We're just saying...

We could lament the lack of video downloads, but its understandable since the file sizes are not optimized for the iPod touch and would probably take up more space and time than people are willing to give. It was a fair decision, in our opinion.

Like we said in the beginning, the Wi-Fi store is pretty slick. If you don't mind the standard .m4p format the iTunes store spits out, We highly recommend the iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store.

There is also an S51 version, identical except for the lack of Wi-Fi. Both cameras feature 8.1 megapixel resolution, face priority, and vibration reduction. They will be priced at $329.95 and $279.95, respectively, when they launch in September.

According to a UK press release, the S51c will be available in silver and black, while the S51 will be available in silver, black, blue, brown, red and the vivid magenta shown here. However, the same document warns that not all colors will be available in all regions.

NIKON ANNOUNCES NEW WIRELESS COOLPIX S51C DIGITAL CAMERA AND MY PICTURETOWN, AN INNOVATIVE PHOTO SHARING AND STORAGE INTERNET SERVICE

New Wi-Fi Camera and Photo Sharing Service Will Allow Consumers to Access and Share Their Photos Anytime, Anywhere

MELVILLE, NY (August 30, 2007) - Furthering the development of wireless sharing technology in digital cameras, Nikon today introduced the new COOLPIX S51c digital camera. This camera not only sends images via email through Wi-Fi, but it also supports my Picturetown, Nikon's new photo sharing and storage service. In addition to an innovative Wi-Fi feature, the S51c boasts 8.1 megapixel resolution for generating high quality prints, a 3x Zoom-Nikkor glass lens ensuring great pictures with true-to-life color, and a huge, bright 3.0-inch LCD screen for users to easily compose and share images. The S51c is also the first in Nikon's Style line of COOLPIX cameras to utilize the new EXPEED™ image-processing system. To help ensure the consumer will be able to capture stunningly sharp images, the S51c features an Optical Vibration Reduction (VR) image stabilization system and ISO up to 1600, enhancing the camera's low-light performance.

"Not only does the S51c boast superior imaging abilities, but it also enhances the photo sharing experience for the consumer," said Bill Giordano, General Manager Marketing, COOLPIX for Nikon, Inc. "With the S51c and my Picturetown, consumers will be able to easily share and securely store their images, faster and more efficiently than ever before."

Across town or across the ocean, by using the S51c's One Touch Email with the Picture Mail button and Nikon's new photo sharing and storage service, my Picturetown, consumers can take advantage of several avenues for sharing their images and videos. Through my Picturetown, users can email pictures directly to friends and family, publish pictures to the photo community sharing website Flickr, and link their photos to blogs and social networking sites. Pictures can also be sent to the email addresses of a Blackberry® device for viewing. Each S51c ships with a six-month complimentary T-Mobile™ HotSpot™ Wi-Fi service for digital cameras, allowing the user to send images and videos to my Picturetown from over 8,200 T-Mobile™ HotSpots™ nationwide.

In addition, S51c owners can utilize my Picturetown to store up to 2 gigabytes of images and movies, providing a valuable back up to memory card storage. S51c users are also able to access my Picturetown from their computers and Blackberry® devices, providing instant access to their images anytime, anywhere.

Adding to the advanced sharing capabilities of these cameras, the S51c features a huge, bright, high resolution 3.0-inch LCD monitor with a 160-degree viewing angle and an anti-reflection coating facilitating easier composition and high-quality playback anywhere, even in direct sunlight.

Furthermore, the LCD monitor serves as an excellent platform for Pictmotion™, which allows users to select up to 200 images along with music that's pre-loaded, or from the user's library. The music and photos are then automatically compiled in-camera to produce audiovisual shows in VGA quality for a truly personalized photo-sharing experience.

For capturing great portraits with ease, Nikon has enhanced their hallmark Face-Priority AF feature. When using the camera's convenient One-Touch Portrait button, the S51c will be able to detect up to five faces in a frame, ensuring in- focus smiles and properly exposed faces. In addition to face detection, S51c users will be able to take advantage of In-Camera Red Eye Fix™, for fixing most instances of red eye, D-lighting, a feature that automatically lightens dark images as well as Optical Vibration Reduction, ensuring sharp pictures. This camera will also utilize EXPEED™, Nikon's new imaging processing system for enhanced speed and brilliant color reproduction.

In addition to the COOLPIX S51c, Nikon has also today introduced the COOLPIX S51. Similar in features and form, the S51 offers the same stylish body and advanced yet easy to use imaging technologies as the S51c without the wireless transfer capabilities.

Both the COOLPIX S51 and the COOLPIX S51c come bundled with Nikon's COOLPIX software suite for transferring, organizing, editing, and sharing images. The cameras utilize a rechargeable EN-El8 Li-ion battery and are compatible with a wide array of SD and SDHC memory cards.

The COOLPIX S51 and the COOLPIX S51c digital cameras will be available nationwide beginning September 2007. The S51c has an MSRP of $329.95, and the S51 has an MSRP of $279.95. For more information about these and other COOLPIX cameras, please visit www.nikonusa.com.

The connection maintained a transfer rate of 5Mbps, by using Ubiquiti's XtremeRange5 High-Power Carrier Class mini-PCI radio module, and some parabolic antennas. [Gizmag]

Make points out that the law could easily encompass network monitoring systems, and that since the ban, Kismac WiFi detection software has shut down. Here is the note left on Kismac's site:

With the introduction of §202c German politicians proved their complete incompetence. Law in Germany: possession of child pornography - two years imprisonment. Distribution of security software is half as bad. Even worse politicians still believe in the successful ban of digital information, obviously not reckoning globalization.
We are heading straight to a country I do not want to be living in.

While they are upfront about compatibility, it's disappointing that TiVo has gone this direction with third party support. And now I'm a little worried to add on an eSATA drive (a tacitly supported feature on Series 3 units) before more users tinker with the unit and confirm all the units that work. Hit the comments and let us know if you have any third party gear working with the new HD. And if you haven't our reviews, check here and here.