Wi-Fi

It's a changing world and I love it. I'm currently sitting in Panera Bread and, up to a few minutes ago, I was getting some work done. I'm sitting here with my laptop at a small table in the corner with free wi-fi access provided by the restaurant. I had a very nice bowl of soup and I've refilled my soda three times. It doesn't seem that long ago that I was sitting in the Western Michigan University computer lab browsing the web using lynx. Now I can do almost everything I'd do in the office from the comfort of a restaurant, coffee shop, etc. Heck, there's a guy sitting a couple tables over that until a few minutes ago was playing poker online... life is good.

On a separate but related note, I was recently reading about the 802.11n specification which is under development under the auspices of the IEEE. This new version of the wireless spec is supposed to be so fast that it can send uncompressed HDTV signals over the network in real-time. Best yet, they're planning on building it so that they can guarantee a transfer rate. Current wi-fi specs drop speed as your signal weakens... as I understand it the new one won't do that. You'll have a good connection or no connection. The thing I'm most excited about is that this can be used for some outstanding multimedia applications. You could setup whole-house audio/video for a fraction of what it would cost now. Currently it's looking like 802.11n devices could be on the market before the end of 2007. I do love technology.