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Today the United Nations announced it will work with the One Laptop per Child initiative to bring $100 laptops to governments and, eventually, to school children and teachers throughout the world. The parties will sign a memorandum of understanding this weekend and the project will formally get underway.

The laptops, which were conceived and developed by the MIT Media Lab, feature wireless network access and a hand crank, will run on an open-source OS, most likely Linux. It's expected that a million of these devices will be shipped by the end of the year to countries including Brazil, Thailand, Egypt, and Nigeria.

A while back there was criticism by a number of industry types, most notably from Intel Chairman Craig Barrett, that the laptops are limited and that people want something with the full functionality of a PC. Obviously, it would be wonderful to be able to provide devices with all the bells and whistles, but many governments can't afford to purchase high-priced computers, so this initiative is targeted toward them. At this point, it's better to do something than it is to sit back and do nothing.

Although there are lingering concerns by privacy advocates over the use of RFID, there's no doubt that the use of RFID tags continues to increase. According to a new report from In-Stat, over 1 billion tags were produced last year, and by 2010, that total will rise to 33 billion. Wal-Mart's requiring of their suppliers to use RFID tags are certainly one reason for the projected growth, as well as potential applications in both the industrial and retail sectors, such as the tracking of inventory.

The city of Riviera Beach, Florida is in the process of deploying a public safety wireless network leveraging Motorola's MOTOMESH architecture, which supports up to four radio networks in a single access point. According to Motorola, MOTOMESH provides fixed and mobile broadband access to users in the unlicensed 2.4-GHz band, as well as the 4.9-GHz public safety band.

What makes this story so cool is that Riviera Beach is paying for all of this mostly from seized drug money. City officials say this type of funding has freed up other money that will enable the development of a wireless network for residents. So take that, drug runners! Crime DOES pay, at least for citywide wireless networks!

Television on cellphones is getting more notice and more folks are paying to get it on their devices. With that in mind, some of the big men on campus, including Intel, Motorola, Nokia, and Texas Instruments, have formed a group called the Mobile DTV Alliance designed to promote handheld digital video broadcasting (DVB-H) in this country. The group aims to define open standards and best practices for content providers in delivering TV broadcasts to mobile devices.

The timing certainly is right with research indicating that over 41 percent of a recent survey's responders stating they would consider purchasing mobile TV service. Of course, it all boils down to price as well as content choices, but when you've got these big names promoting mobile TV, the marketing muscle is definitely there.

The road to the finalization of a ZigBee certification process continues to move forward, says the ZigBee Alliance. At the recent CES event, the Alliance introduced a certification program designed to ensure that products, most of which are targeted at remote monitoring, home control, and building automation network applications, are fully interoperable and able to function in a ZigBee network.

Because of the continued delaying of certification of at least 30 WiMax-enabled products by Spain's Cetecom Labs, many analysts say WiMax is in danger of falling increasingly behind WiFi. In addition, with more citywide wireless initiatives popping up across the country, most if not all are turning to WiFi technology to provide wide range access to users.

Obviously, WiMax supporters want to make sure their products do what they're supposed to do, but they may eventually have to be deployed overseas to prove their worth before finally finding a place in the U.S. Of course, the pending field trials will certainly tell a huge part of the story.

Cities all across the state of Wisconsin are increasingly ramping up wireless network access. Milwaukee and Madison are now in the throes of developing citywide networks, and now Green Bay is seeking to join the party.

As of now, most of the WiFi access in and around the area is limited to the standard coffee shops and other establishments, but the state is seeing more agreements between cities that will allow users to log on from either their own home area or someplace nearby, all for one fee.

It kind of warms the heart when the Cheeseheads are now joining the wireless revolution, doesn't it?

If you've ever driven through Rhode Island on Interstate Route 95, you'll know that you can pass through the state in a little over an hour (especially for those of us who have a heavy right foot!).

In any case, it looks like the long-in-the-works Rhode Island Wireless Innovation Networks (RI-WINs) initiative may finally get underway in the form of a pilot phase next month. According to officials, the network will be aimed at govermental employees, especially first responders, as well as private companies who employ a number of mobile workers. Example applications include dash cameras to report information back to agency headquarters, real-time access to law enforcement databases, distance learning, and home health care monitoring.

What excites those involved with the project is that because Rhode Island is so small, it really can be classified as a statewide municipal wireless network. In addition, operating costs are projected to be around $5 million a year for the whole state, and annual revenue is projected to be over $6 million, to be gained through access fees from private users.

This certainly seems like a win-win for the Rhode Island. Obviously, the pilot program will tell us a lot more about usage and access, but the wireless signs seem to be pointing up for the Ocean State.

This week's vote which dissolved the IEEE Task Group that was working to ratify a single UWB standard has certainly cause a few ripples in the wireless technology circles, but it seems the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) isn't really fazed by what's been going on.

Earlier last year, it looked like the SIG and UWB supporters were looking for ways to join the technologies together for various applications, and things seemed to point to something of substance was going to occur sometime this year. The SIG says it is currently studying how UWB and Bluetooth can co-exist, especially in power consumption and mobile devices.

With the various UWB spec groups now going off in different directions, it'll be interesting to see if one of them will strike an agreement with the SIG or the Bluetooth group will look to play every hand possible and work with all of them.

The recently held Wireless Communications Association trade show brought up some interesting discussion from a number of influencers in the industry egarding the creation of a global roaming standard for wireless. (Wonder how much roaming costs will be if this goes through?) In addition, there are greater calls for standards for both mobile and fixed wireless platforms, including WiMax, since society is much more mobile than even a year or two ago and that businesses are increasingly needing their workers to stay connected, no matter where they are.

Of course, standards won't necessarily make everything work the way it should, so some are calling for greater analysis to measure what technologies work and what needs to be clarified or even abandoned if the outcomes don't measure up to the expectations.

As if EarthLink didn't have a big enough jump on the competition to build and deploy citywide wireless networks, they've announced an agreement with Motorola who will provide equipment and services for the cities where EarthLink has begun setting up networks, including Philadelphia and Anaheim.

According to the agreement, Motorola will install network equipment from their suppliers, as well as their own products, on city light poles to form a wireless mesh to allow access from just about anywhere within a given location.

Obviously, this is a big deal because EarthLink can certainly submit proposals for future projects knowing that they have a powerhouse like Motorola behind them so that equipment questions can be answered quickly. Of course, there may be more agreements like this coming down the pike to give competitors a chance, so we'll see what happens.

It seems the capital city of Taiwan, Taipei, is well on its way to become the largest city in the world to have a citywide wireless network. Managed by a private company under the aegis of the city government, the network features over 3,000 access points to cover half of the city's 106 square miles for its 2.6 million residents. According to city officials, the project will cover 90% of the city by the middle of this year.

The story also mentions that the network will succeed because nearly 9 in 10 Taipei households have at least one PC and over a third of the population is familiar with wireless Internet service. As a result, there's no need for a large learning curve and users will be able to take immediate advantage of the network. As with many U.S. citywide networks, there has been pushback from the phone companies who have lobbied city and state governments to keep these initiatives from getting off the ground. But just like anywhere else, the demand is just too great to keep down.

Interesting story in the New York Times by Glenn Fleishmann about community wireless networking groups who get together to place antennas anywhere possible to create a wireless cloud. And, of course, make wireless access available for free to anyone who wants it.

As we well know, the big cities are enlisting big companies to build citywide networks, and with their combined economical and technological power, it's pretty much a given that these small collectives would be pushed aside. However, the point is that these massive citywide projects wouldn't have even gotten off the ground without groups like NYCwireless or Seattle Wireless making it possible for friends and neighbors to get wireless access from each other and having the concept grow from there.

An alliance comprising Cingular Wireless, Verizon Wireless, Sprint Nextel, and T-Mobile were among the four entities bidding for the opportunity to hook up 277 subway stations for cellphone usage operated by New York City's Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Another team submitting a bid included GE Capital and Time Warner Cable.

The winning bidder will get a 10-year contract to wire the subway platforms, but all bidders had to detail how they would expand the network in their proposals. A key component of the contract is that the winner must let other carriers use the network.