Personally, I can't wait for the wifi spots in Central Park to go live so I'm following this story closely. In this morning's NYTimes, there's a piece about Marshall Brown the visionary behind the wifi project for the city's parks, who "dreams of the wireless bubble on a grandiose scale," according to the article. I thought this quote from Brown was interesting:
“The first end of Internet expansion was about globalization, but this second phase of wireless Internet is going to be about the Internet made local.” His niche: for example, “What we’re going to enable by installing our portals in the parks is for people to get more in touch with where they happen to be.”
Brown also seems to have a desire to adddress some educational issues with this technology. The wifi hotspot just activated in Battery Park will usher users in through a portal that will offer a historical slide show, a tour of the Dutch gardens, and a video-cam hookup to the Statue of Liberty. As the article states, "In Mr. Brown’s wireless neighborhoods, connectivity is accompanied by educational content."
That's an interesting concept, providing educational content via portals at the free wifi spots. And, it seems like a great opportunity for the City Department of Health, or others interested in public health, to get out a message.
2 comments:
This all sounds so great, but how does it work? How exactly do you connect to the Internet for free at these parks? I currently do not have a laptap, but it seems to me that I should consider investing in one in the near future.
With a Mac (Apple) computer it couldn't be easier: you just turn on your computer and it auto-magically "sniffs" for the closest wifi hotspot and connects to the Internet. I've done that with my laptop at Bryant Park many times (and took the picture for today's post one of those outings.) With a PC, you have to do some configuring...but it's fairly straightforward as I understand it (someone with a PeeCee laptop will have to come along and explain just how it works). And, the smaller devices (PocketPC, PDA, or Blackberry) work pretty much like the Mac, there's no configuring, the device just finds the wifi.
Once it configures, then your browser will take you through a "portal" or page different from your usual homepage. Once you go through that, you're just on the Internet in the regular way.
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