General Meeting - Where the elite find a seat
Full house! 73 people were at the meeting tonight. Most people found a seat, but a few found Standing Room Only.Frank Keeney started the meeting and introductions. Frank passed around an article about Michelin tires embedding RFIDs into the rubber of the tire making it easy to track the tire and vehicle. Mike Outmesguine spoke some more about RFIDs and privacy issues. And covered the privacy issues of GPS enabled devices and the concept of jamming GPS signals for personal privacy. Mike read a news article about a car rental company using GPS units to control renters, “when we get a rental [car] that is out of bounds, we shut the vehicle down, send a tow-truck and just go and get it.” This kind of company policy encourages underground countermeasures like Personal Area Jammers.
Books came from O’Reilly and are ready for reviews!
Ronan Higgins gave the main presentation. Watch it on streaming video PartB below. Lots of good information on the Wireless ISP business model. Ronan also gave us his views and predictions on the market and competition. Lots of good questions and good answers. Ronan brought a few Belkin wireless products for giveaways!
Cliff Skolnick from the Bay Area Wireless User Group introduced us to FreeNetworks.org
The meeting is streamed via the Linux Public Broadcasting Network, www.LPBN.org.
Presenter:
- Ronan Higgins of Cafe.com Wireless Internet Service Provider (WISP)
- www.Cafe.com - Provider of Wireless Broadband Internet
Presentation Topic:
- Cafe.com company profile: origins, operations, plans
- Overview of the public, fee-based wireless hotspot market
- The technology used in fee-based wireless hotspot networks
- The future of wireless hotspots and Wi-Fi
Other Topics:
- Update on RFID
- Privacy activism and Personal Area Jammer
- Cliff Skolnick from BAWUG and FreeNetworks.org
Watch archived videos of the show with Real Player:
- Streaming Video PartA - Introduction and news items
- Streaming Video PartB - Ronan Higgins’ Cafe.com Presentation
- Streaming Video PartC - Cliff Skolnick from BAWUG introduces FreeNetworks.org
URLs & Documents from the meeting:
- URLs will be added soon…
- email mike@socalwug.org with additions to this list
Special Thanks to the following:
- LPBN for providing video archive and live streaming
- Pasadena IHOP and their big meeting room
Pictures:
- Digicam Pix not available this meeting
