Om Malik is reporting that Google is making a big to build a city-wide free wifi network in San Francisco. Google officials say San Francisco residents (and visitors) will enjoy a free 300 kilobits per second, always on connection anywhere in the city. As part of its proposal, the company says it will be offering wholesale access to other service providers, who will offer higher throughput connections to their customers. Google says it plans to use its own authentication services. (That explains the Google WiFi VPN client to some extent). The company is going to use San Diego-based WFI, a cellular network builder company to build out the WiFi network. Read more »

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AppleInsider is reporting that October may bring updates to the iPod line, amongst other things. Sources believe the new players feature Toshiba’s perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR) 1.8-inch HDDs, which are setting new benchmarks for data density. Toshiba has announced the drives in 40GB and 80GB capacities, with the 40GB model packing up to 10,000 songs or 25,000 photos on a single platter. The 40GB drive features the largest single-platter capacity yet achieved in the 1.8-inch form factor, according to the company. Meanwhile, an 80GB version of the drive stores double the amount of data via two 40GB platters. Read more »

There has been a lot of talk about Apple porting iTunes over to other platforms and hardware, and one of the big rumors was a version of iTunes for Sony’s PSP. Sony has been one of the sticking points when it comes to the iTunes Music Store, but it seems that they would be far more interested in working with Apple if it benefited their own products in some way. Well, if there was a version of iTunes for PSP, and if people could buy songs from the iTunes Music Store directly onto their PSP, that might give the PSP more value, which would be a good thing for Sony. Read more »

Inspired by the PSPupdates site I decided to a simpler version of what newly “downverted” PSP owners should know in order to start enjoying the fun homebrew scene in legal ways without much or any knowledge of what they should do. “So what do I need to know?” – Patience young Padawan, we shall get to that in the next paragraph. First of all, you need to know where to actually get your programs from. I recommend the pspupdates and PSP-Spot sites. You can connect your PSP to your PC by two means: a USB cable with the following two sides* (*pictured below) a Memory Stick Duo reader (see froogle Read more »

Dell is known for low prices, but they are trying to turn that image around, or atleast grab some new customers that don’t like the cheaper products Dell ships out. And while expensive Desktops and Laptops are nothing new, Dell said its new XPS line would be sold at higher prices and larger margins than its Dimension and Inspiron lines. With laptops starting at $2,700 and desktops starting at $1,100 you will sure notice a big difference in your pocket. Let’s just hope the people that buy these machines notice a difference in gaming and other power hungry applications. “This will be our Lexus,” said Will Townsend, a Dell senior Read more »

Radio Satellite, not the prettiest of websites, has a comparison between XM and Sirius satellite radio. Living in Canada without a car, I have not experienced either service, but I think knowing the ins and outs of what you are getting before you buy it is probably a good thing and good comparisons are hard to find. And with about 6.2 million subscribers between the two services, it looks like the technology is doing alright. If anyone uses either of these technologies, I would love to hear your experience with them. Read more »

Using FEAR, the creators of the popular series Red Vs Blue have released the start of a new series called PANICS, or People Acting Normal in Crazy-Ass Situations. The first episode is available, and is pretty funny. I recommend checking it out. Read more »

I highly doubt they will ever be able to do this, but Microsoft is looking at speeding up the Vista boot time to around 2 to 3 seconds. Its a nice idea though, and if they improve boot speed, I am sure many people will be impressed. I am not one of those people though. I would happily wait two minutes for my system to boot if it was as solid as a rock, never crashed and could not be infected with viruses or any other malicious software, but that’s just me. Fast On and Off: A Windows Vista computer starts and shuts down as quickly and reliably as a Read more »

BusinessWeek.com with a look at commercial companies looking at utilizing BitTorrent technology for their media distribution needs. The idea? Gather movies, music, games, and software from Hollywood studios and indie producers alike and distribute them to consumers. BitTorrent would generate revenue either by selling ads within the content or charging a fee for the files. I think that this technology, used by many online media groups doing Podcasts and IPTV, will be quickyl adopted by more popular media streams as they see the usefulness of it. I am amazed more groups have not picked up on it already. Read more »