Posted on May 19, 2008
The Cloud, Europe’s fastest growing Wi-Fi network provider – and arguably the coolest (they own the access points in all the pubs in London) has partnered with Devicescape to provide their customers the great Devicescape auto-connect service relabeled as “mycloud.” We’re thrilled to be working with such a mover and shaker in the world of Wi-Fi – and oh yea – they had a great party at the chic SoHo trend-spot “24 Kingly” to kick off the fun. What this means for our Devicescape members: Right now it just means that you’ve hitched your wagon to a start-up that is in demand the world around. Pretty cool for you and it shows how technically savvy you are and what impeccable taste you have 😉 What this means for Cloud members: You’re in luck! The Cloud will automatically create Devicescape accounts for you so you can immediately start enjoying fast and easy Wi-Fi access in every pub you go to! (McDonalds and cafes in the UK too.) Just another step in our taking the world by storm…
Posted on April 2, 2008
Slacker, Inc, the maker of the new Slacker Internet Radio Service and the Slacker Portable Player, today released a new and improved version of their firmware that integrates Devicescape Connect. Nice – you say, but what does this mean? Well, for Slacker Portable owners this is pretty cool news. Now they have far more places out there in the world where their radios can refresh on Wi-Fi and get them fast access to more songs and other content. One blogger puts it simply: “Yaaay! Devicescape now on Slacker devices” For other device manufacturers and the network operators, this marriage between two California start-ups with innovative new technologies signals the coming of a new era of connected device – and some potentially disruptive forces in the field. As consumers come to expect to be able to access content and services from any device, everywhere they go – manufacturers will continue to add fast and easy Wi-Fi access to every device they make. We are beginning to see this already on Smartphones – and now with Slacker and the iPhone and iPod touch – we have some new devices that really take advantage of and grow the love for Wi-Fi and always…
Dave Fraser
Chief Executive Officer
Posted on March 24, 2008
Since we launched Devicescape we’ve tried to find the right balance of stability and experimentation for new features. As the size of our community grows, however, we’re aware that we need a better method to gain high value feedback before a wider rollout. With this in mind, we’ve created the Pioneer Program as a way for our members to indicate their interest in early access to new features and capabilities. Devicescape Pioneers will receive special invitations from time to time to try out new features we’re evaluating for the Devicescape service. There is no obligation other than trying things out and telling us what you think. You can decline to participate if you’re not interested in any test we invite you to, and you can also decide you don’t want to be a Pioneer at any time in which case we won’t bother you again. Easy! If you’re interested in becoming a Pioneer, go to the portal at pioneer.devicescape.com to read more and to sign up.
Dave Fraser
Chief Executive Officer
Posted on February 7, 2008
We’ve decided to make it easier for developers to access the Devicescape client source code. As our community of users grows, and as our business with device manufacturers evolves, we’ve had numerous requests for new features and evaluations. While we’ll continue to respond to those directly, we thought it would be good to open up the technology to enthusiasts as well as make it easier for commercial developers to evaluate Devicescape. So, there’s now an application form at developer.devicescape.com which allow individuals and corporations to apply. There is a click through license agreement which we hope won’t be too onerous, and a place where you need to tell us your intended usage. We want to understand what developers are doing prior to approval and release of the code. We’re making all our various platforms available, with the exception of the S60 as it has some restrictions. Anyone using the source code will be given a license key which allows up to 10 devices to be attached to our system. It’s completely free for non-commercial use. If you’re a commercial developer, our hope is that you’ll be able to experiment and prototype faster, without needing 10 levels of sign-off from management…
Dave Fraser
Chief Executive Officer
Posted on February 6, 2008
Yesterday we released the first major upgrade to Devicescape. We racked our brains for ages and consulted the finest creative minds to come up with an appropriate name for the release, and after much argument settled on “Devicescape 2.0”. Very creative! Internally the codename was “Instant Access” or as many Devicescapers ended up abbreviating: “IA”. Whenever companies announce new products they often seem to say something like this being the results of lots of feedback from users or customers. Not to repeat the cliche, but that’s definitely been the case for us. When we launched Devicescape in its 1.0 form, we required the user to create an account at our website and then register their devices with us. They then had to select the networks they wanted to use, including their commercial accounts and any free networks in the system. That seemed like a good idea at the time, but quite quickly things got out of hand. It just became too tedious to go through all that process, and as the number of networks in our system escalated we started hearing consistent comments and suggestions. We heard: Can you make this work straight “out of the box?” Can you make…
Dave Fraser
Chief Executive Officer
Posted on December 26, 2007
2007 has been a remarkable year for Devicescape. Although we slyly turned on the service in December ’06, we were in stealth mode until our announcement at DEMO in February. Back then, we supported only three networks: T-Mobile (since there’s a Starbuck$ across the road serving as our test environment), FON (because we’re FON fans), and Google Mountain View (because resistance is futile they’re a useful model for muni installations). Over the course of 2007 we started adding networks, initially by visiting locations ourselves, but later by asking our members to report. Now, we have close to 1000 different networks in our system, and it’s growing rapidly. We have most of the big commercial networks, of course, but the great thing about Devicescape is being able to provide access where our members need it. It’s really exciting for us to see all the usage at local and community networks, especially universities, throughout the world. Similar to our network growth, we’ve also seen a widening of device support. The distribution on Nokia phones has been cool, swelling our membership along with surprising adoption on the iPhone and iPod Touch (big thanks to Null River for their installer application). It’s somewhat ironic…
John Gordon
Chief Technology Officer
Posted on November 8, 2007
Sorry I didn’t get an announcement up for this ahead of time, but we presented Devicescape last night at November’s SF New “Mobile” Tech, at the Mighty last night. I’d like to extend our thanks to Myles for organising the event, despite being no more than a few days away from becoming a father, and also to all the folks in the audience who already had Devicescape installed on their iPhones, iPod touches, Nokia phones, tablets and other mobile devices. It was amazing to see people hold up iPhones/iPods with the Devicescape UI open when I asked how many had Wi-Fi enabled mobile devices! Also want to mention my co-presenters for the night: Veeker 2.0: Rodger Raderman, Co-Founder Mosio: Noel Chandler, Co-Founder Pazap: Dominic Son, Founder Waterfall Mobile: Matthew Silk, EVP It was great to see so many folks embracing mobile, something that Devicescape is committed to making simpler for people to use everyday, everywhere.
Posted on November 8, 2007
We’ve begun making some simple “how to” videos and you can check them out on YouTube by doing a search for Devicescape – or by clicking below to the video you’d like to view: Using Devicescape on your Nokia Mobile Phone Link to YouTube (for iPhone/iPod touch users). Installing Devicescape on your Nokia Mobile Phone Link to YouTube (for iPhone/iPod touch users). You can even watch videos that the fine folks at Nokia have shot and added to YouTube: Devicescape client on N95 at Starbucks Link to YouTube: Devicescape client on N95 at Starbucks Using Devicescape at San Jose Aiport Link to YouTube page We’ve gotten some good responses for these videos (but no worries, we won’t be quitting the day job to head to Hollywood 😉 ) so keep coming back and checking our learn more pages too.
Posted on October 16, 2007
It became official last week – the Devicescape application is now available on Nokia Nseries phones right from the Download! folder. This means even more people worldwide will be able to use the great Devicescape auto-Wi-Fi connect service and all the other great Devicescape features, like the ability to add personal networks and share with Wi-Fi Buddies. You’ll recognized the Devicescape “bug” and it’s called Easy WiFi – because – hey it is! If you haven’t read about this yet, check out the press release (also available in French and German) or read some of the great articles that have already been published.
John Gordon
Chief Technology Officer
Posted on September 30, 2007
I dropped by the new Whole Foods Market in Oakland this weekend and noticed that they had free Wi-Fi storewide. So, I added it to Devicescape allowing all your Wi-Fi devices to get online while you shop.
