John Gordon
Chief Technology Officer
Posted on September 15, 2007
Our friends at Nullriver added Devicescape Connect to the package list this afternoon, so everybody can now download it and try it out. Please be aware that this is very much an alpha release. We’re looking for your feedback on this one. Tell us whether it works (and, just as important, if it doesn’t). Also, we don’t have personal networks or Wi-Fi buddies in there yet, though we’re looking at how that can be done. If you haven’t installed it yet, the email responder for iphone@devicescape.com will be updated on Monday with download and installation instructions; if you can’t wait, install the Nullriver Installer.app and follow your instincts. If you get stuck, post something in our forum, add a comment here or send us an email – whatever works best for you.
John Gordon
Chief Technology Officer
Posted on September 12, 2007
So you’ve got what is perhaps the coolest mobile device on the planet, an Apple iPhone. Now you make it even better by adding Devicescape Connect. Then you too can be standing in line at your favorite coffee shop and feel your iPhone vibrate as new email comes in over high speed Wi-Fi. We’re in the process of getting it ready for download, hopefully later this week. If you’d like to take part in our early access release, let us know via an email to iphone@devicescape.com and we’ll send you installation instructions as soon as everything is ready.
John Gordon
Chief Technology Officer
Posted on August 8, 2007
Although this version doesn’t contain Wi-Fi (so it is less interesting for Devicescape members), the mass market version due out later this year will include Wi-Fi support. The platform, based on the open source community project called OpenMoko. OpenMoko is a very complete Linux based environment for mobile phones, and while the Neo is the reference there is also work to get it running on other mobile phone platforms.
John Gordon
Chief Technology Officer
Posted on August 7, 2007
Devicescape users who are attending the Linux World 2007 show in San Francisco can add the show’s free hotspot network to their ‘My WiFi’ list to have their devices connect automatically. No need to see that captive portal just to sync your email, or to make that VoIP call home. I’ve tested it on my laptop (running Linux of course since this is Linux World), and my Nokia N95 mobile. Check out my history below, and please leave a comment if you use the service while you’re at the show.
John Gordon
Chief Technology Officer
Posted on August 7, 2007
While a lot of the blogging today has been around the Apple announcements this morning, I wanted to post something about the Linux World show, happening this week in San Francisco. I’m sitting at the edge of the show floor right now, having completed a first pass across the floor, and I thought I’d share the things that caught my attention.
Posted on August 3, 2007
Devicescape has been mentioned the news lately about its contribution of our Wi-Fi stack to the opensource movement and we wanted to set the record straight as to why we contributed our technology to the Linux kernel. Simon Barber, a founder of Devicescape and Chief Scientist had this to say: Q: Why did Devicescape get involved and donate the new wireless stack to Linux/open source? “We saw the beginnings of a Linux wireless sub-system that had the potential to grow in ways that were not conducive to what we thought would be best for the industry or our customers. We had already developed a very advanced stack specifically for Linux and decided that we should contribute it to the kernel and have it sit as the standard open source model on which the community could build. This allowed us several advantages such as the much wider range of testing than we could have gotten on our own and the constant improvements and additional code support that the open source community provides. In addition, contributing the kernel also helped position Devicescape (then Instant802) as a leader in the wireless space.” Q: How is the new stack better than what the Linux…
John Gordon
Chief Technology Officer
Posted on August 1, 2007
I attended the July Geek Sessions event last night in San Francisco. On the panel, to present their experiences with surviving the hockey stick, were Sandy Jen from Meebo, Nick Heyman from VideoEgg, Rod Gorodetzky from digg and Jonathan Abrams from Socializr (and formerly Friendster). I’d missed the first event because I was on my European odyssey, which if it was anything like last night’s is a shame. The panelists provided some interesting insight into the problems they faced scaling up websites to cope with an exponentially growing userbase. In addition to that, the folks from Arcscale gave away a number of skate boards, B-Hive gave away an iPhone, and there was an open bar and hor’deurves served after the presentations.
Posted on July 25, 2007
Last week, Devicescape launched its latest service, Wi-Fi Buddies that expands on the Devicescape auto-connect service by letting you add your home networks and then share these with friends and family. We think this is a pretty cool feature that helps our members get online when they are on the go visiting friends and family. How many friends would you share with? How often do you think you might use this? Check out the new service and tell us what you think! How it works: Update your client software to get started with Wi-Fi Buddies: Go to your My Wi-Fi page and click “Add a Personal Network” to add your home Wi-Fi. Click on “Share” or “Request” to send out the invite to share or request access. Your friends get a Devicescape account, accept your invite, and get online to synch the new permissions. Your friends come to your house and get instant Wi-Fi internet access at your home. Success! You’ve shared your network and can ask them to do the same!
John Gordon
Chief Technology Officer
Posted on June 15, 2007
The Devicescape community has been growing over the past six months, and more and more people are taking advantage of automatic logins at the hotspots they use regularly. But what are the top networks that Devicescape members are using? The top ten networks that we see our members using are: FON T-Mobile US/UK (tmobile) Boingo‘s CONCOURSE Network, USA Orange, France NTT DoCoMo Mzone, Japan (docomo) T-Mobile/T-Com, Germany BT Openzone, UK BB Mobilepoint, Japan NTT Communications HOTSPOT, Japan (0033) Airborne Access, Philippines Quite an international group, with networks from Asia, North America and Europe all represented (and the top 15 includes South America too). Of course, since FON is a worldwide network, the top 10 might include users from many more places. Tell us where you use Devicescape most often, or where you’d like to use it – leave a comment, or post something in our forums.
John Gordon
Chief Technology Officer
Posted on June 14, 2007
Back in San Francisco, this week is Apple‘s WWDC 2007 event (I’d call it a show, but it is meant to be a developer conference). The buzz of course is all around the iPhone, expected to be available in two weeks time, and whether or not application developers will be able to write cool new apps for it. The answer to that question appears to be yes, and no. It does sound as though web applications running in the phone’s Safari browser will be able to do some very cool things, but it doesn’t look as though we’ll be able to add Devicescape support using that mechanism (not least because you can’t access the web to download the application before logging in at a commercial hotspot). I’ll keep watching the announcements to see if there is any way to get Devicescape supported on this phone so you can enjoy easier access to those Wi-Fi hotspots while you’re out and about, and let you know if I discover anything. Meanwhile, if you have any pointers to information that might help, I’d appreciate it
