Rui CarmoWell, for a holiday, this sure has been a busy day. Besides my earlier random browsing, a lot of news has popped up while I mopped up my Firewire disks...
News of a Wi-Fi-enabled Blackberry are popping up all over the place, and even though I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for it (it will probably take another six months or so), this has to be an interesting thing.
For one, I wonder what sort of security measures it will include, not to mention how seamlessly (or if) it will handle the transition from GPRS to Wi-Fi given the extremely patchy state of affairs Wi-Fi roaming is in.
And still on the Wi-Fi topic, it's nice to see Meshed Networking is being pursued as a standard. Intel and Cisco have the clout to settle most interoperability issues, even though small players will feel squeezed.
Even without meshes, Wi-Fi might soon be usable in a train, which is nice. Too bad this sort of solution is yet to be proven cost-effective, but it's another way for WISPs to try and make money - that and gimmicks like exclusive content, which just goes to show you nobody paid any real attention when the Internet bubble burst...
BlueChalking? You've Gotta Be Kidding
As if the idea of WarChalking wasn't one of the stupidest concepts ever invented (and quickly raised to the status of urban legend by clueless media, even though there were very few actual occurences of it in the wild), and considering that BlueJacking is fast decaying as another of the stupidest memes ever to grace the smartphone age, Mike Butcher is now attempting to coin the term BlueChalking for (get this) writing your phone's Bluetooth name near a Bluetooth symbol on the places you frequent.
Guys, I hate to tell you this, but the whole (dubiously useful) idea of WarChalking was to mark the location of fixed access points, not the unlikely event that you might stroll by with Bluetooth active, broadcasting your ego in a 10-meter range... (via Gizmodo).
Finally, Interesting Mac Rumors...
Making a welcome break from the usual "G5-in-everything" rumors, we now have indications (1, 2) that new versions of Virtual PC and iMovie (and maybe another Office) are likely to be announced at MWSF.
That, of course, and the upcoming release of Halo for the Mac, which after a year's wait I am reluctant to classify as actual news until I see a boxed copy (which, this being Portugal, is likely to be a while yet).