Author: Wayne Slavin

El Camino Hospital last week become one of the first to provide high-speed wireless access to patients and visitors, making access available throughout its hospital campus and two off-site dialysis centers. Via [informationweek.com]

From fancy hotels to fast-food joints, the number of venues offering high-speed wireless Internet access is expected to grow at a heady clip this year. But industry analysts aren't expecting laptop users and their credit cards to follow. Via [wired.com]

Tropos Networks today unveiled an upgraded Version 3 of its system, a feat that will allow the company to target bigger and more densely populated metro areas with its widescale Wi-Fi solution. Via [rcrnews.com]

Apple Computer unveiled on Monday a $129 device that acts as both a portable wireless base station and a way to stream music throughout the home. Via [news.com.com]

Interlink Networks rolled out Monday a software-based wireless security product that aims to bring high-end enterprise security to small businesses in a setup that's as easy to configure as security codes in a garage door opener. Via [eweek.com]

Virtual, moving fences controlled from a laptop could one day herd cattle to fresh fields for grazing, a roboticist told the MobiSys 2004 conference in Boston, Massachusetts, on Sunday. Via [newscientist.com]

SBC Communications Inc., the number two local phone company in the U.S., reported Monday that Wayport Inc. will deploy SBC's FreedomLink Wi-Fi servicein up to 6,000 McDonald's Corp. restaurants by the end of next summer. Via [forbes.com]

Linda Branagan would seem to be the ideal customer for entrepreneurs and telecommunications companies looking to make money selling wireless Internet connections. Via [iht.com]

WiMax, an evolving standard for point-to-multipoint wireless networking, is poised to do for the last mile of broadband what Wi-Fi has done for the last 100 feet of networking. Via [eweek.com]

Wireless service providers are finally launching high-speed third-generation networks after years of delay. 3G lets you use your laptop or cell phone to download and swap big files like games, photographs and even short video clips. Via [forbes.com]

Phones based on the Global System for Mobile Communications, already popular in Europe, use the Subscriber Identity Module to resolve billing among many networks. Via [eweek.com]

In a rare wireless hacking conviction, a Michigan man entered a guilty plea Friday in federal court in Charlotte, North Carolina for his role in a scheme to steal credit card numbers from the Lowe's chain of home improvement stores by taking advantage of an unsecured wi-fi network at a store in suburban Detroit. Via...

Kevin Gilmore is a network administrator at MicroDisplay, a small company in San Pablo, California, that uses several Wi-Fi access points to give employees the freedom to roam around the office with their laptops while remaining connected to the Internet. Via [wired.com]

The very idea of a wireless network introduces multiple venues for attack and penetration that are either much more difficult or completely impossible to execute with a standard, wired network. Wireless networks only know the boundaries of their own signal: streets, parks, nearby buildings, and cars all offer a virtual "port" into your wireless network....

Today, wireless networks are everywhere -- at Starbucks, Burger King, airports, and so forth -- and all provide wireless Internet access (for a fee). Finding commercial wireless operators is easy; very often, you'll see signage hanging outside a coffee house or on the walls of a hotel lobby. If not, when you power up your...