Social Media, Connectivity & Communications

The city of Napa, Calif., this week approved an agreement with AT&T for an approximately 12-square-mile deployment of AT&T Metro Wi-FiSM, the company’s wireless broadband Internet access network solution.

Microsoft Corp. and Hearst Corp. unveiled a software service Thursday that allows newspaper readers to download stories and read them even when not connected to the Internet.

As the researchers envision it, community members would register in advance on their community response grid (CRG) using computers, cell phones, or any other mobile device. Emergency coordinators could gather and disseminate information via the site. One of its most important features would be its role in fostering closer community contacts and enabling resident-to-resident assistance during major emergencies.

The battle for your users’ e-mail inboxes probably will never end, but it’s not a failure of technology. Experienced e-mail and system administrators share the key points they really, really wish you understood.

"To be five and half years after 9/11 and be no further toward a national, broadband, interoperable communication system in my judgment is inexcusable," Ridge said in an interview with Government Technology Magazine.

Because large telecommunications companies want to invest their dollars where they’ll get the most return on investment, so if you live in an area where it’s not profitable to supply broadband, you’re out of luck.

The U.S. government should launch a new program that provides grants and loans for broadband providers to extend service to rural areas, a top executive at Verizon Communications Inc. said Monday.

The city disclosed today that it has chosen Atlanta-based EarthLink Municipal Networks to provide a citywide, wireless Internet network within the next two years.

There is a little-known glitch on the way that could soon confound computer systems across the United States.

"I see this as the next wave of extending the Internet into the physical world," said computer scientist Deborah Estrin, who heads the Center for Embedded Networked Sensing, a UCLA-based consortium of six schools.