I don’t know if you have noticed but there have been some major setbacks in the efforts to bring WiFi to the masses.

Wisconsin killed their WiFi efforts due to poor economics of the project. CalTrain canceled their bid process for WiFi on their rail system, Earthlink most likely will never build Houston’s public WiFi network due to economic concerns, San Francisco canceled their previously green lighted WiFi project, Springfield Illinois abandoned WiFi for WiMax, the list goes on in the very public humiliation of the popular home wireless networking standard. Even the gold standard, Google FREE WiFi, and they see only 15,000 unique users each month which is VERY LOW considering the population density in the 12 square mile network.

In contrast use of cellular data cards are growing exponentially as lower data prices and improvements in the network transmission speeds continue. As opposed to WiFi Verizon Wireless has 100% EVDO Revision A coverage for their entire network, bringing DSL “broadband” speeds to over 150 million people. Far more then any WiFi provider could do.

Even if WiFi is able to ramp up and get total coverage in at least 80 cities that is smaller then the cellular broadband footprint by its smallest provider – AT&T, and most likely these WiFi networks will be operated by independent companies offering no interoperability. WiFi network operators can’t even get their act together in the nations airports, when I land I’m not sure if there is even going to be a WiFi connection and if there is it is a tossup on what provider it will be.

Unfortunately, I think the age of public WiFi has come and gone and the providers of wireless broadband will be phone companies over some form of cellular network and WiFi will stay regulated to the home.

Who knew pee held so much power? Aqua Power scientists in Japan have developed rechargeable batteries that can run on, among other liquids such as water, urine. NoPoPo batteries can only be re-charged a limited number of times, and aren’t as powerful as many of the other rechargeables on the market, it’s certainly possible to imagine a situation where this would come in handy.

While this is pretty cool from a pure technology standpoint, I’m left with two lingering questions. Why on earth would anyone want to pee into their battery if they could just fill it up at a faucet, and who still uses regular batteries anyway. I’ve had 4 awesome USBcell AA’s sitting in their packaging since Macworld, and I still haven’t found a use for them. [via]

My current RSS Reader for the while has been updated to include search. It’s not something I totally needed before but I am sure I can now find use for. Assuming they don’t dump your older posts after a while, the search can be a very invaluable tool. Another update which was not mentioned was that the limit for unread item notification went up the 1000+ now. Previously, if you had more than 100 unread items it would say (100+) and now the figure is bumped to 1000. This is pretty useful for sites like digg as now I can really know how much I have yet to read, up to 1000 at least.

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From Fun Tech Talk; going through 5 simple things that can be modified in Vista to speed up performance significantly. These include:

1. Turning off Remote Differential Compression
2. Turning off Windows Search Indexing
3. Adding a 2GB flash drive to use ‘Ready Boost’
4. Disabling Automatic Disk Defragmentation
5. Shutting off Windows Hibernation

Although I have little [read: no] experience with Vista, these do seem like easy tasks to gain some speed boosts on one behemoth of an OS.

Hit the link for walkthroughs

[Speed up Vista via Fun tech Talk]

More is more, right? Well, Japanese company Mcell is shipping a hybrid drive that has a 1GB stick of DDR RAM on it to really hopes to speed up the way data is transfered.

Currently shipping in 80 GB and 120 GB sizes the drives claim they can achieve random data transfer rates in excess of 110 Mbytes/s, which for non geeks is substantially faster than today’s drives.

Currently it looks as if the drives will just be made available in Japan with no plans of shipping worldwide.

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Lots to talk about in the world of Apple/Music/Television/Digital Distribution/DRM/good tofu recipes. The NY Post is reporting that Amazon will launch a Music store with non-restricted MP3s available.

The store will offer songs in the iPod-friendly MP3 format and give consumers who use the popular music player an alternative source for major label music besides Apple’s iTunes.
The current thinking on a launch date for the Amazon MP3 store is the week of Sept. 17. However, industry insiders aware of Amazon’s plan caution that it remains a moving target. Amazon has already pushed the timetable on the service’s introduction multiple times.

It’s expected to launch around September 17th with about 1 million tracks from Universal Music Group, EMI and independent labels excluding Sony BMG and Warner Music group. Albums are reportedly going to cost $7.99 and $9.99. It looks like the once invincible iTunes is seriously getting some competition.

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Bloglines and I have a real love/hate relationship. I used it after moving from Google Reader because it moved a lot quicker for me then moved back to Google Reader because now speed is no longer an issue, but it seems Bloglines is like the abusive lover that keeps calling you and I might be dumb enough to listen because the new Bloglines if hella pretty.

What’s more, if you liked the way Netvibes handles feeds as opposed to Google Reader or Bloglines, the new beta actually includes Netvibes-esque functionality. I’m not moving from Google reader quite yet though since I noticed Bloglines taking a dip in the speed yet the ability to seamlessly drag and drop feeds into folders is now waaaaay better for someone like me who is subscribed to hundreds of feeds. The issue of Feed Readers is something I have talked about quite a bit on my personal blog and I should end it now before I start getting overly excited. For me, both products have features I like and dislike but I’m sticking with Google Reader, for now. Check out the beta and decide for yourself.

Try It

Everyone’s favorite tech show site has finally updated their flash player. Revision3′s flash player was way inferior to just about anything before but finally it offers volume control and full screen support. In addition to that, streaming HD will be available for Diggnation on Friday to paying members and to everyone else on Sundays from now on with more shows in HD coming soon. What do you think of Revision3?

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Is it just me or do the next-gen games seem to be taking longer and longer to come out? Kane & Lynch: Dead Men is a co-op game where the co-operation is with the bad guys. While the game looked interesting in all that I was reading, I haven’t seen much in terms of game play until now and yes, I am impressed. It’s coming out for the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3. Any takers?

According to The Boy Genius Report, at&t is ramping up efforts to offer a special parental tools feature which will allow mom & dad full control over their children’s voice and data usage. The new tool is slated to be called Smart Limits and will undoubtedly become every teenagers worst nightmare.

The tool will allow individuals to set usage limits, allocate minutes (finally) among various users on the family plan, set various time-of-day or day-of-week stipulations, filter content, and allow for specified calling. The service will cost $4.99 monthly and is not available on corporate accounts.

While I commend at&t for stepping-up to the plate to look like the good-guy, I can’t help but wonder how the board meeting went as both ends of the table argued whether or not such a tool would be as profitable as letting customers simply run-up their airtime minutes.