Geek Gestalt

ASPEN, Colo.--One thing I love is finding uses for things that perhaps no one has thought of before.

I'd already been on Road Trip 2009 for several days when I arrived in this tony Colorado mountain town known best as a playground for the rich and famous. I was hoping to go for a walk and find something good to eat.

It had been a long day of driving, starting in Colorado Springs, and traveling over Independence Pass, a 12,095 "Top of the Rockies" spot just on the Continental Divide. I had planned to stroll around Aspen for a bit and then use my iPhone to get online and find something inexpensive for dinner.

But I had neglected to charge the iPhone, and by the time I got to town, the battery was more or less dead. This is Road Trip, however, and as someone carting around a car full of high-tech gear, I was determined to find a workaround.

Though it is designed to provide a hot-spot for as many as five people in one place, the Verizon MiFi 2200 allowed CNET News reporter Daniel Terdiman to create a mobile Wi-Fi connection for an iPod Touch as he walked around Aspen, Colo.

(Credit: Verizon)

One of the gadgets I am road-testing is a 32GB iPod Touch, a device that, if it has access to a Wi-Fi connection, can do much of what the iPhone can do. But on a walk around a town you don't know, it's hard to count on finding such a connection, especially these days when most people password-protect their Wi-Fi.

However, I also am carrying Verizon's MiFi 2200 mobile hot spot, which converts the carrier's EV-DO signal into a Wi-Fi connection that up to five people can share. I had already used the MiFi to provide a signal for the iPod Touch at the very beginning of the trip so that, while sitting on a boarding airplane, I could download a large file from iTunes.

Now, I realized that by turning the MiFi on and sticking it in my back pocket, I could become, in essence, a walking hot spot, allowing me to get online on the iPod Touch, no matter where I was in town. That meant that I could use the Skype app to make a phone call, run several other apps for one reason or another, and look up good places to eat using the device's browser.

Of course, this is the kind of workaround that isn't going to make sense for most people. If you're going to bother paying for an iPod Touch and a MiFi, you might as well just get an iPhone. But if you're road-testing a number of tech gadgets and you see a way to jerry-rig something to solve a problem, why not do it?

It turns out that it's hard to find decent, inexpensive food in Aspen. But thanks to being able to get online while I walked around, I did end up at a terrific place where I had a good, moderately healthy meal for under $20.

And, since I became a walking hot spot, I was also able to get online on my computer, as well, meaning that I was able to actually do some work while I ate, despite the fact that the restaurant where I found that inexpensive meal didn't offer Wi-Fi.

In the end, one thing puzzled me, though. When I first linked the iPod Touch to the MiFi connection, I tried to locate myself using the device's map feature. But instead of pinpointing where I was in Aspen, it told me I was somewhere in Virginia. I thought that was odd, but I chalked it up to the fact that without a GPS chip, it figures out its location relative to the Wi-Fi signals it finds. Given that the MiFi is a loaner, I thought that maybe it had come from Virginia.

Later, however, when I returned to my car and got ready to head out, I plugged in my iPhone and again, with some power, tried to see if it, with GPS, it could locate me. Oddly, though, the iPhone also told me I was in Virginia.

My only conclusion for the fact that both devices told me this: that the folks in Aspen have figured out some way to trick Google Maps so as to keep out the hoi-polloi. But maybe it was something else. If you have any thoughts, I'd love to hear them.

For the next several weeks, Geek Gestalt will be on Road Trip 2009. After driving more than 12,000 miles in the Pacific Northwest, the Southwest and the Southeast over the last three years, I'll be writing about and photographing the best in technology, science, military, nature, aviation and more in Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, South Dakota and Colorado. If you have a suggestion for someplace to visit, drop me a line. And in the meantime, join the Road Trip 2009 Facebook page and follow my Twitter feed.

OAKLAND INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT--When I wrote to Verizon, asking for a MiFi 2200 mobile hotspot review unit for my upcoming Road Trip 2009 project, the response I got back was, basically, "Why would you want that?"

The MiFi operates on Verizon's EV-DO network, and converts that mobile broadband signal into a Wi-Fi signal that up to five people can use. So the question really was, Why would I, one person, find useful an Internet connectivity technology designed for multiple people?

I've just started using the device, so I've hardly scratched the surface of its potential, but here's one reason why.

Using a Verizon MiFi 2200 makes it possible to download large audio files on an iPhone via Wi-Fi.

(Credit: Verizon)

I boarded my flight to Denver to begin Road Trip--my annual journey through a region of the United States in search of the most interesting destinations there to write about and photograph--and decided I wanted to use my iPhone to download one of the terrific TED talks to listen to during the flight.

The problem was that the file was more than 10 megabytes, and the iPhone will only let you download files that big if you're on a Wi-Fi network. Now, I've been using Verizon's EV-DO technology for some time, and I love it, but the plug-in EV-DO cards only provide connectivity to your computer. Technically, I suppose, you could turn on Internet sharing on the computer and create a Wi-Fi signal that way, but that's an awful big hassle.

Instead, because I had a MiFi with me--an amazingly small device that looks much more like a thin piece of chocolate than a great new technology--I was able to quickly create a Wi-Fi hotspot and satisfy the iPhone's needs.

Next thing I knew, as the plane prepared to depart our gate, I was in a race against time, trying to download the entire 55 megabytes before they closed the door and required everyone to turn off their phones.

Well, let's just say that I was able to get the entire file onto the phone. I won't comment on whether the door had already closed.

To me, this is very big leap forward. Being able to turn on a personal hot spot like that, without needing to pull out the computer, opens up a ton of possibilities. I love my EV-DO card, but it's unwieldy to the point of being annoying. It sticks out of the side of my computer, works only with the laptop and on some machines, requires Verizon's VZAcess Manager software. The MiFi, by comparison, can fit in your shirt pocket and offer up Wi-Fi at the push of a button.

Frankly, I don't think its utility depends in any way on multiple people using it. Here, by myself on a plane about to take off for Denver, I've already proved--to myself at least--that MiFi is a technology perfectly suitable for one.

For the next several weeks, Geek Gestalt will be on Road Trip 2009. After driving more than 12,000 miles in the Pacific Northwest, the Southwest and the Southeast over the last three years, I'll be writing about and photographing the best in technology, science, military, nature, aviation and more in Colorado, Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, Montana and South Dakota. If you have a suggestion for someplace to visit, drop me a line. And in the meantime, join the Road Trip 2009 Facebook page and follow my Twitter feed.

The legacy telecommunications network at the San Francisco Giants' AT&T Park required an entire wall of switches and wires. New for 2009, the team has rolled out a VoIP system that will save it $355,000 a year, nearly enough to pay for a backup infielder.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET Networks)

SAN FRANCISCO--Could changing phone systems pay a big-league baseball player's salary? To hear Bill Schlough, the CIO of the San Francisco Giants tell it, the answer is a definite yes.

Last winter, the team migrated to a new $1 million-plus VoIP telecommunications system from ShoreTel for its ballpark, AT&T Park, abandoning its legacy system, which--ironically--was provided by AT&T. According to Schlough, the old system cost $490,000 annually, while the new setup for the 457 phones at the ballpark run the team just $135,000 a year.

Given that the minimum salary for Major League Baseball players this year is $400,000, the resulting annual savings of $355,000 is almost enough to pay for a backup second baseman or a rookie relief pitcher.

San Francisco Giants CIO Bill Schlough explains that the team's new telecommunications system, a VoIP setup from ShoreTel, takes up just a single rack in the back of the its telecommunications hub.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET Networks)

In all seriousness, though, the Giants implemented the new system at the behest of the team's former owner, Peter Magowan, who, in late 2007, sent a memo around wondering why the club was paying more for its telecommunications infrastructure than any other team in baseball. Now, it is in the final stages of implementing what it hopes will prove to be a cutting-edge system that will allow it to improve customer service, as well as customer tracking, and make it simpler to make changes within its internal network on the fly.

One visceral example of how the new ShoreTel setup is a generational step up from the Giants' old AT&T network is deep in the ballpark's bowels, in what is known as the MPO, or minimum point of entry, its telecommunications infrastructure hub. There, the old system's sets of switches and wiring take up an entire wall. But now, its VoIP setup is doing its job from a single rack in the back of the room.

And beyond the cost savings the new system provides, Schlough told a group of reporters gathered Monday night for a discussion of the ballpark's technology, its integrated software for the first time allows the team to do a much better job of proactively identifying callers to its season ticket customer support line and allowing service representatives to see, even before picking up such a call, a set of information about the customer, including whether they've used their tickets to recent games or whether they've sold them on StubHub.com. Previously, Schlough said, the reps would have no idea who a caller was until the conversation had commenced.

The system also provides benefits throughout the Giants' baseball organization, said team employee Lena Boswell. She explained that coaches in the Giants minor leagues are required to file a detailed report to the parent club after every game, and said that the ShoreTel system allows those coaches can now record a single message and distribute it automatically to everyone that needs to get it.

At more than $1 million, the Giants' new phone system is certainly pricey, but Schlough said that given the annual savings, he expects it to pay for itself in just three years.

The Giants Digital Dugout offers fans a series of features, including a food finder, and a quickly-updated collection of video replays.

(Credit: San Francisco Giants)

But the phone setup isn't the teams only major recent technology investment. The Giants have also coughed up big money for things like a state-of-the-art high-definition video scoreboard, as well as hundreds of HDTVs that were installed around the ballpark.

All together, Schlough told CNET News, when large capital expenditures are included, the Giants spend between 2.5 percent and 3 percent of the team's total annual budget on technology. He did not say what the dollar amount of that annual budget is, but its safe to say it is in the high eight figures or low nine figures, since its payroll alone is $82.6 million and it has an annual debt service of at least $20 million on the privately financed AT&T Park, which opened in 2000.

Wi-Fi and the iPhone factor
For years, meanwhile, the ballpark has offered its customers free Wi-Fi. In fact, it was among the very first to do so in all of professional sports. And for years, using it meant toting a laptop to the park, something which usually did not sit well with hard-core fans.

But Schlough said that the iPhone and iPod Touch era has changed things irrevocably for the ballpark's Wi-Fi system and has inspired the team to offer customers a set of services unlike that available in any other park.

He said that the iPhone debuted the same weekend as the Giants hosted the 2007 Major League Baseball All-Star Game and that since then, usage of the park's Wi-Fi network has gone up 537 percent.

At a game on April 21, in fact, he said, 1,289 fans connected to the network. And one thing that has changed dramatically since the advent of the iPhone and iPod Touch is when fans are using Wi-Fi. In the early days, Schlough said, usage was almost exclusively during weekday day games, a function of the many businesspeople who came to games with clients.

Now, however, he explained, the usage pattern has shifted dramatically, and the lion's share of the usage is during night games.

During the 2008 season, Schlough said, there were usually an average of no more than 600 people using the ballpark's Wi-Fi network on any given date. "This year, there were more than 1,000 right out of the box," he said.

"This year," he added, "everybody has a phone in their hand everywhere they go," including the bathrooms.

Customers who do log on to the Wi-Fi network at the park are now able to use an innovative and exclusive system called the Giants Digital Dugout. This offers fans two big benefits.

The first is a "food finder," which can direct fans to the closest concession location for the exact kind of food or beverage they want, and the second is a collection of video replay highlights that includes, within three minutes after it happens, any controversial call by an umpire.

Among the video replay highlights available from the Digital Dugout is this one, slugger Barry Bonds' 756th home run, which broke baseball's all-time career record.

(Credit: San Francisco Giants)

In Major League Baseball, unlike other sports, ballparks are not allowed to show replays of controversial calls on the scoreboard. So Schlough worried that too much attention to the video replay feature of the Digital Dugout might force the league to shut the Giants' system down. Short of that, though, it is an attractive feature, and well worth bringing an iPhone to the park.

It's features like that, however, that are inspiring fans by the hundreds, if not thousands, to get online at the ballpark. But in the early days of the Wi-Fi network at AT&T Park, it was mostly reporters and photographers logging on.

In fact, said Schlough, newspapers that were able to run photos in their morning editions the day after former Giants superstar slugger Barry Bonds hit his 660th career home run late in a night game on April 13, 2004, tying his godfather, Willie Mays, for third place on the all-time list, owed a debt of gratitude to the park's Wi-Fi.

"Without it," Schlough said, "they wouldn't have hit (their) deadlines."

On June 22, Geek Gestalt will kick off Road Trip 2009. After driving more than 12,000 miles in the Pacific Northwest, the Southwest and the Southeast over the last three years, I'll be looking for the best in technology, science, military, nature, aviation and more in Colorado, Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, Montana and South and North Dakota. If you have a suggestion for someplace to visit, drop me a line. And in the meantime, join the Road Trip 2009 Facebook page and follow my Twitter feed.

While it may seem normal to have several Net-connected Macs among a small group of people, this is the first time such a scene happened at the off-the-grid, mountaintop home of CNET News reporter Daniel Terdiman's in-laws.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

NICE, Calif.--As a San Francisco-based Internet junkie, I can't count the number of times I've been in groups with almost as many wirelessly connected Mac laptops as people.

So the scene in front of me shouldn't be new: four people, three connected Mac laptops.

But there's something completely novel going on: I'm visiting my in-laws at their off-the-grid, mountaintop house in Northern California, about four hours northeast of San Francisco. And I can say with absolute certainty that this is the first time such a scene has played out here.

How do I know? Because it's been less than two weeks since my in-laws, Tyler and Donna, had Internet installed on their property for the first time--in their case, the only available option was satellite--and it's been just hours since I personally set up their wireless network. In other words, Wi-Fi is a newly arrived house guest, and judging by the concentration on their faces, the occasional smiles, and the superlatives coming from their lips, it's a very welcome one.

For years, my wife and I had been trying to get her parents to cotton to the idea that their lives, at 4,000 feet, surrounded by national forest and steeped in the necessities of growing most of their own food, could be improved by getting online. But they'd gotten by just fine, thank you, for more than 30 years, without even a television.

Now, suddenly, there is a Wi-Fi network set up in their house, and I could see my in-laws' lives changing before my eyes.

For example, Tyler said excitedly to me one morning during my visit that he'd figured out how to use e-mail and the Web to do many of the things that used to require him to stop at the post office and get stamps.

"That's the end of snail mail for me," Tyler told me. And, he added, no more catalogs would be cramming their P.O. box.

Yesssss!

Working so much better now
My wife and I had conveniently--and coincidentally--managed to time our last visit to the mountain with the HughesNet satellite installation. But as I wrote previously, those first baby steps didn't go so well.

Thanks to glacially slow initial download speeds, the unexpected realities of a 200MB daily download limit, and the necessity of loading countless Windows updates onto their 2-year-old, Internet-chaste PC, we had retreated the mountain almost embarrassed by how badly it had gone.

This is the screen HughesNet customers can use to get up-to-date information about their Internet connection.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

So, I set out to make it all better by bringing them a refurbished MacBook, pre-configured at home with everything they'd need for a happy Internet life. I even unhooked my home Wi-Fi network and donated it to the cause.

Southwest Airlines announced Wednesday that it plans to begin trials of satellite-to-airplane broadband Internet service sometime this summer.

Spokeswoman Marilee McInnis said Wednesday morning that initially Southwest plans to test the service on four planes. But because the airline's planes fly many different routes, she did not anticipate--at least not yet--that travelers would be able to plan to fly on one of those planes.

Southwest Airlines plans to begin trials of satellite Internet service this summer.

(Credit: Southwest Airlines)

That means that in the early going at least, the service--which will allow passengers to access the Internet if they have their own Wi-Fi-enabled laptops--will be available at random.

McInnis did not say if Southwest's service would limit what kind of sites or applications passengers could access, as does JetBlue's recently added service.

But she pointed out that because the service is satellite-to-plane--whereas JetBlue's, for example, is ground-to-air--it would ensure consistent connectivity, even over water.

It's not entirely clear what benchmarks Southwest will use to determine the success or failure of the trial. McInnis said that the airline will examine whether the technology works and whether it performs according to plan.

As a frequent Southwest traveler, I guess I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, it would be great to have connectivity while on the go. On the other, as many have discussed previously, bringing Internet to the few places where it's not currently available limits the places you can get away from work.

Still, I suppose I'm in favor of the advance. Now if only airlines can work on bringing power outlets to all seats--not just those in business or first class--so that those of us in coach flying long flights can power up the whole way.

REDWOOD CITY, Calif.--As a fairly frequent conference attendee, I have had to deal with all kinds of little annoyances that come with the endless confabs that go on these days.

Over the years, one of the ones that has most bothered me--and annoyed others--has gotten somewhat better: the lack of Wi-Fi. It's not perfect, of course, but more and more I'm finding that I can get online wirelessly, something crucial to me as a reporter.

But one pet peeve has not gotten any better, and I, and others, have had enough: the lack of power strips.

I'm currently at the Dow Jones Consumer Technology Innovations 2007 event here, and in the main ballroom where the keynotes and panel discussions are being held, there is zero power available at the many tables in the room. Sure, there's power against the wall, as there always is, but that's just not sufficient.

I simply can't understand how, in late 2007, with almost no end to the number of conferences, symposiums, and other events put on by technology and media companies, organizers haven't caught on to the necessity for power.

Sure, not everybody's going to need it. But many are. Just look at the number of people with their laptops out during talks. Each of those people would appreciate a power strip to plug into. How do I know? Because even at many the events where such luxuries are provided, the strips are jammed full, and some people still can't power up.

Honestly, I don't know what to do other than rant about it here. I hope that someone in a position to do something about this phenomenon sees this and decides that it's time to make sure this changes. Because it's time.

I love wireless Internet.

I know, I'm hardly alone. There is no end to the number of road warriors and writers in cafes and rural professionals whose incomes and lifeline to friends and family depend on getting online on the go.

But after spending a few days away from connectivity, I'm really struck by just how vital Wi-Fi and other methods of getting on the Internet wirelessly are to me.

I noted the other day that I had managed, via an EV-DO card, to get a connection, albeit a slow one, while visiting my in-laws. This was ground-breaking, as it was at 4,000 feet and in the middle of a national forest. The next goal is figuring out how to get the in-laws their own, always-on, high-speed connection. Oh, and it has to be way more affordable than satellite.

I was telling them during this visit about Wi-Max and its someday-it'll-happen promise of being able to bathe an entire mountain, or something like that, with connectivity. But, for them, it really is quite some ways off.

For me, though, it was being on a second leg of my trip into the wilds of no Internet--a camping trip in the woods with a bunch of friends--where it really struck home: Even though I should really be in the moment, and happy to be away from e-mail and browsers and so forth, I was jonesing. I admit it. I wanted to get online. And it seemed absurd to me that I wasn't able to do so. I mean, I got a high-speed connection at Burning Man, in the middle of one of the most barren locations in the world.

But guilty as it makes me to realize that I want to get online even when I'm in the most remote places, I know there are many like me.

And I know there are billions of dollars being spent, even as I write this, to meet my needs. For this, I am grateful.

Here's the thing. I believe that ubiquitous high-speed wireless Internet can be one of the most powerful forces for positive change we've ever seen. I know that such an innovation would also bring all sorts of negative consequences to previously unconnected regions--spyware, invasions of privacy, Internet Explorer and so on--but its ability to let people communicate in so many different ways, to do research, to call for help, to organize and so on, trumps the downsides.

I also know this isn't a ground-breaking realization, and that--as I said above--the telecommunications companies of the world are betting their futures on the profitability of such a vision.

But if you're like me, and you're as hitched at the hip as I am to your Internet, you try spending several days away from it and not coming home convinced that being able to get online anywhere you are is the thing that can save the world.