Author Archive for Katie Fehrenbacher
Katie Fehrenbacher
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Friday, June 22, 2007 |
8:02 AM PT |
The capital of California (by politics, not culture - sorry guys) is a step closer to getting its 90-square mile WiFi network. Last night the Sacramento city council approved an agreement for a WiFi network that will be built and operated by an organization called Sacramento Metro Connect, made up by Azulstar, Cisco Systems, Intel and SeaKay. When (if) this network goes live, the CaliCapital would be one of the more advanced broadband cities in the state. Surewest, a small independent telecom operator has wired up the city and offers ultra broadband speeds to its customers as an option.
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Katie Fehrenbacher
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Tuesday, June 12, 2007 |
2:46 PM PT |
While Google’s recent eco kick has largely focused on issues like installing solar panels for its offices and offering biodiesel commuter shuttles to its employees, the search company just joined a broader green push with members of the computing industry. At Google HQ Tuesday morning,
Google, along with Intel and a dozen or so tech companies announced an initiative to drive more energy efficient computing.
It’s partly a ‘look at how green we are’ PR move, but if the plan can save as much energy and reduce as much green house gas emissions as the companies are suggesting — 54 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions cut per year, and a savings of $5.5 billion in energy costs — well, then we’re all for that. Google co-founder Larry Page made a quick appearance to push the plan, saying “this could really help the world.”
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Katie Fehrenbacher
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Tuesday, June 12, 2007 |
12:45 AM PT |
MuniFi’s been getting shelled in the press, mostly because of some under-utilized deployments. That hasn’t deterred cities from taking the plunge, particularly small communities where the investment in the network is modest compared to mega-million dollar projects underway in Philadelphia.
Yesterday, we took a little day trip to the South San Francisco beach town of Pacifica, where Veraloft, Tropos and the City of Pacifica were hosting a launch event for its new network. The wind at the pier was strong enough to garble the execs speeches and we were one of just a handful of spectators who made the trip to watch the weird surfboard fin wireless-cutting display (don’t ask).
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Katie Fehrenbacher
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Friday, June 1, 2007 |
11:49 AM PT |
We hadn’t talked to the Cyworld US team in awhile, so we stopped by their San Francisco offices this week to play catch up. The South Korean social network that launched in the U.S. last August, told us they are planning on launching a mobile application for the U.S. market in the first quarter of 2008.
Cyworld is still working out the details, but the application will likely end up as an app for one of the mainstream U.S. carriers. Considering their parent company SK Telecom already has a relationship with Sprint (via Helio) and T-Mobile USA’s parent company in Germany, those two carriers are a good bet for a possible U.S. rollout.
And while the mobile app is awhile away, the company seems to be finally gathering a little traction in the US. At the end of April 2007, Cyworld had a little over one million unique visitors a month, according to comScore. The company also told us it currently has 250,000 members and is growing at about 22% per month.
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Katie Fehrenbacher
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Thursday, May 31, 2007 |
11:10 AM PT |
Katie Fehrenbacher
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Thursday, May 31, 2007 |
9:15 AM PT |
Some city-wide Wi-Fi networks are being launched and few residents are using them. And then there are the planned muniFi networks that are stuck in the purgatory of logistics and bureacracy — perpetually ‘in the works’ but with missed deadlines and unsure futures.
The Palo Alto Daily News says the plan to build a Wi-Fi network for Silicon Valley is “mired in delays.” Construction of the network hasn’t started yet, cities have yet to sign certain important agreements, and the test network which was expected to be ready as early as February, won’t be ready until sometime in the summer. Optimistic? After all June is knocking on the door.
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Katie Fehrenbacher
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Wednesday, May 30, 2007 |
10:47 PM PT |
We almost skipped the NetSquared convention this week, given the 21 web-based projects presenting are all not-for profit organizations. But hey, GigaTeam needs to feel all warm and fuzzy sometimes too.
So we spent a few hours watching pitches from social organizations that used the conference to swap resources, look for funding, and compare notes on how to make their web projects more effective. There were a lot of really admirable people with helpful ideas, but not a lot of high level web knowledge. I guess that was the whole point of the show.
The highlight of the show is the cash prizes for the organizations that were voted the best. I thought the voting outcome was spot on. Here’s the winners, and three interesting do-gooder web sites you should check out: Continue »
Katie Fehrenbacher
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Wednesday, May 30, 2007 |
4:05 PM PT |
Katie Fehrenbacher
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Wednesday, May 30, 2007 |
8:36 AM PT |
Katie Fehrenbacher
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Tuesday, May 29, 2007 |
9:28 AM PT |
Update: Google launched a street view mapping feature for several cities this morning at the Where 2.0 conference, and GigaTeam is pretty excited about checking out the views around our own San Francisco digs. We just chatted with John Hanke, Google’s Director of Google Earth and Google Maps, after his presentation at the conference and he had some interesting details to add.
He said while Google is using a partnership with Immersive Media to create the street level mapping service, Google has also been driving its own cars around the Bay Area and collecting the street level views here. Hanke wouldn’t go into too many details around the vehicles themselves, but if anyone sees any Google-mobiles with high tech photo gear around the Bay, snap a pic and send us the photo.
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