Slashdot Mirror
WiFi On Two Wheels
MeGaBiTe1 writes "Yury Gitman is not the average cyclist from Brooklyn. His goal is to bring more easily accessible free wireless hotspots to the masses. To do this, he has created what he calls the Magicbike, a bicycle equipped with a laptop, power supply and antenna. Gitman's bike has allowed people in NYC to browse the internet freely in local parks and gardens. 'I am like the ice cream man, but with no music and I deliver free wireless access and not ice cream'."
I wonder how long it will be before a cop pulls over his bike and tickets him for inappropriate and bizarre analogies...
Honey, I shrunk the Cygwin
I bet the wardrivers with GPS are going nuts trying to pin him down while he's riding.
Props to GNAA!
Wireless Review did an article on the wheelbike back in February.
k e_wheel_deal/
http://www.wirelessreview.com/ar/wireless_magicbi
in theory, but exposing your equipment to the elements, vibrations, and possible accidents, and even theft. Good lord its New York. I mean maybe in cars, like CB radio-style. But by bike, ehhh... I would be a lil afraid for my own property.
je suis parce que j'aime
Isn't it possible that some legalities could result from "amplifying" someone elses open WiFi network?
So... yeah... then you're pretty much not like an ice cream man at all are you? Interesting.
My favorite phrase: You have 5 Moderator Points! Use 'em or lose 'em!
What happens when someone does something illegal from his 'hotspot'?
Moo
If you put a hotspot on the top of city busses, would that not work pretty well?
Can we just buy one of those magic bicycle and keep it in our room?
Definitely a topic that's been on Slashdot before:
The Internet by Motorbike
I do have to wonder, though, if this is really that fast. His uplink is either cellular (dog-slow) or bridged to another WAP, and I'd have to say I suspect the latter isn't the dominant mode of operation.
In case the site gets slammed later, here's the About page text:
Magicbike is a mobile WiFi (wireless Internet) hotspot that gives free Internet connectivity wherever its ridden or parked. By turning a common bicycle into a wireless hotspot, Magicbike explores new delivery and use strategies for wireless networks and modern-day urbanites. Wireless bicycles disappear into the urban fabric and bring Internet to yet unserved spaces and communities. Mixing public art with techno-activism, Magicbikes are perfect for setting up adhoc Internet connectivity for art and culture events, emergency access, public demonstrations, and communities on the struggling end of the digital-divide.
Weaving Internet Infrastuctures into Cultural Fabric
Magicbike aims to weave wireless infrastructures into an existing mobile and socially active cultural fabric, bicycle culture. Bicycles are extremely versatile vehicles that travel many places inaccessible by automobiles and other forms of transportation. Bicycles are also traditional symbols of political movements ranging from the women's movement in the latter 19th century, to the labor movements of the early 20th century, through today where bicycles are held in high esteem as a clean, energy-efficient alternative to a global dependence on oil and urban sprawl. Since WiFi is an emerging technology based on open standards it is malleable. Superimposing WiFi technology onto bicycle culture pushes the technology towards the particular needs, tastes, and motivations of bicyclists. Wireless and computing technology gain from becoming more (mobile and) bicycle and street friendly. The culture around wireless is also influenced by century-old cultural trends of political consciousness, social responsibility, and physical health.
Bicycle Hotspots Tech Description
Magicbike turns common bicycles into WiFi hotspots. The end effect creates bicycles that broadcast free WiFi connectivity to their proximity. The technology behind this is not complex. Magicbike is simply a creative configuration, or reconfiguration, of widely available computer, bicycle, and WiFi gear. WiFi antennas mounted on the bike's frame feed into a laptop embedded into a specially outfitted bicycle side-bag. The bike's embedded laptop is configured to be a wireless repeater and hotspot. The bike receives its uplink connection either from the cellular network or from far-off WiFi hotspots (with the help of its mounted antennas). With this uplink connection from any one of various sources, the bike is able to serve-up its own Internet connection.
A Magicbike hotspot operates like standard hotspots, able to serve up to 250 users in a radius of 30 meters indoors and 100 meters outdoors [although its antennas can increase the hotspot's accuracy and range]. A group of bikes can repeat and/or bridge the signal down a chain of wireless bikes. Meaning, a bicycle gang can snake into subways stations or across hilltops to provide Internet connectivity to (fringe but) vital communities and spaces ignored by the traditional telecommunications industry. A grassroots bottom-up wireless infrastructure can be formed and pedaled to any place accessible by bicycle.
Wireless Bikes as Art Objects
Wireless bikes are a tacitly surrealistic Ready-made that playfully reframe our assumptions about the interplay of technology and art. The tradition of Ready-made objects in modern art is credited to start with Marcel Duchamp's "Roue de Bicyclette" or "Bicycle Wheel," his first "Ready-made." The bicycle's role in art seems to be that of a transcendent object acting as a vehicle to interface conceptual and m
In Korea, long hair is for old people!
Someone miniaturize a wifi hotspot enough so that you can strap it to a pidgeon, then put some around New York. Then I'll really be impressed! Access for peanuts... or breadcrumbs... hey let's try squirrels maybe then it can be for peanuts.
Introducing the new Occam Fusion! Now with sqrt(-1) fewer blades!
... but with no music
... and with wireless internet service instead of ice cream
... and with a bike instead of a truck
... and it's free instead of costing money
... and I'm really more of a boy, not a man
... come to think of it, I'm nothing like the ice cream man at all... I was just talking outta my ass.
Portable versions of Firefox, GIMP, LibreOffice, etc
^ Why I hate being an artist. Make your mark with your work, not with the hype.
Sorry to sound like a party pooper, but it only brings wifi 100m closer to the masses. It's kinda neat but it doesn't seem all that useful.
What? no music? On ya bike son...
"I think it would be a good idea" Gandhi, on Western Civilisation
Hopefully the site isn't hosted on this bike...if it got slashdotted and crashed, we could all get sued for his injuries!
This totally gives new meaning to wardriving.
Zhrodague.net - I do projects and stuff too.
For some reason I still have the image of a guy with a giant satellite dish on his head in my mind. It would be interesting to see him take a trip into the south bronx.
Sheesh, it's amazing that no one has remarked upon the important thing about this guy, which is that he's freaking cool! This is exactly the kind of thing I'd like to do if I had the money and time! Good ol' selflessness and wonder and doing good for your fellow man! Just because!
What a nifty idea, wow. And I liked his analogy too, which I saw as more of a humor thing than a real analogy anyway.
or is the wifi coming out his ass!?!?
Icecream indeed.
How long will it be before:
1) the cellular phone bill charges start racking up...
2) he siphons from the wrong WAP and he gets charged with a crime or sued for monetary damages by someone with the influence and/or money to keep him in court forever...
3) he realizes all that equipment, for one bicycle or many, costs money to acquire?
Here's an interesting idea for the magicbikes. So let's say you get a bunch of these guys driving around. They already have Internet access. So let's say you're in the park, and you decide you'd like to browse Slashdot. You call up the dispatch office, and they use GPS to determine the location of the nearest magicbike. Then they send a message to the guy and tell him to bike to such and such a place. Bam, you've got Internet anywhere you want in New York.
Or bam, you've just stolen a bike with a bunch of technology strapped onto it, but let's think about this naively.
"He's coming around the park again~ Quick! hit
the reload button while you have the chance!"
-- Connected to Wi-fi bike boy --
-- 11.00 mbits per second --
-- signal stregnth low --
*swoosh*
--wireless internet conneciton unavailable--
"damnit. . . "
Saying "Militia really just means National Gaurd" is like saying "Press really just means PBS"
This must be a special form of WiFi that uses a Cyclic Redundancy Check
The point of finding a free acess point, for most people, is to get on the internet, to send/receive e-mail. Some people might be interested in fiddling around with 'clueless user Linksys #82", but mostly finding an acess point is a means to an end, not an end in itself. A mobile acess point is not a roving Lan party, it is sort of useless. Unless he has omnidirectional wireless internet connection with him (nope) then most people will be kind of disinterested in what he has to offer. Most people won't even bother (or know how!) to browse the network. I really wonder where he is going with this.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
"Why do computers need inundate every single aspect of our lives?" ... said the Anonymous Coward who used a computer to read the article and post his/her response.
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
...how long before spammers just load their software onto laptops and start blasting out spam from the nearest hotspot? Are there any safeguards that will prevent this?
Q: What does the "B." in Benoit B. Mandelbrot stand for? A: Benoit B. Mandelbrot
Big Electronic Human Energised Machine, Only Too Heavy
Check this out
but the first thing that ran across my mind is that this poor bastard is going to end up in court because some pervert used him to anonymously download kiddy porn off of the net.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
On the one hand what he's doing is kind of cool and nice. Interesting to say the least... On the other hand walking around like he's a saint or he's bringing vittles to the starving masses makes him look like an imbecile... I mean for chrissakes, you're giving people limited wireless connectivity, in the random chance that you happen to be parked by a guy with a laptop...
;)
You want to be a hero or feel good about yourself? Be a volunteer firefighter. Restore PCs for senior citizen centers, donate to cancer research foundations, give a starving Afican or Chinese kid lunch money. Driving around giving out free wireless internet... *snickers*
The very point of it is pointless. It's basically just a "Lookit me, I'm special-decial like Homestar Runner." I think the guy needs a hobby...maybe he should try being a kernel hacker, I hear that eats into your free time.
backpack wifi
...he keeps a copy of the Internet on his laptop, which he updates by syncing every evening with his 56K dial-up.
11 mbits per second? I hope you can get better than 11 microbits a second off of your wireless.
Free Wi-Fi on a bike? Why not a train?
PointShot (http://pointshotwireless.com), the folks that provided ACE passengers with the country's first Wi-Fi train service, is in the process of trying to bring a Wi-Fi service to Caltrain here in Silicon Valley.
But according to Caltrain management, it is going to take a year to find a free provider:
"Caltrain is currently working on a request for proposal to provide wi-fi on its trains. Our goal is to be able to attract a provider who will provide free wi-fi service through more than just a pilot period. If the entire process goes smoothly, we may be able to offer wi-fi within about a year.
Our long-term vision is to provide complimentary wi-fi and work with companies along our corridor to allow their employees to start their workday by logging on while on the train. We believe this will be a huge quality of life benefit to our customers and their employees."
For those of you that don't know, Caltrain is the Silicon Valley commuter train that serves passengers from San Jose to San Francisco.
If you find "a year" to be entirely too long or you know of interested Wi-Fi providers, email boardsecretary@caltrain.com or go to http://www.caltrain.org/contact.html.
So he'll be the most fit guy with brain cancer in the hospital then eh?
...well, at least, terrorists don't go around claiming to be defenders of human rights, western civilisation and democracy. But you yourself obviously do not claim that, as well...
Why don't you come with me
And we'll arp poison the pigeons in the park.
And maybe we'll do
In a wifi-enabled squirrel or two,
While we're arp poisoning pigeons in the park.
(With profound apologies to Tom Lehrer)
So, what are the people supposed to do when he drives out of range from the park? Do they suppose to start following him where he goes to keep net access?
For those wanting a picture of the magic bike and it's creater, go here http://sandhill.typepad.com/photos/wtf/yury_magic_ bike.html
It seems to me that it would make a lot more sense if ponied up for a data connection from TowerStream or some other pre-802.16 (WIMAX ) provider, and bridged that over to 802.11. Maybe he could mount the antenna on an industrial strength version of those dorky looking bicycle flags.
I don't know his cell provider, but where I'm from, thats some expensive bandwidth, so $500 a month for T1 connectivity doesn't sound too unreasonable. Be better if there were a Navini provider or someone else that does better with non-fixed signals, but hey, you take what you can get.
"Don't you know you're going to shock the monkey?"- Peter Gabriel
are now planning on robbing him.
'I am like the ice cream man, but with no music and I deliver free wireless access and not ice cream'."
So he is infact nothing like a ice cream man
"WebTV: bringing the Internet into the shallow end of the gene pool since 1995" - Martin Bishop
And let us not forget the classic:
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
What I really do not understand is how this guy "delivers" reliable internet access for the others.
I mean, what's the sense in this: I start downloading latest pr0n movie in the park and his laptop battery goes dead... and no more cream for me... And he has the nerve to compare himself to the ice cream man...
And thinking about his bicycle, what connection speed is that... max 30mph... on the second thought at least i can check my mail at that speed: 2-3 gained inches/mail * let's say 20 mails/hour...
... all the people on laptops following him via bike around the park. I'd pay to see the carnage that'd ensue.
When I am king, you will be first against the wall
With your opinion which is of no consequence at all
Every morning when I go out for a jog in the park, I take my laptop computer with me just in case a cyclist, with an attached mobile Wi-Fi hotspot, happens to be getting a bit of exercise at the same time.
It's great! Lugging the laptop around adds to the exercise potential of my jog and being able to read my spam, while in the middle of my jog, really goes a long way to breaking the boredom of exercise regime.
Free Firefox news reader.
So basically, this strange guy provides slow unreliable internet access to people enjoying a bit of air and sunshine in the park. I don't know about the rest of you, but if I want unreliable internet access, I'll do that at home with with Comcast. At least with them, I don't need some weirdo to point a funny antenna at me when I'm trying to surf the web.
This was the title of an article from the New York Times about Yury Gitman and his Magicbike last December. Here is a permanent link to this article (free registration needed).
On the other hand walking around like he's a saint or he's bringing vittles to the starving masses makes him look like an imbecile... I mean for chrissakes, you're giving people limited wireless connectivity, in the random chance that you happen to be parked by a guy with a laptop...
Hmmm.... Well, rural villagers in Cambodia don't seem to be complaining about the concept.
"An interesting combination of wireless, wheels, and store-and-forward email: 'In Cambodia, motorbikes act as routers for a store-and-forward email system: The New York Times reports on a system that allow remote villages in Cambodia to send and receive email via Wi-Fi-equipped motorbikes. The Motoman system converges in the provincial capital where a satellite-enabled school uploads and downloads email for the remote recipients. The system is funded in part through U.S. benefactors who aren't just sending money; they're spending time there as well, and helping to improve the quality of medicine and people's livelihoods.'"
Three wheels AND music - still no ice cream though
iTrike
'I am like the ice cream man, but with no music and I deliver free wireless access and not ice cream'." Or you're like a big dork with too much time on your hands.
This article has recently been linked from Slashdot. Please keep an eye on the page history for errors or vandalism.
the guy who's paying the bill to the ISP whose service he's broadcasting gets canned. note that unless his ISP has an *extraordinarily* open AUP, this is probably against the terms of it...
Just think of the Dynamo you're gonna need to keep that mother powered when the batteries start to fail.
'Don't worry' said the trees when they saw the axe coming, 'The handle is one of us.'
'I am like the ice cream man, but with no music and I deliver free wireless access and not ice cream'.
If we had bacon, we could have bacon and eggs if we had eggs.
Read reviews of shopping cart software
I like my bike mod better. I attached my old ipaq to the center of the handle bars and with a pcmcia wifi card, serial GPS receiver on the back and the right software i can go biking while wardriving and listening to mp3s at the same time. Wish I had a pic. Anyone else try anything similar?
Oh yeah, and how does he get his connection while on the road, cellphone? Even with Vision or Edge it wouldnt be that great internet access now would it.
Im dreaming ofa big bndwdth, That can resist the
I'm not a very good person at times and was out wardriving with some buddies after about 5 martinis, at 3 AM, in fog, and with a half naked woman in the car. I wasn't driving but thank god it was a volvo and that woman was in someone's grip (was not wearing a seatbelt) or we would of been in trouble, the redwood just flaked off some bark. I still don't know where my keys or leather jacket is.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
That was an article in The Onion.
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
...hotspots find you.
One question: Will it implement RFC 1149?
Make even shorter URLs - 8LN.org
Mixing public art with techno-activism
arg, I hate pop culture. I bet this guy is a 'metrosexual' too. Let it die! techno-activism is a made up word. You're a fruit on a bike! There are tons of wireless hotspots out there anyways, the chances that you're doing the world even a minute's worth of good are slim to none. If you really want ubiquitous wireless net access, try, oh , say, setting up a hotspot in your house. Or donating to a cause or group or company who would set up these spots. The idea that your bike provides wifi is hardly useful. get a life, and this is coming from a computer geek.
Reason, free market capitalism, and individualism
Put down the absinth and slowly step away from the keyboard
Does this mean cell phone use in the NYC subway system is not far behind? I hate the guy on R who gets that single bar at 34th and decides to exploit it for all of 23 seconds.
"HELLO?"
"HELLO!!!??!??"
"YEAH, I'M ON THE SUBWAY!!!"
"HELLO????!!!"
"SUB!!!! WAY!!!!"
"HELLO????!??"
-n-
the next step in bicycle modding is, having a modded PC case integrated into the bicycle frame, along with some of those bicycle accessories...
www.fossilfool.com
www.tireflys.com
Years ago I met Steve Roberts, a self proclaimed nomad, in Austin Texas. He was riding his recumbant bike literally slewn with solar panels, radios, a trailer with a satellite dish and computers. Here is his web page: http://microship.com/bike/winnebiko2/retrospective .html
He wrote a book, mostly about his love afairs on his cross country trip, but also ended up working for Sun Microsystems in some sort of ad-hoc consultant position. He's gone on to making a high tech Winnebago and now ocean going canoes. Very strange person but also quite entertaining.
Marc
In theory I have a wifi router with a range of 1000 feet. whilst reading this article I came across another one with wifi links being created by ballon. which got me thinking how big a balloon would it take to raise a wifi ariel above my house and get the 1000 feet or possibly greater range. I don't think it would need to go very high or be very big. just enough to clear the roof tops and provide a line of sight. so what do you think is it possible practicle and effective? has anyone tried this and how successful was it.
Blarney Quality Restaurant, Plants
The real question is how high to do you have to be to be taller than the stuff around you (good coverage), which will open up the chances of getting struck by lightning.
Have fun, don't sleep next to your equpiment in a rainstorm though.
I'm beginning to think that people in Brooklyn just don't know how to accurately describe anything.
Exhibit A: A quote from an article about a news helicopter that crashed in Brooklyn earlier this morning. Brooklyn resident Roger Green describes the sound of the crash:
"I could hear boop, boop, boop, like the sound of a motorcycle, but real loud," said Roger Green, who lives about a block from the crash site.
Boop? What the frick kind of motorcycle goes boop!? And the fact that this guy says it was like a motorcycle "but real loud" means that he thinks most motorcycles go boop really quietly!
Although come to think of it, that could explain why I've never heard a motorcycle go boop before... it does it quietly! Of course!
Powerbook w/ Bluetooth + GPRS Cell w/ Bluetooth + T-Mobile's Unlimited Wireless Internet = Internet on my computer everywhere. And I don't even need a bike!
I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
"I am like the ice cream man, but with no music and I deliver free wireless access and not ice cream" So, in other words... he is actually nothing like the ice cream man.
Or does the black figure on the yellow sign on the front page of http://magicbike.net/ look as though the figure is passing gas?
Steve Roberts did this with ham radio a long time ago. He cultivated relationships with hardware vendors and got them to outfit his bike so that he didn't need to spend too much money himself. For them, it was good PR. Since then, he's moved to a boat.
WWJD for a Klondike Bar?
Here we have some twinkletoes in NYC cycling around stealing services from the people who own the WiFi equipment he's sniffing for. The fact that he helps other people steal it too doesn't raise my opinion of him.
To compare this knob to a guy who contributes an actual -service- to his community in Cambodia is quite incorrect. One's a thief, one's not.
It is nice to see some good come of an idea created to steal something. Kind of like EMS using a slim jim to rescue a baby out of a car. Proving that nothing is so debased it can't be turned to good with a bit of ingenuity and a bunch of work.
And before you bleeding hearts start in telling me its not like that and anyway people should secure their WiFi, answer me this:
If the candy machine is accidentally left unlocked and you take a candy without paying, is it still stealing?
If people want you to access their network, they will put up a sign.
hi all,
Great to see all this "chatter" about Magicbike. So can i address some of the posts here.
People seem upset about the ice cream man analogy. "I am like the ice cream man"---IS HUMOR. In an joke there is always a bit of truth. The truth about ice cream trucks is the same for wireless bikes. You can go buy ice cream in the store, and get it faster, and with more variety. But the ice cream truck still exists and people love it. The ice cream truck emerged when refrigerator technology finally became small enough to put onto vehicles and ever since the fantastical thing of the "ice cream truck" started to excite our childhood fantasies. But now, some might argue that the ice cream truck is obsolete, totally "useless." Maybe it is technologically obsolete but we still love it, and it's still a powerful and functioning icon in our culture. So I'm like the ice cream man in that I'm able to put a wireless access point on a bicycle (which has no power or Internet uplink to start with) and take it to places that make people giddy. Yes it's a childish fantasy, and technological farce. Part of the point of the project is to show how easy it is to do this, and what a powerful effect it can have. Our imaginations, or lack there of, create technological boundaries that aren't really there. If some kid can do this on a bike, surely real geeks can do this on motorcycles, boats, planes, trains, autos, skateboards, and your mama. Where is it written that wireless infrastructures need to be static and fixed to the earth? (Well that's written in lots of places, but it should be rewritten.) Wireless infrastructures can be mounted on our vehicles, not only on towers and building, b/c the technology has reached that point. Wireless is all about the ability for motion. It's more efficient to have a physically mobile WiFi infrastructure, not only does it decentralize a network, it allows you to reach places that otherwise wouldn't be reached--that's what vehicles are for, right. If wireless internet infrastructures move, I think the Internet and our imagination of it will radically evolve. The nature of this kind of stuff is that you don't know what will happen until you put it into the world, play with it, try to break it, and see what cool things emerge. We haven't built or designed uses for the Internet outdoors and in the "real world" yet. But it's completely clear to me that we will and it will change what we think the Internet is, how we use it, and how we build and design for it. I'm outdoorsy, I like being barefoot, I like wearing shorts, I'm a hick raised in Georgia, and that's how i want to use my Internet, outdoors in the sunshine and fresh air. A bicycle hotspot is how you get it there today.
yours,
--The fu_king Ice Cream Man