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'."

Comments

Does anyone remember a bike called BEHEMOTH?

[eastern]

Does anyone remember the greatest geek bike ever made?

Big Electronic Human Energised Machine, Only Too Heavy

Check this out

Why not free Wi-Fi on Caltrain?

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Sounds good....

[minitrue]

It lacks common sense and practicallity... Not to be condescending, but this is too much hype for something like this.

At first glance, you're right. The whole thing lacks practicality. That is, until you realize that someone riffed off of the MagicBike and found an innovative and economical way to deliver internet access to rural Cambodia by strapping wifi to a bike and riding through villages twice daily like the mailman.

And all of a sudden, MagicBike seems like the work of a visionary. ;)

I like my bike mod better

[aardwolf204]

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.