Wee-Fi: AT&T's Wi-Fi Guy; iPhone 3.0 Software Preview; Eye-Fi Served

If you need more proof that AT&T gets Wi-Fi, just read this quote: "You can think of Wi-Fi as a giant offload point for wireless data traffic. Look at the growth in smartphones and data traffic, and it's pretty clear that Wi-Fi can be a real plus to AT&T." That's from Greg Williams, a VP at AT&T who was brought over from his role as COO at Wayport when that firm was acquired. Williams was at Wayport since 2003 during which time it had explosive native and managed location growth. None of the other carriers understands this simple statement that Williams made.

iPhone 3.0 software: Apple showed off features in its iPhone 3.0 software, due out this summer as a free update for all iPhone owners of any vintage phone. Two features related to wireless include the ability for developers to embed map interaction into their applications, including the use of Wi-Fi positioning for location finding; and an auto-login option for Wi-Fi hotspots, not explained in any fashion. One colleague suggests wISPr, a somewhat de facto and erratic standard for a hotspot publishing its login characteristics, will be employed. As long experience with aggregators has revealed, Apple is 100-percent naive if it thinks that will work in isolation. It might be a tool to automate logins for AT&T and other iPhone carriers' Wi-Fi networks. Another colleague noted that EAP-SIM appeared in small print on one slide Apple showed today; that EAP flavor is used to allow a phone's SIM authentication card to perform a network login. Nokia was testing a kind of EAP-SIM long, long, long ago as a way to avoid hotspot login typing.

A hacker (the good kind) figured out how to use an Eye-Fi card with his own server: Eye-Fi transmits data back to a computer or the Eye-Fi servers (from whence it goes to photo-sharing and other sites you've chosen), using a computer-hosted Web server to manage a card's settings. Jeff Tchang wrote a python server script to allow substituting a different software package for the Eye-Fi Manager. Not sure if this violates the company's terms of service, but it's always neat to see constructive and unintended extensions of useful technology.

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(AP)