The network hasn't been revamped yet to focus on more complete outdoor coverage, but that should start happening soon, the company told Metro Philadelphia.

iPhone, iPod touch now Wi-Fi remote control (see screen capture at right): The iPhone 2.0 software was soft released today, with a download available from Apple that's not yet being pushed via iTunes software when users' systems check for updates. The free Remote software, downloadable from the new App Store on the iPhone or Applications area in the iTunes Store, controls copies of iTunes on the local network once you've used a simple pairing technique. The same is true for the Apple TV with a free 2.1 software update for the digital box that's available now. (Also, you can snap screen shots in iPhone 2.0: Hold down the Home button and then press the top button. The capture is stored in your photo roll.)

Japanese bullet train gets Wi-Fi by next March: This was first announced in 2006; it's still on track, pun intended. The line runs from Tokyo to Osaka.

Network 1 expands its service St. Louis area: The company will offer service in 8 additional cities for a total of 15 in the St. Louis, Mo., area. The network provider is building out a neighborhood at a time using ostensibly commodity equipment. They charge $20 to $50 per month for service, and are focused on residential, rather than outdoor cloud access.

Aurora, Ill., joins MetroFi cities turning down gear deal: Aurora, the city of light, the first electrified streetlit city in the U.S., opts to not buy the MetroFi gear. Along with all of MetroFi's other networks (excluding Riverside, Calif., operated with AT&T), June 20 will likely be the last day of service. About 160 of 600 to 900 nodes were installed in Aurora.

San Francisco paper wraps up MetroFi's shutdowns in their area: Ryan Kim writes in the SF Chronicle about the many networks being shut down by MetroFi around the bay. Santa Clara and San Jose are still looking at MetroFi's equipment offer. Neither city has complete coverage; Santa Clara is focused on some residential portions, and San Jose has some downtown service. Kim brings up the spectre of twice or three times dead Ricochet.

Santa Fe bypasses Wi-Fi health concerns: The city council voted unanimously to approve Wi-Fi service in libraries and city-owned buildings. This odd paragraph appears in the AP story: "Julie Tambourine, an advocate for the disabled and homeless, said after Wednesday's meeting that the legal analysis was flawed, because it didn't take into account those with diabetes, seizure disorders, respiratory ailments and other conditions that can be adversely affected by microwave radiation." It's unfortunate the writer didn't get a medical research in any of those areas to discuss that. I have never heard the strongest advocates of the view that EMF causes health issues mention any of those conditions.

Cablevision's already started its rollout: An observant tri-stater at the Cable Rant site spotted Cablevision installers putting up BelAir gear on their cable line. He took some photos.

The service is enabled by JiWire, which has gradually transitioned itself from a site that developed a hotspot directory supplemented by editorial coverage and how-to's on wireless data, to one that's now hotspot directory plus hotspot advertising. The transition is interesting, as it reflects what I've seen on Wi-Fi Networking News: Wi-Fi is easier to use, as is cell data; costs for equipment is lower or you don't need to make a choice about equipment; and usage is up so far at hotspots that there's an audience there for commercial-based access.

MetroFi has famously declared free access to metro-scale services paid for by advertising to be unworkable; that may be so, given that they were the biggest proponent of it for a few years, and no other company followed them into that approach. However, metro-scale ad-supported Wi-Fi, in which residential and roaming users alike looked at banners and commercials in exchange for servcie is a far cry from the focused hotspot advertising market.

Hotspot ads involve a very open exchange between surfer and service, and JiWire pushes the watch-for-access model quite heavily. What's saving a few bucks worth to you? 15 seconds? 30 seconds? If so, we have a deal for you, they say, that also works for the advertiser and the service provider (and JiWire). It's not subtle; you have to watch the ad to gain access. But it seems like a reasonable exchange, with two hours' access up to a full day running $4 to $12 in the U.S. at paid locations. (Of course, I subscribe to Boingo Wireless's roaming service now, so I can bypass the ads in favor of paying $22 per month for unlimited usage, too. That's part of that tradeoff.)

(Disclosure: I own a very small number of share in JiWire as part of my early working relationship with them.)

The notion is that visitors can gain Internet access by using an existing OpenZone subscription, paying a fee (the business can sell vouchers), or being a member of a roaming network. The business customers receive 50 to 500 minutes of use on OpenZone each month themselves, based on their BT contract for broadband.

This business hotspot option extends a previous relationship for residential users with Fon that allows BT home users to flip a switch and become a Fonero.

These kinds of organic extensions of networks have very little impact on the party that's sharing their broadband, because there's almost no work involved. But if enough people opt in, it can have a large impact on the amount of hotspot service that's available. While I have critique Fon for its backside-utility quotient--how readily one can get work done or even make a phone call at many Foneros' locations--the BT business plan assures that hotspots will be in places where people work and gather.

Our submission looks at three cases in particular in which the ombudsman decided in favour of the banks and against bank customers over disputed ATM transactions. We found that the adjidicators employed by the ombudsman made numerous errors both of law and of technology, and concluded that their decisions were an affront to reason and to justice.

One of the cases has already appeared here on lightbluetouchpaper; the other two cardholders appeared on an investigation into card fraud on “Tonight with Trevor MacDonald”, and their case papers are included, with their permission, as appendices to our submission. These papers are damning, but the Hunt review’s staff declined to publish them on the somewhat surprising grounds that the information in them might be used to commit identity theft against the customers in question. Eventually they published our submission minuss the two appendices of case papers. (If knowing someone’s residential address and the account number to a now-defunct bank account is enough for a criminal to steal money from you, then the regulatory failures afflicting the British banking system are even deeper than I thought.)

The Financial Ombudsman Service, and its predecessor the Banking Ombudsman, have for many years found against bank customers and in favour of the banks. In the early-to-mid 1990s, they upheld the banks’ outrageous claim that mag-stripe ATM cards were invulnerable to cloning; this led to the court cases described here and here. That position collapsed when ATM criminals started being sent to prison. Now we have another wave of ATM card cloning, which we’ve discussed several times: we’ve shown you a chip and PIN terminal playing Tetris and described relay attacks. There’s much more to come.

The radio program is not yet available online; I’ll put in a link here when it appears. We clearly have them rattled; the ombudsman was patronising and abusive, and made a number of misleading statements. He also said that the “independent” Hunt review was commissioned by his board of directors. I hope it turns out to be a bit more independent than that. If it doesn’t, then consumer advocates should campaign for the FOS to be abolished and for customers to be empowered to take disputes to the courts, as we argue in section 31-32 of our submission.