In this article

• Where is Wi-Fi going?
• Wi-Fi and digital photos
• Wi-Fi and home entertainment systems
• Wi-Fi in the kitchen
• Using Wi-Fi voice badge systems
• A proposed Wi-Fi irrigation system
• Game consoles and Wi-Fi

Ubiquitous Wi-Fi: Imagine a future in which wireless connectivity is everywhere. Wi-Fi connects your computers, printers, refrigerators, home entertainment systems, burglar alarms, and more. This imagined future is very real and is just around the corner. But it's not quite here yet: Some of these applications are still the province of bleeding-edge people for whom technology is a hobby. These people want the latest and greatest. They want to have it first, and are willing to go to great lengths to be the first on their block with new technology "toys."
So a bit of caution is in order. Not all Wi-Fi applications are ready for prime time.
Bearing today's reality in mind, this article takes a look at the Wi-Fi home of tomorrow from two perspectives:

• What Wi-Fi applications can you use and enjoy today?
• A little further out on the curve, how is Wi-Fi likely to shape our lives tomorrow?

The Future of Wi-Fi

It's dangerous to predict the future. I'll take that chance and risk being wrong! Here's what I think is a cheap prediction.
Within 10 years, all new appliances, home electronics, and gadgets will be equipped in the factory with wireless networking, probably of a sort that meets whatever the Wi-Fi standards of the day are. This will mean that this equipment—and more, practically anything you can thing of—will be able to

• Exchange information with other devices. For example, your burglar alarm can "talk" to your smoke detector and your stove.
• Receive commands from across a network.

The benefits of these two abilities are greater than you might think. They include

• Greater automation because all kinds of machines will be better able to work with one another.
• More effective use of data because it can be shared between numerous devices.
• Better personal control of your environment using the power of your computer. You will be able to exercise this control at home using internal networks, and remotely via an Internet connection. For example, you might use Wi-Fi and an Internet connection to set the temperature in your house from your office before you come home.

As you'll see in this article, some of this stuff you can do right now. For example, it's easy to add a Wi-Fi receiver to your home entertainment center so that you can use your Internet connection and Wi-Fi network to stream audio and video to your amplifier and/or television.
The software and hardware that enables you to use Wi-Fi in some of these ways has yet to be manufactured. But there's a plethora of new Wi-Fi applications coming down the pike! It's clear today what some of these applications are. Others will probably be a surprise. But surprise is what to expect from Wi-Fi as a disruptive technology that has achieved many things that were never expected.
By learning now about Wi-Fi, what it is, and what it can do, you'll be ahead of the curve when new Wi-Fi applications appear.
In this article, I'll show you what you can do easily today. I'll also show you some things that are in the works (and which you could put together if you were a devoted hobbyist). You'll undoubtedly see commercial versions of these Wi-Fi applications in the next few years. Finally, from time to time I'll mention Wi-Fi applications that aren't really being tried yet.

Transmitting Photos with Wi-Fi

Taking pictures used to be a cumbersome affair. Well, not quite as bad as the nineteenth-century plate cameras with black cloths and back-breaking weight. But still, you had to load film into the camera, wind it, rewind it, remember not to open the camera until the film had been rewound, and get the film to a photo lab. Some time later—it might be hours, and it might be days—your photographs would be ready. If you wanted to share them with a friend, you had to go back to the photo lab and have new prints made.
The best picture is the one you take. If you have to remember to take a camera and all the accessories with you, you may never take that picture.
Digital photography has, of course, made all this much easier. Your pictures are ready for viewing as soon as you take them. You can easily make prints using a color printer either by downloading the photos to your computer or (with some hardware) directly printing from your digital camera to your printer. Best of all, you can immediately correct problems in your digital photos such as "red-eye" by using photo retouching software such as Photoshop Elements.
Wi-Fi takes the digital photography revolution to the next step.
With Wi-Fi, you can transmit your pictures for viewing anywhere from anywhere. This has implications in many different areas, including:

• Data gathering for professionals: In a variety of professional fields, such as medicine, the ability to easily transmit photographs can be used in examinations, consultations, and for general communication.
• Teaching: The ability to instantly compare visuals with someone who is not present will be very useful in many educational contexts. For example, you could show a biology sample from your course lab work to a teacher at a distant location and get immediate feedback.
• Amateur photography: The ability to send and receive images seamlessly from a wide variety of devices will change the way people use photography. People will reach for a Wi-Fi–enabled device that also takes pictures, such as a PDA or telephone, in much the way they reach for a pen and notepad today.

In this section, we'll have a look at three digital photography Wi-Fi devices that can be purchased today. They are a PDA with built-in Wi-Fi and a digital camera, a Wi-Fi network camera that lets users view a video stream, and a Wi-Fi picture frame that can be used to display your photo library.

Camera, Wi-Fi, and PDA All-In-One

For many years, I was a professional photographer. This meant that I got used to schlepping heavy bags filled with camera bodies, lenses, filters, light meters, and other gadgets wherever I went.

Taking Hotspot Info with You

The perfect road warrior carries information he might need with him. For example, as you probably know if you've been on the road a great deal, it can be a lifesaver to have toll-free numbers for hotels and airlines handy.
In a similar spirit, when you travel with a Wi-Fi–enabled computer or PDA, you should certainly obtain information about Wi-Fi hotspots before you leave

WHICH CITY HAS THE MOST WI-FI HOTSPOTS?

Which city has the most Wi-Fi hotspots? If you are like me, you'd suspect New York or San Francisco.
Actually, as of this writing, the city with the most Wi-Fi hotspots is Vienna, Austria with about 165. San Francisco and New York are in second and third place, respectively.
Within the United States, Portland, Oregon is considered the most "unwired" city on a per-capita basis.
In determining the most "unwired" American city the study considered: the number of hotspots, or commercial Wi-Fi access points; the number of nodes, or public access points; the degree of Internet access available via cell phone companies' networks; and finally, how many people in the city actually use the Internet regularly.
Portland came out on top on a per-capita basis, with 130 active public access nodes, or 7.4 per 100,000 people. This gave Portland nearly five times the number of the next highest place—Austin, Texas, with 1.5 nodes per 100,000 of population.
Interestingly, the Portland Wi-Fi hotspots include 140 nodes put up by the all-volunteer Personal Telco Project, which does not charge for access. These free hotspots put Portland, Oregon off the charts for public Wi-Fi access.