From Newsweek: "Imagine your computer as a walkie-talkie, but instead of talking, you’re getting high-speed Internet access.

"Wi-Fi, as it’s generally called (propellerheads call it 802.11b), has unexpectedly emerged as the wireless world’s Maltese Falcon, something truly lustworthy and, once possessed, impossible to let go of.

"Two million people use it now, a number expected to double by next year, according to Gartner, Inc.

"And International Data Corp. predicts that public hot spots will jump from a current 3,000 to more than 40,000 by 2006. Consumers use Wi-Fi to establish wireless networks in their homes; businesses adopt it to untether employees from desktops, and techno-nomads celebrate its presence in cafes (from Starbucks to Happy Donuts), airports and hotel lobbies. (Next on the docket: airplanes.)...

"That’s only one irony in the Wi-Fi revolution: while most of the tech industry gripes about how hard it is to provide high-speed Internet access, seemingly out of nowhere a technology has emerged to do just that, at low cost or even for free. And without those nasty wires!..

"Dozens of start-up companies hope to ride the Wi-Fi wave. Boingo wants to be at the center of a sprawling Wi-Fi archipelago. It offers customers service at hundreds—one day maybe millions, dreams CEO Sky Dayton (who earlier founded Earthlink)—of hot spots signed on to the Boingo system. In return, Boingo handles the billing and kicks back part of the user fees.

"A company called Joltage provides software to turn hot spots into instant mini-Internet service providers. Other firms are working to go beyond hot spots to larger 'hot zones,' like WiFi Metro, which has placed antennas in Palo Alto and San Jose, Calif., to blanket six-block areas in a single network.

"Going a step further are companies attempting 'mesh networks' to create hot regions. For instance, a company called SkyPilot wants to Wi-Fi the suburbs by hopscotching bandwidth from computer to computer: sort of a Napster approach to connectivity...

"Wi-Fi’s success has already made some telecom companies like Nokia and Nextel realize that their future lies in complementing, not competing, with Wi-Fi. The new vision involves a hybrid scheme where people would do heavy-duty computing in low-cost, high-activity Wi-Fi hot zones, and then, when they drove out to the desert, or visited North Dakota, they’d stay connected, using a more costly (licensed bandwidth) 3G-cellular network. Performing this trick without fiddling with the computer—a so-called vertical handoff—is 'the holy grail,' says AT&T researcher Paul Henry. 'It would mean that wherever you were, the Internet would be there, too.'"

This article from Newsweek is available online at MSNBC.com here.

From Knowledge@Wharton: "German media giant Bertelsmann has given Napster a chance for an encore by agreeing to acquire its assets. But two Wharton researchers say it may not matter much because the Napster brand name has been damaged, and the company may be yesterday's news.

"However, marketing professor Peter Fader [right] and lecturer and doctoral candidate Sheen Levine, both of whom have conducted studies on Napster, agree on one thing: It is time for the music industry to change its litigious tune and stop viewing Napster and similar music-sharing services as threats.

"Ever since the birth of Napster, an upstart company that allowed millions of people using its software to download and swap music files on their computers, Fader has argued that the industry should embrace Napster as a technologically innovative way to enhance album sales, not as an entertainment pirate out to pilfer industry profits. Fader has examined and conducted multiple research studies showing that Napster, in allowing music fans to share songs, can actually boost album sales...

"The other record companies that have sued Napster, Fader suggested, 'should view individual, downloaded songs as advertisements for the albums they come from and for the artists in general. Record companies should encourage people to download songs. Part of it is just a change of mindset. Instead of viewing songs as protected property, companies should view them as commercials that help promote the album as well as other profitable products and services that the labels have to offer...'

"In the music companies' fear of Napster, Fader sees a parallel to the way other entrenched interests have responded to technological change in recent decades. 'It's akin to FM radio in the 1960s, when record companies feared that the sound quality would be so good that people wouldn't buy albums anymore,' he said. 'For a time, music companies were against audio cassette tapes for the same reason.' Film companies also were once fearful that videocassettes would reduce the number of theatergoers.

"But Fader says there is an important distinction to be made between audio and video cassettes and Napster-type music files. The music that is downloaded is highly compressed, and the sound quality often is not as good as that of a CD. Hence, record companies should not be as apoplectic as they are about Napster and other so-called peer-to-peer file sharing services."

Read this entire piece here.