Are you searching for a way to determine if WiFi is available for your laptop or other electronic gadget? Well look no further, because now there is the WiFi detector T-Shirt.

This t-shirt will let you know if WiFi is available and how strong the signal is in your location. The decal is animated and shows the available signal strength for 802.11b and 802.11g.

The WiFi bars glow on the front of the t-shirt as the signal gets stronger or weaker.

The WiFi signal detector uses 3 AAA batteries, which are concealed in the t-shirt. The decal is removable for washing.

No more having to open and turn on your laptop or carry a WiFi detector key chain attachment to find out if you have WiFi.

You can be the life of the party or dynamic trouble shooter at work when the wireless network is experiencing problems.

The WiFi t-shirt sells for $29.95.

That doesn’t mean either is going to contribute to the health of your business, the future growth of your enterprise or help you to understand how to do business online. What I know frustrates my clients the most is the fact that no sooner do they learn how to do one thing, another challenging issue arises that makes their blood pressure rise.

But that’s technology! Even if you want to pay someone like me to do most of your online business management, you still will need to learn certain things so that you understand the variables of how to do business online.

If you don’t have a handle on all the details, skills and considerations necessary to successfully doing business online, how can one realistically presume to expect a return on their investment? The answer is one shouldn’t. That said, I run into folks who live in this fantasy world on a daily basis!

Out of the box “solutions” and cheap and easy will simply not give you that competitive edge when it comes to making the appropriate decisions based on the knowledge and skills that technology demands of each of us.

Yes, you can learn everything you need to take advantage of the online business environment. The first step is accepting that realization and finding someone who you trust to help you get there.

In a previous post, I talked about 5 wireless tech inventions that don’t exist yet. Some were serious, some fun, and some nonsense, as one reader pointed out in the comments. Here are five more ideas that use one or more forms of wireless technology that some designer/ inventor might just be dreaming up. Feel free to comment: cool or crap?

1. Laptop TV. Sounds like something that should already exist, right? Haven’t seen it. You can get a TV capture card that runs on your desktop, or an external unit for a laptop. But both of these require running coaxial cable. And sure, if your laptop can connect to the Internet, you could download some shows - especially if you live in the US. More recently, you can get streaming TV over your smartphone or smart PDA. That’s ticket. Except for my laptop. That way, when I’m sitting in the local university library, I can watch CNBC live and blog about the market news real-time. One possible solution is a wireless cellular card, although don’t know if this will actually work.
2. Multi-purpose RFID wristband. Let’s face it. Most people hate math,
   and adding up your shopping bill as you go browsing through the aisles of your fave supermarket is something you probably don’t do. Sure, you could carry a calculator, but that’s too much trouble for most people, especially when you’re buying produce by the pound. So what if you could just wave an RFID-enabled wristband at the item’s price and have the price added to your running total? A Niagara Falls, Canada lodge is using an RFID wristband to give guests ease of use of the services, but I’m talking about something far more sophisticated and even stylish. I’m talking about something out of a Buck Rogers movie or Jetsons cartoon, but for which all of the necessary technologies already exist. It would have a flexible electronic paper display, and could be used for numerous other RFID applications including movie passes, bus passes, a watch, an MP3 player, streaming TV, a GPS device and more. I’m not asking for much, am I?
3. In-home navigation system for wheelchair-bound citizens. An array of RFID tags would be used as a sensor grid to perform collision-detection and steer wheelchair back on course. While it’s possible that these could also be used in hospitals, some hospitals have restrictions on radio wave use because of sensitive and expensive medical equipment. The auto-nav wheelchair may not be too far off, though. A German company is actually using such a system using multiple RFID tags embedded in flooring to control vacuum cleaner robots. (In that article, it’s mentioned that their system could be used to transport wheelchairs.) Using RFID is more accurate and less costly than using GPS or infrared technology. Similar systems could potentially be used to create robot-controlled lawnmowers or even auto-piloted cars.  At least on closed courses such as a theme park.
4. Fine-tuned fire alarm sprinkler array. When a fire occurs in a manufacturing plant or any office, the entire sprinkler array usually goes off, causing unecessary water damage to areas that probably were not in danger. A special RFID-enabled grid of heat/ smoke sensors could communicate with each other and control which sprinklers to turn on. In Japan, they are already considering disaster-recovery procedures that use special RFID tags with heat- and vibration-sensing abilities. These RFID tags would be dropped from helicopters over the disaster area.
5. No ticket, no shirt - RFID dry cleaning tags. Thanks to Fujitsu of Japan, your clothes can be washed, dried and ironed while carrying an RFID tag. Now, if this technology was extended to be used at commercial dry cleaners/ laundries, you my not have to worry about losing your laundry ticket. There are a couple of ways that this could be achieved, but the simplest might be that your RFID-enabled cellphone transmits a code (that you make up) to the laundry’s RFID reader. That reader, also a writer, writes your code to a tag, which gets attached to the piece of clothing. The reader/ writer system would of course first check that the code was not already in use. When you return to pick up the clothing, you wave your cell phone or smart PDA in front of the RFID reader, and your clothing is easy to locate.

With all the latest wireless technologies (RFID, Bluetooth, GPS, Wi-Fi) available these days, it’s interesting to imagine how they might be combined into new applications with consumer electronics to create hybrid uses. Some of the ideas in the list below are serious, some just for fun. It’s not so much the wireless technology nor the consumer electronics in use that is new but the application and hybrid methodology. (If you’re sure that some of these applications exist, drop a comment.)

1. Wi-Fi + RFID skateboard. Parents that are tired of calling their kids in for supper can send a text message to this skateboard: supper’s ready. If your kid doesn’t come home in a few minutes, use the RFID tech in your handheld reader to locate them. (One company is already using RFID to track golf balls.) GPS is not necessary, unless your child is prone to going outside of 10-30 metres (33-100 feet). You could go one step further and set up a Wi-Fi speaker that plays a gentle, non-startling tone if your child drags his/her heels. The tone means that they have minutes before a servo-mechanism locks the wheels of the skateboard. You can then watch their return progress on a computer monitor using RFID or Wi-Fi based triangulation. (Or GPS for longer ranges.)

2. Office doorway monitoring system. An access monitoring system that adds an entry to an RSS/ Atom web feed whenever someone enters an RFID-enabled doorway using their smart passcard. The  security person live-monitoring the feed on location on a computer screen would see a default picture of that person. If the default pic does not match the appearance of the person on a video monitor, entry would not be granted. [There are systems that use more sophisticated means using biometrics, but they are costly.] The web feed would be published on the Internet but be password-protected. It could then be accessed by authorized company employees from remote locations for whatever reason. (Use your imagination.)!

3. An SED Wi-Fi digital camera that auto-posts pictures to an online gallery, along with voice comments. These would be a boon to photobloggers that don’t want to waste time monkeying with a blogging platform and podcasting software. The photog would preview a pic, then press a button to publish live. Of course, the execution of this method either requires that the camera is enabled with a Wi-Fi cellular plan, or near a smart PDA with Wi-Fi, or has Bluetooth and is near a laptop with Internet access. So in the worst case, the photog records audio comments for each snapshot and stores everything on a memory card. Then, when they are able to connect to the Internet, they can auto-publish approved pics and audio. Voila, an audio-photo podcast. (Note: Wi-Fi cameras that can upload to a laptop or desktop computer are either already out at the time of this writing, or will be out soon. However, none of them connect directly to the Internet. Hence, the SED - Service-Enabled Device - designation.)

4. Internet-enabled iPods and iVods. These, like the camera above, are SEDs. Imagine being able to directly download audio or video content from the Internet without having to go through a laptop or desktop computer.

5. RFID-enabled VIP passcards for nightclubs. No more waiting in the cold night, shivering. Just smile and wave the RFID passcard, and you’re in. Get yourself access to special cubbyholes and get to know that special someone a bit better. Automatic frequent partyer points, anyone? Similar smart passcards might be useful for box seats at a sporting event, opera, or play. Add SED capability to a special home-based reader device, and you can purchase tickets easily. Bye bye scalpers.

Got anymore ideas? Devices you’d like to see? Or not see?

Tags: unwired, wireless tech, RFID, GPS, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, digital camera, biometrics, SED, ipod, ivod

Back in early 1982, Ottawa (Canada’s capital) city’s transit system was trying out a new service whereby you could call a phone number and find out when the next bus for your stop (coded with a unique number) would be arriving. The way the system worked was that you called a unique phone number for a specific stop. A person would contact the bus driver, on the route in question, via radio-dispatch, then give you an approximate ETA (Estimated Time of Arrival).

PBX (Private Branch eXchange) phone systems were new then, and the transit system must have purchased a block of phone numbers. The service was great for the winter time, especially in Ottawa when the mercury really dropped. The problem was, people had to be hired to answer the phones, and bus drivers were distracted by these calls from dispatchers. Other smaller cities later had a similar service, but used automated systems - no human answering your query - and these automated versions were really just approximations based on the regular schedule. Unfortunately, that meant they were often incorrect and ultimately useless.

Of course, large cities that  that run buses on 15-minute schedules or shorter probably don’t need either version of the ETA service. Nevertheless some cities are introducing a more accurate version the service using GPS (Global Positioning System) technology. New York is introducing such a service in Manhattan later in 2006 or early 2007. (Source: Waiting for the Bus.) A suitably-enabled device, such as a cellphone or smartphone/ PDA would then be used to check on the ETA of a particular bus. Much more accurate than the old methods, and no distraction to drivers.

While it’s difficult to understand why large cities with fairly frequent service would bother spending the money to set up a GPS-based ETA service, fare payment with smartcards (aka touchless or contactless payment) makes a bit more sense. Peppercoin and OTI Global in the US have jointly introduced a contactless fare card for transit riders in that works for both bus and subway. These smartcards contain an RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) circuit known as an “RFID tag”, or just “tag”. Participants wave their fare card in front of an RFID reader, installed on select buses right beside the cash box, and payment is made from the card.

The U.S. is not the only country to introduce similar touchless transit fare payment projects. This sort of application for RFID technology makes sense, is convenient, and does not invade privacy like the smart passports that are being contemplated in a number of countries including the United States. Unfortunately, there’s still a big problem. These cards are not universal. Far from it. They typically cannot be used with other RFID systems.

The really big problem is that there is no set standard for RFID technologies around the world. Digital money applications are too fragmented, with little or no collaboration between manufacturers. The result is that you need one smartcard for, say, transit, another for shopping, another for movie theatres, and so on. Who wants to be carrying all these cards around?

Makers of these smartcards (and those paying for the applications) are doing no one a favour by not pushing for a worldwide standard. If you really want people to use digital money instead of hard currency, you want to make it easier, not more annoying. Thus a better implementation would be to use a more common device such as a mobile phone or smartphone or PDA, but only after some worldwide standard is defined and accepted. Let’s hope RFID manufacturers realize this soon, instead of expecting us to carry a separate wallet or purse for our smart cards.

Tags: technopedia, tech pedia, transit fares, touchless payment, contactless payment, RFID tags, smartcards, GPS-enabled devices

In Amy Tan’s novel The Joy Luck Club, a group of Chinese-American immigrant women form a bond. And a bank account. Pooling their money together during Mahjong games, they lend it out to someone in their group, should they need it. The idea is brilliant, and the idea of women pooling together money has been the basis of a few Hollywood movies. But in none of these fictional cases do the women charge interest. And what about men participating? What would happen if someone created a similar situation, but brought together diverse people who wanted to lend out their money with those who would like to borrow. Each party would set their own interest rate, and suitable parties would be brought together.

For example, maybe you have a friend who is looking for a business loan. If you had money to lend, you might hand it over to your friend, whom you trust. Bu you happen to have a few acquaintances who have some money to lend. These people might be in different cities, different countries, or just simply not know each other at all or very well. What if there was a way to facilitate a loan without having to bring banks or other lending institutions into the equation?

Well, this kind of peer-to-peer financing connection (Information Week), aka people-to-people lending, is already in place on the Internet. Unlike the fictional Joy Luck Club, interest is charged on loans, but people apparently are more than happy to pay for it since they get to choose what interest rate they can afford. The services profiled by the Information Week article are Prosper and Zopa - the latter whose name is derived from a business term which essentially translates to the middle ground between one person’s bottom line and another’s top line.

But sites like these are not just for bringing together people you know into a loan transaction. You can also lend your money out to others. Of course, lending money to unknown parties sounds like a fairly risky venture. To lighten the risk, there are options to source a loan from several people. There is also a sense of community-building, whose intent is to encourage borrowers to uphold their commitment to repay their loan. Essentially, the idea is an outgrowth of all the Web 2.0 social networking websites that are popping up like mushrooms.

To further the social networking paradigm, both services plan to offer an API (Application Programmer Interface) so that their peer-to-peer financing concept can be integrated on other websites. This sounds like a fantastic idea. Imagine, if you had some sort of church community or other peer group on the internet, you could build a custom application to allow lending between group members.

Inter-group lending is a far less risky venture than lending to unknown borrowers, since members are likely to know each other, or known someone who knows someone. Or, to preserve the anonymity of lenders and borrowers, the community’s treasury “department” could broker all loan transactions via a custom-built application running on their website. Anonymity of the lender would be conditional on repayment under the agreed-to terms. This sort of application could foster both trust in budding entrepreneurs and struggling small business owners. Loan rates would be lower, and because of community ties, participants would feel encouraged to repay loans on time, thereby probably getting out of debt sooner than with a traditional loan.

Sure, groups could conduct lending activities in person; however, that does not ensure anonymity. Furthermore, if the group’s website was used to feature loan applicants and their intended use of the loan, lenders could anonymously decide how they want their investment divided up amongst participants. As well, with the increasing reliance of banking online, using such a lending application makes the process more convenient for participants.

It’s too bad, however, that Zopa and Prosper have not considered teaming up to come up with some sort of technical standard for the peer-to-peer finance process that would facilitate an even wider base of similar services. That would mean that there would be more Prospers and Zopas, but these clusters of borrowers and lenders could interact with each other.

All in all, though, peer-to-peer finance takes a once common form of lending and polishes it up for the online world. While service is limited to certain geographic areas at present, due to due diligence in acquiring credit licenses, plans are in progress to make these services available to many more people.

Technorati Tags: technopedia, tech pedia, zopa, prosper, peer-to-peer finance, online lending, online investments