Silicon.com launches 'Fair Wi-fi' campaign.

I nearly missed it but thanks to a post by Dean Bubley on "Disruptive Wireless" I noticed it (more than a week after the start...).
Silicon.com has started an online petition to combat the often ridiculous charges for WiFi access in hotels. It's UK centric but I would still encourage everyone to sign the petition.

Now anyone that nows me should be aware that I opose venues charging for WiFi, period. The cost of providing WiFi access (even venue wide) is relatively low and doesn't compare to the extra revenue that providing free WiFi access will bring to the venue. Now I'm not talking about a 4Mbps service but a free service fast enough for email and web-browsing combined with a reasonably priced faster service is a model that will benefit both the user and the provider.

/blatant plug.
One of my current ventures will allow venues to deploy this type of service at a minimal once off fee (to the venue). More info to follow shortly.
/end blatant plug.

E.

A passion to succeed.

I always enjoy reading Mary Schmidt's blog. She provides a no-bullshit insight into marketing and business development. Last Friday saw another great post titled: "Start-up success: Look stupid, Be silly!". It touches on something that I have noticed quite frequently while interfacing (i.e. talking) to other enterpreneurs. A lot of them seem to lack a real sense of passion for what they are doing or if the do have passion they are afraid to show it just in case it is seen as a weakness. Off course every enterpreneur has a passion for success because of the financial benefits of this success. However it is important too succeed and to be taken seriously be VC's & Angel investors that you display a passion for what you are doing. You should excude an absolute conviction in the benefit & success of what you are doing, you should radiate an complete belief in the benefits of your product/service to your target audience and you should love what you are setting out to do. And not only because of the financial benefits that it will hopefully bring you.
If you cannot convince yourself that your service or product is the best thing since sliced bread how can you ever convince your customers?
If you do not enjoy doing what you are doing you will not have a hope in hell in inspiring your employees!
And if you cannot convince your employees that they should give their 100% devotion to the job and your potential customers that they should choose your product over the competition's than how are you going to convince an investor to put their money behind you?

E.

Looks like the PSP will get even better.

I am a great believer in Sony's PSP.
Not as a gaming console, because quite honestly gaming just bores the hell out of me.
However it is a handgeld console that has one of the best screens that I have seen in any device of it's size, it has built in WiFi, a memory slot, an excellent control interface, a browser and lots more.
See it as a PDA on steroids.
Add a decent PIM, email, and a whole range of web based applications to currently multi-media players and it's an almost unbeatable combination.
What is also important is that it costs less than half of a high end PDA.
Since it's release snippets of code have shown up in the firmware updates that indicate what Sony is working on.
It now seems that they are working on incorporating VOIP and that it will most likely be a cooperation with Skype.
More info can be found here...

E.