Just read Sean Savage’s post about Julian Bleeker’s WiFi.Bedouin project.
WiFi.Bedouin is a wearable, mobile 802.11b node disconnected from the global Internet. It forms a WiFi “island Internet” challenging conventional assumptions about WiFi and suggesting new architectures for digital networks that are based on physical proximity rather than solely connectivity. Most significantly, WiFi.Bedouin facilitates the creation of a truly mobile web community.
Of particular interest, from my perspective, is the prospect of using wireless computing to enhance inhabitants’ experiences of places:
The design challenge of this project is to create a functioning apparatus that meaningful explores notions of physical proximity, locality, and community in such a way as broaden the range of possible ways wireless networks can construct meaningful and enthralling hybrid physical-virtual space.
Much of the focus on WiFi in third places is to allow visitors to surf the web, check their email, or otherwise attend to tasks that have no relation to the place from which the Internet is accessed. I like the community-oriented potential uses of WiFi.Bedouin, with its chat and [shared] blog tools. While the mobility of the device provides opportunities for various kinds of provocation (e.g., local “spoofs” of various sites), a stationary version situated in, say, in a WiFi-equipped coffee shop (independent or chain) could be used to digitally enhance the sense of community in that place.