Bicycle Based Access Points
There have been some questions about the best way to cover hard to reach areas with WiFi. Some talk about powerful long range antennas, but that doesn’t necessarily work for underground locations. Well, now one person is experimenting with an interesting concept: a bicycle based WiFi access point. Yury Gitman, an artist, has created “Magicbikes” which come equipped as WiFi access points. They can either repeat and transmit a WiFi signal they picked up from somewhere else or can connect out directly using a cellular connection – all while blending right in to the landscape around them. To demonstrate the bike’s power, he sent some email from the subway station at Union Square in NY last week. He had one Magicbike parked at the top of the subway stairs, and another down on the platform with him – and via the two bikes, he was connected to the world. The next part of the project is figuring out how to make the bicycle based WiFi access points work well even when they’re in motion.
