WiFi fever pervades annual wireless gathering
Source: CNN.com
Maybe it's because wireless technologies seem magical, filling the air with unseen vibrations that mean something.
What else can explain the optimism pervading one of the industry's most important gatherings as war looms and many companies still struggle to make money from wireless wonders?
Companies from Accenture to Ztango have wireless breakthroughs to show off this week at the 18th annual CTIA Wireless 2003 in New Orleans, a trade show suffused with the notion that the Next Big Thing will be anything that lets people better use technology while they're mobile.
The biggest buzz surrounds the wireless networking technology known as WiFi and myriad methods of making mobile devices more appealing to "road warrior" business users.
Other hot topics include ways to let people roam between WiFi and cell phone networks as they surf the Web and check e-mail on the fly; expansion of "push-to-talk" walkie-talkie services that Nextel pioneered and rivals are copying; new uses of short text messages over phones; and more options for stuffing cell phones with games, pictures and songs.
