In the Express and Echo yesterday there was news on the business pages about free wi-fi access at the Southgate Hotel and later on the cathedral green. More follows later.

Psand have started their activities for 2004. They will probably do more over the summer. In the previous two years thay arranged web access at Glastonbury (lost vaguness) and at the Big Green Gathering. Somerset is not too far from Exeter so maybe there will be some connection. There was a short notice of the streaming event so a few people in Exeter got to hear of it.

I had a mixed response to the event. It was amazing what was possible and there was a sense of occassion. However the sound quality varied quite a lot. Meanwhile in Exeter there is Vibraphonic, a music festival with a temp radio licence for FM -106.2 . This is such a rare and high quality chance that I found myself losing interest in the streaming media and turning back to radio. This might change as bandwidth improves but it set me thinking. I undersatnd some of the streams will be backed up and made available as archive. Maybe for Animated Exeter there could be an edited version of highlights in high quality. Could be on CD in the post if bandwidth is still an issue. This could work at any festival meanwhile. The style strikes me as animation in all but name and inclusion in an animation festival. Mostly in Quicktime format so it could be shown large scale on occasions. Wi-fi is one option but maybe there are others.

http://wireless.psand.net/live/

Includes an archive of previous events

http://www.vibraphonic.co.uk

Just to note that there is wi-fi access in the George Fox building for the Networked Learning conference.

So there is some use of this being made. Presumably conferences in Exeter also have this but I'm not sure about how much this is used.

This is sent from the one of the PCs available anyway.

The conference is howing signs of momentum for the web in education. There are now loads of people with a job recognised as a 'learning technologist'. They don't talk much about technology though, mostly learning theory. And they want to do research. It seems to me that the idease around pc support are mucg too various and unstable for this to happen as an academic subject.

More later. Time for lunch.

Another set of suggestions for a reference pub site

http://www.wialess.com/locations/index.htm

This comes from the discussion around next week's wi-fi event

http://www.quicktopic.com/24/H/ddepWRbdUrVB

http://www.guykewney.com/articles/040226-beer.html

Wednesday April 7th Frigate and Firkin Pub, near Olympia

Some progress on the message board for the Access to Broadband Campaign.

My question has been asking about where a pub exists with a wi-fi culture strong enough to support knowledge.

Guy Kewney has written in with a suggestion, the Progress Bar in Tufnell Park

This has come about because on Guy Kewney's wi-fi site there is mention of a pub meeting next week after a wi-fi show at Olympia.

Can't be there myself but this is a sign of some progress. Exeter is still cold and grey at the moment but people from Tufnell Park may visit in the summer and explain a bit more.