The cool guys from NovaTel Wireless had promised me one of these for a few months for testing and after much nudging and prodding it arrived on Friday.
Andy has been writing about it for a few weeks now but I think its the first one on these shores.
So what is MiFi?
A mobile broadband dongle? yes
A hotspot in a box? yes
The end of broadband dongles? 100%

This was one of the simplest devices I have ever set up, I charged it, removed my Vodafone sim from the broadband dongle and inserted it in the device, logged in to change the settings for the Vodafone APN, restarted it and voila, a portable mobile router.

Speeds are as fast as any USB dongle I have tested and most importantly using the MiFi software I can now create a hotspot on the move for friends to access.
Imagine how useful this will be on trains, Buses, long car journeys, hotel lobbies where your friends don’t have to pay to connect to broadband.
I think this has the power to change the mobile broadband game especially due to the simplicity of the device, on-board software is a breeze, its tiny (half the size of a cigarette pack) and most important is the ability to create a mobile hotspot.

On tests yesterday I got 3.5 hours minimum and nearly four maximum from a single charge, qik videos work good when streamed over it and calls over MiFi were steady and clear.
Its not available from any mainstream partners in Ireland or the UK yet but I can see it being here definitely in the next couple of months.
If you see a maxroam hotspot at your next event, log on, the password will be maxroam
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Its been a nutty day so I didn’t get to say much about the fantastic new N97, looks amazing, I love the pop up keyboard and the design is definitely futuristic.
Lots of links on this
Om
Robert
BoyGenius
Jonathon

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This is going to be absolutely huge.
Nokia Build
Nokia now allows it customer to totally personalize their handsets. At present its limited to the 7310 Supernova but I expect it to spread to other models asap.

Nike id has been been an incredible success for Nike and I can guarantee that Nokia will spread this across its global sites.
At present its only accessible from France and the UK.
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My friends know how much doing this stuff turns me on
MAXroam running with full 3G on an unlocked G1 Android phone

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Sometimes an idea comes along that’s just so good you wish “why didn’t I think of that”
Flip was one of those, as was Kindle now I think they will be joined by Peek

Numbers wise there is an issue with mobile email, lots of people don’t want the complicated Windows Mobile or Blackberry based devices, they just want to be able to pick up their personal email without getting a new number and I think Peek fills this gap.
Peek goes on sale today at Target stores and online at getpeek for $100 with a monthly service fee of $19.95.
Analyst Gerry Purdy of Frost & Sullivan there are 264 million cell phone subscribers in the United States. But only 15 million of them are using their cell phone to access their e-mail.
This is a huge imbalance and certainly shows a market for Peek. I have put an email into them regarding international plans and am awaiting a response.

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I have been looking for this since I got the phone, its a tiny hack and allows you to take screenshots from your iPhone, I presume it works on iPod touch also but haven’t confirmed this.
Here is one I done early

You click your home button and your power button at the same time, please note its a click not a hold works perfect everytime.
Small demo video below

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Just back from VON.x
An excellent show where video came to the forefront. I got to pitch a few questions at Loic LeMeur regarding his post Is there a future for local startups?
You can watch it here on QIK

For me the highlight was our St Patrick’s Day party where I gave a brief demonstration of our citizen journalism kit.
I was using a Verizon broadband dongle connected to a cradlepoint device synced with a Nokia N95, picture below is thanks to Sheryl.

The Cradlepoint (get it here , tell Kevin I sent you) is a personal hotspot creator which allows me to stream wireless over wifi thus ensuring perfect quality on QIK. All that remains is to find a high quality bluetooth microphone and TV quality streaming is there for the taking.

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If you have been around here for a while you will know that Jawbone is my favourite bluetooth headset.
They have just launched a special edition set designed by Yves Behar, founder of Fuseproject studios

The three models – in black, white and copper-brown – are called dirty talk, trash talk and sweet talk, with discrete logos to match.

More Phonemag

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Local man about the town/Journalist Damien Mulley called into MAXroam HQ to see our Macbook Air, I think he was impressed.
Its a wonderful machine, pity its an Apple though:-)

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One of my Cubic Telecom business partners Alan Keane recently travelled to France to vacation @ “Chateau Keane”

He forgot to bring one of our sims and was just battered by O2.His normal bill is around 150 Euro which you can see as he forgot to pay his last bill.
This bill is 876 Euro a jump of 700 for a two week holiday.

My favourite part of the bill was the nice message “travelling abroad, no need to call us, you are now set up to roam unless you requested otherwise”

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