Google will launch a wifi service in the near future. Details are slim, but the buzz is growing.
It looks like the basic concept is a secure VPN – you sacrifice having Google see everything you do to ensure that other people on whatever wifi network you are on cannot (wifi sniffing is easy and widespread, and many passwords are transmitted without hashing). Om Malik, GoogleRumors and Tris Hussey write about this.
Google has not publicly commented, but there are a number of links referring to the service on the Google website:
- wifi.google.com/faq.htm – refers to a product called “Google Secure Access,” which is designed to “establish a more secure connection while using Google WiFi.”
- wifi.google.com/faq.htm – offers a free download of Google Secure Access, carrying the headline: “Your wireless connection is almost ready to use.”
Is this web 2.0? Nope. But it’s interesting. And with all of Google’s recent product launches, the idea of Google Purge becomes, if possible, even funnier.
Additional Reading
John Paczkowski, RatcliffeBlog, Dana Blankenhorn, The Stalwart, ebiquity, Peter O’Kelly
okay, have to say something again..
if it is not web 2.0, then why bother posting about it in here? and also why even use the “web2.0″ tag on your post?
enough already
Google may be a darling for nerd media but the telecommunication giants have bigger R&D budgets than Google has working capital. How will this compete against Verizon broadband which seems very promising? Sprint also have something like this in the works.
I find it silly that they (and ebay) think they can compete with telecommunication and satellite providers.
Anon – tell me your definition of web 2.0…We are clearly in the early stages of a renaissance on application development. The read/write web (blogging, for instance) is clearly driving much of this. And so is Ajax and Rails, which allow web apps to behave very much like desktop apps. How do we glue those two concepts together? Is a pure ajax app web 2.0? The idea (if not the name) has been around and in use since the 90’s. Is the spread of wifi part of web 2.0? I dunno. I’m trying to figure this out as we go just like everyone else does. And tangential pieces, like google wifi and filmloop, help to understand the big picture.
I’m thinking this is a very stealthy attempt by Google to really be the never MSFT. Suddenly Google is a serious force on my machine. Desktop Search, GMail, Talk, Secure Access (which I got to work and transmit from Canada for a while). There is one thing I am worried about though … if we rely on Google for providing information to us … what stops them from NOT providing information they DON’T want us to find?
How is the Google Wifi works in Asia Country? Does it already exists in Asia?
PS: Curently works as a R&D Engineer