Is the iPad the “final nail in the coffin” for free wi-fi? According to the New York Times, it just might be, at least for hotels. iPads consume four times more wi-fi data per month than the average smartphone. And with more than 1 in 10 Americans owning tablets, and most of those tablets being iPads, and the tablet-owning class by and large overlapping with the class of people who stay at hotels, hotels are suddenly finding that the wifi bandwidth that had served them well in the last few years is no longer good enough. For business travelers,...

In the New York Times, Virginia Heffernan complains about the way some independent cafes in New York City now restrict or ban the use of e-book readers and tablets. (We’ve covered this particular issue before when Nick Bilton brought it up back in August.) Heffernan notes that banning the use of laptops is understandable—it can interfere with ambiance and take up space that could otherwise be used by more paying customers. But she make a case that banning smaller devices runs contrary to the historical nature of coffeehouses. She points out that people in public spaces have to learn...

Our sister blog Gadgetell notes that Virgin Mobile has decided to scale back the $40/mo unlimited-bandwidth 3G plan that I have waxed enthusiastic about in the past (and that “saved the day” for Paul earlier this month). As of February 15, the plan will throttle download speed after the first 5 gigabytes of data in a month. That may work all right for people who just check their email and do ordinary web browsing, but it’s going to leave people who do more bandwidth-intensive stuff such as stream Netflix movies high and dry. Of course, it won’t really...

Our sister blog Appletell reports that the Verizon CDMA iPhone, and indeed the regular iPhone as well, is going to feature mobile wi-fi hotspot capability. Theoretically. It’s up to the carriers whether this capability is allowed to be used, of course, and it’s unclear how desirable it will be given that 1) bandwidth will probably be limited, and 2) carriers will probably charge through the nose for it. (After all, they charge for Bluetooth tethering already.) On a related note, remember the uproar over Apple changing the iPad’s screen-lock switch to a mute switch in OS 4.2 and...

At TechCrunch, Alexia Tsotsis posts an interesting meditation on how tricky most household appliance interfaces have become. Coffee makers, microwave ovens, even pepper grinders have become much more complex than they used to be—sometimes hilariously so: Many people received iPads and iPhones this Christmas, and because of Apple’s legendary intuitive and straightforward design, could pull them right out of the box and commence using. Not the case with a battery powered pepper grinder one of my relatives received at our gift exchange. It took three people to put together and when we did get it to...

On the New York Times “Bits” blog, Nick Bilton posts the story of what happened when he tried to read a Kindle or iPad at restaurants that don’t permit computer use during selected hours, or at all: I looked up at [the coffee shop employee] with an incredulous look and replied, “This isn’t a computer, it’s an e-book reader.” He then told me that the “device” in my hand had a screen and required batteries, so it was obviously “some variation of a computer.” The coffee shop, I was told, did not...

(Spotted by eagle-eyed TeleReader Felix Torres!) First it was the markdowns on the Kindle 2, and the even lower markdowns on refurbished Kindle 2s. This should have been an early clue, given that it’s much the same thing that happened to the Kindle 1 shortly before the Kindle 2 came out. When the Kindle 2 went out of stock on Amazon, it seemed obvious a replacement would be coming soon—and now the Wall Street Journal is covering Jeff Bezos’s next e-ink marvel. Engadget has a closer look at the device (and a bigger version of the...

Last month, I wrote about using mobile hotspot solutions to “retrofit” 3G coverage to wifi-enabled devices such as the wifi-only iPad or third-party wifi-equipped e-book readers. It would seem like the ideal solution: not as difficult as tethering, compatible with any wifi-enabled device, and remarkably convenient to wherever a user might be. However, Kevin C. Tofel reports on GigaOm that sales of personal hotspots such as the MiFi fell 28 percent in 2009 over the previous year, according to a recent Infonetics Research Report. The report does expect sales to return in 2010 and beyond. One problem Tofel cites is that...

FedEx has informed me that my Sony PRS-700 Reader will arrive tomorrow before 10:30 a.m. I get to keep it for two weeks, officially starting Thursday but I’m not complaining about having an extra day to get the jump on things. I thought that, in the interest of chronicling my experiences, I would sit down and write down the preconceptions I come to this trial period with, so that I can look back in two weeks and see how much they have been changed by spending time with the thing. So, here are my uninformed impressions. Sony has offered me a generous...