Cool Hunting

The spanish company Fon, billing itself as the largest WiFi community in the world, is poised to make a dramatic entrance to New York City this month. Their "free WiFi for all who contribute" manifesto found a comrade in technologist and former candidate for NYC Public Advocate Andrew Rasiej, who ran on a free-WiFi-for-all ticket. Having lost that bid, Rasiej is now privately teaming up with Fon in an attempt to cover the City in a grid of "shared" access points. Rasiej and his fellow "Foneros," in a race to beat other cities like Philadelphia and San Francisco to the wireless utopia, are distributing 25,000 free Fon routers from their website starting this month. They are currently only available if you live in the East Village, but you can signup to get notified when they reach your neighborhood. That's good news for me, having just moved to the East Village and still reeling from the fact that all of my neighbors have secured their wireless networks, prohibiting my mooching. Also, unveiled earlier this week, a new router that includes a wireless Skype phone (pictured) adds a mobile component to the Fonero movement. ¡Libertad!