Wi-Fi Misses Out on Red Carpet Walk - ' Page 2 ' (
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My jaw was virtually coming unhinged at the sight of these guys. They come
from all around the world, and NEC copes splendidly with their
idiosyncrasies. "They log into the PC with their own personal settings,
and they get their own desktop, configured in exactly the language and so
on that they need," recounts Tagger. "You see that guy? He is from an
Arabic magazine; he has the screen showing Arabic characters."
Indeed, he was. And he was using an AZERTY (French layout) keyboard. The marks on the keys bore no resemblance whatever to what was
appearing on-screen, but it was clear he was clattering along at a lot
more than 30 words a minute. Next to him, a reporter from some Cyrillic-
using country was hunting and pecking, and shaking his head and
backspacing, finding the right keys by trial and error.
Why would anybody who had their own laptop computer put themselves through
this sort of torture? Simple enough, it seems: They havent got their
heads around what wireless can do for them.
NEC reckons to budget some 300,000 euros for its sponsorship of the
festival—and after tax breaks (cultural sponsorship in France is highly
regarded by the revenue authorities) the company will probably have to find 200,000
euros net. Its a lot of money—paid off because it allows NECs biggest
customers to see it managing a huge system. And, of course, who would turn down an
invitation to walk the red carpet and rub shoulders with the stars?
There are technical advantages to the use of a press center computer. For
a start, youre plugged into an NEC-provided giant FTP server. You log in,
upload; your managing editor back home logs in and downloads. On the
WLAN, you dont get access to that FTP server because of security
concerns.
And this, I suppose, is where I start moaning and groaning. I do,
honestly, understand that there are concerns with wireless security. And
lets be honest, security is one of the obsessions of Cannes during the
festival. I couldnt get into my own hotel without a full luggage search,
and I had to wear a photo ID at all times—not just the normal IT
convention card.
These stars are not just shy, theyre paranoid. Along the side of the red
carpet into the giant screening auditorium, there is space for about 100 photographers; each has to stand on his or her own numbered circle, so that security will be able to tell whether something is out of the ordinary. There are even signs in the press center forbidding photography of the red carpet proceedings from the balcony because the security people wouldnt be able to tell if there was a cunning plot to disguise a firearm as a digital camera.
But the threat from wireless PC users these days is containable. We know because pioneers like Microsofts Andy Cheeseman, who goes around the
world installing and running gigantic Wi-Fi networks for Microsoft
conventions, have shown that even the nastiest Internet worms can be
contained, isolated and dealt with. We know that the only people who get
excited about WLAN security threats are security consultants hoping to get
expensive commissions exposing these threats.
In a word, clarity. Until we, the professionals, achieve mental clarity
about this technology and stop behaving as though Wi-Fi is a way of
getting pink demons with piglike grunts into the network, or seeing Darth
Vader using The Force on hapless network cards, we cant really expect the
general non-tech public to buy into the idea, either.
And I suppose, you want to know which film it was I was watching? It was
the Chinese film "Three Times"—which is easily the most powerful and
astonishing ... but there, Ill save that for my film blog, shall I?
Contributing columnist Guy Kewney has been irritating the complacent in high tech since 1974. Previously with PC Mag UK and ZDNet UK, Guy helped found InfoWorld, Personal Computer World, MicroScope, PC Dealer, AFAICS Research and NewsWireless.
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