D-Link has invented a niche it's calling the "home security market" - and has released a couple of webcams to help you discover who it is that's eating all the biscuits.

The DCS-2121 Megapixel Wireless Network Camera is the hottest of the pair, coming fully loaded up with wi-fi connectivity so there's no tell-tale wiring going from your computer to the cavity you hollowed out behind the mirror.

The DCS-910 is the wired version, coming with an Ethernet socket for easily hooking it into your home network. Both come with D-ViewCam 2.0, D-Link's monitoring software that has the power to let you watch 32 simultaneous video streams from 32 separate cameras at once, should you have a PC powerful enough, a bank balance unrestricted enough, and compound eyes.

They and their little software friend can record video direct to the hard drive as EVIDENCE, plus motion detection sensors let you leave them running - and have them email you when there's something happening in the room. If you're very, very paranoid and controlling, both are out now - at £129.99 for the 910 and £174.99 for the wi-fi 2121.

(Via D-link)

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Home decoration and technology doesn't usually sit well together, but here's an idea from boffins at the University of Tokyo who have come up with an aluminium-iron oxide paint that can absorb the electromagnetic waves at frequencies typically used by Wi-Fi.

In other words, painting your walls with this stuff could stop your wireless signal from leaking into neighbouring houses.

Interesting concept, but surely it would be much simpler to install some basic security on the wireless router?

WeFi has announced a couple of new services to help mobile users locate free and pay-for Wi-Fi hotspots worldwide.

First up is the online directory that, given an address, will show where the nearest spots are -- well, it will if you download a piece of software first. A phone or laptop with GPS enabled can also be used to located new hotspots automatically.

The second, currently only available in the US at present, will allow a location to be texted from a mobile phone, with a list of hotspots being sent in return.

I tend not to use many Wi-Fi hotspots when out and about, but for those that want to scoop us as much free connection (legitimate or otherwise) as they can, this could be a decent app to try.

WeFi (via Mashable)

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There's a lot of software out there for cracking wireless passwords, and most of it's legal. Why? Because it's sold as a way for network administrators to 'test' their network's security. Of course, there's nothing to stop you 'testing' a network that you don't own, in a coffee shop or airport, for example.

Most cracking programs use your PC's CPU to do the hardcore number-crunching, but it turns out that the graphics card is actually far better at doing the kinds of calculations necessary. How good? Well, an above average quad-core CPU, the Intel Q6600 can only accomplish 1,100 passwords per second, whereas a similarly above-average ATI HD4870 graphics card can smash through 15,750 passwords per second.

Who woulda thunk it? Luckily, we might be seeing some of this power hit regular programs too, with Nvidia's CUDA, ATI's Stream, and Apple's OpenCL frameworks. The graphics card isn't best at every type of calculation, but if a program can intelligently route calculations to their fastest solver, then we could see blazing program speed increases in the near future.

(via HotHardware)

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After Dan covered the Wave-Home multimedia communicator the other day, I did a little more digging, and found a bunch of other matching products that iRiver unveiled at CES.

I've always quietly been a fan of iRiver's design work. Their latest MP3 players look incredible, and these sleek new gadgets wouldn't be out of place in a documentary called "The home of 2100". Click the Wave-Home below to view the gallery.

iRiver (via Akihabaranews)

You'd be amazed at how many conferences lack something that I consider to be akin to running water and oxygen - internet access. Just as you've got comfortable in your seat near the back of the room, you open up your laptop, wait a few seconds for Linux to resume, and then utterly fail to find any open wireless hotspots.

Rather than fiddling with trying to use your phone as a modem, just connect to the MiFi. It uses high-speed HSDPA to connect to access the net via cell networks, meaning that you won't get much signal in the wilds of Norfolk, but given that there are very few conferences in the wilds of Norfolk, you should be okay.

The internal rechargeable battery in this thing will support up to 40 hours of standby time and 4 hours of actual use without power. It'll be available in the States in early 2009 via broadband carriers, so we might see someone like Three distribute thing alongside its existing D100 plug-in model.

Novatel Wireless (via PC World)

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Betting that within a few years every appliance we own will be hooked up to the internet, Nokia has announced plans for something called Home Control Centre. It's basically software that will let you control everything in your home from your mobile device, from the heating to the toaster.

I know, we've all been there - gone out with some toast in the toaster, and forgotten that you actually wanted it on browning level three, rather than browning level five.

The global gadget development arms race to see who can fit the most stuff into the smallest, whitest box has taken a dramatic turn today, thanks to this clever little everything-in-one miniature... digital... wi-fi... thing.

You can write on it, browse the internet on it, listen to music on it, take photos on it, watch films on it and, most importantly of all, get it out of your very smallest pocket or the change compartment of your wallet and impress people with it by showing them all of the above.

There are several ways to crack a wireless network's security. The weakest, WEP, can be easily cracked using customized Linux software, but until today, Wi-Fi Protected Access (or WPA) had been considered secure. Not any more. Researchers have announced that they've developed a way to partially crack the encryption standard, but I warn you, it's not easy.

The researchers, Erik Tews and Martin Beck, have found a way to break the Temporary Key Integrity Protocol (or TKIP) in as little as 15-12 minutes. They have not yet, however, managed to crack the encryption keys used to secure the data that travels from the PC to the router.

The Federal Communications Commission has voted 5-0 in favour of opening up the "white space" of unused airwaves between broadcast TV channels to be used for enhanced wireless broadband and communications.

This "Wi-Fi on steroids", as Google describes it, could offer a much larger range than current Wi-Fi technology, thus allowing greater broadband penetration in remote areas, and might also be used to set up local ad hoc networks directly between devices.

Mobile operator underdogs 3 has just launched an addition to its family of wireless dongles - a wireless router. It's quite a smart idea - it allows you to plug a 3 wireless dongle in, and it'll act like an access point, when there isn't one normally available. Given usual 3G speeds, however, how fast this would actually run when split between "up to 4" people is open to debate.

It'll work on the move, thanks to an included rechargable battery. 3 reckons it could even replace home broadband for some people. I'm a little skeptical of that, at least until 3G speeds improve, but I suppose if you're just surfing the net and not doing much downloading, then it might work.

Researchers at the University of Boston have managed to come up with a way of transferring data through lightbulbs. It's not quite as crazy as it sounds - fibre-optics uses light to transmit data, but in a much more focused way. The researchers propose to use LEDs flickering at imperceptible speeds to communicate with network-enabled devices at speeds between one and ten megabits per second.

Although that's not very fast for video streaming or online gaming, it's more than enough for an internet enabled fridge, photoframe or printer. Those kinds of devices are the target that the researchers are going after - bringing the digital home one step closer to reality.

I'm a big fan of wireless routers - one of my dreams is to one day own 256 different wireless devices so I can see what happens if you try to connect all of them to the same wireless router, to see if it breaks anything. So far I've got maybe 6 or 7 devices, so I'm slowly working my way there, and I reckon I should have enough by the time that I'm 60. But anyway, because of this, I was thrilled today to learn that Netgear has announced a couple of new wireless routers.

Boris Johnson, the inexplicable Mayor of London has offered some platitudes on making London a "wifi city", making wireless internet available everywhere. Though he hasn't offered any concrete plans or chucked any money at the idea yet, he seems keen to tie the idea in with the preparations for the 2012 Olympics, telling BBC London Radio "Let's do it, beginning in Stratford in this fantastic area of opportunity".

Apparently what has spurred the Mayor's support for wifi technology was Gordon Brown announcing today that he wants to give out £700 computer vouchers to schoolkids, which Boris has dismissed as a "crap idea" (paraphrasing), suggesting the wifi plan instead.

Boris also said "what we need is a city where anywhere you go, you can log on, you can get on the web" - unfortunately he didn't finish this sentence with the phrase "for free".

Hopefully I'll be sitting on one of the lions on Nelson's Column and writing on TD to tell you about it soon.

(via BBC News)

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That deformed beast which looks like the remains of three microwaved mobile phones is an AiGuru SV1, the product of an alliance between globally beloved tech-maker Asus and quite loved chat-enabler Skype.

The SV1 is a self-contained video phone, using Skype software and its own little webcam to let users broadcast video calls from wherever there's a wi-fi signal. In your bathroom, for example. There's also an Ethernet socket, microphone and speaker, plus that screen's a whopping seven inches - and it'll take care of multiple users at once, should you fancy living the 1980s "video conferencing" vision of the future.

So, there I was at Terminal 5 the other day on my way out to IFA in Berlin. I opened my all-too-heavy laptop expecting to reap the benefits of all the lovely Wi-Fi I'd heard about and what did I pick up - not a sausage; not so much as a secured, ultra-low signal from a mobile phone.

Now, if I were to try the same any time from today, I'd have a rather different experience. Search for a network in Heathrow T5 now and you'll find one the size of 50 football pitches courtesy of T-Mobile. The only trouble is, it will cost you a TFT screen-cracking £5 for just one solitary hour. I'm not sure if they still have telegrams these days but I'll bet they're a more cost effective way of communicating from T5 if they do.

Yesterday, a couple of flash pages popped up on the Palm website detailing the Treo Pro. The pages have now been taken down, but the intrepid hunter who tracked it down grabbed the screenshot above before it died.

Formerly known as the Treo 850, the Pro is looking pretty lovely. It's got a full-size 3.5mm headphone jack, a reset button, a Wi-Fi button on the side, and a considerably nicer-looking camera and speaker than the 800w, which isn't the most beautiful of smartphones. There's also a rather enigmatic "side button".

An interesting patent has turned up that suggests some new features we could be seeing in the next generation of iPods and iPhones. A rather crude diagram explains how Apple want to be able to let you share your iTunes library with your devices over the internet.

A new piece of mobile phone software has been unveiled today that will allow you to share your mobile phone's internet connection with the FON community over wifi.

This might take some explaining, as both Joikusoft and FON aren't exactly household names, and the thing they both do isn't terribly straightforward. Lets make a game of it.

MySpace.com users can now gain free access to over 7,000 Wi-Fi hotspots courtesy of The Cloud, thanks to a deal announced today.

When users connect to one of The Cloud's wireless locations via their mobile device, they'll be greeted with MySpace branding and multimedia content on the landing page. Presumably if they've not paid for access to the rest of the Internet, or have an iPhone, that's as far as they'll get.