Nearly a year to the day after we heard that WiFi trials were beginning on some of the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit trains, WiFi Rail has announced a deal that'll last a score and provide high-speed WiFi "throughout the BART transit system and on all BART commuter trains." Reportedly, the network has successfully been tested to handle loads and provide speeds in excess of 15Mbps on trains moving 81 miles-per-hour. As it stands, four downtown San Francisco stations and some segments of the tunnels are already fully functional, but it'll take until the end of 2010 before the entire network is complete. There's no mention of what the price table will end up looking like, though we are told that subscriptions will be available by day, month or year. Now, if only this would filter out to every other mass transit entity in America, we'd be just jolly.

Check it, Pacific Northwest -- Seattle, Washington was just named Forbes' most wired city for 2009, followed closely by Atlanta, Washington, D.C., Orlando and Boston. Of course, having Amazon and Microsoft within spitting distance probably didn't hurt matters, and the eleventy billion Starbucks WiFi hotspots likely pushed it over the edge. There are 25 other locales in the top 30 that we've yet to mention here, so head on down to the read link to see if your hometown made the cut. Oh, and way to represent, Raleigh -- numero fifteen ain't too shabby.

[Via cnmoody]

Aircell already managed to coerce American, Delta, Virgin America and Air Canada into installing its Gogo in-flight internet equipment into at least a few of their airplanes, and now United Airlines can proudly say that it's no longer looking in from the outside. Starting this year, a baker's dozen of the company's Boeing 757s -- which will fly between John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York and California's Los Angeles International Airport and San Francisco International Airport -- will be armed and ready with WiFi for the people. Pricing will remain set at $12.95 for the entire flight, and service is expected to roll out during the second half of this year.

We can't say a device such as this was inevitable or anything, but given how limited the adoption of WiMAX has been thus far in America, it's definitely a win for everyone involved. According to Sidecut Reports, Clearwire will soon unveil a portable WiMAX / WiFi router built by Cradlepoint (prototype pictured), which will utilize a Motorola WiMAX USB stick to enable WiFi-capable devices to gather 'round and surf on the delightfully speedy WiMAX superhighway. In other words, non-WiMAX handsets that have WiFi modules can tap into the WiMAX network (if they're in a lit locale, that is) via this device, which -- if we may say so ourselves -- is a brilliant design move. There's no word yet on when the box will ship nor how pricey it'll be, but this could be just the thing you've been looking for to replace that painfully expensive cable modem at home.

[Thanks, Jeremy]

Make no mistake, we have all ideas that Julius Genachowski is very much concerned with cable pricing, but according to analysts, putting pressure on operators isn't apt to be his focus. Jules, as he's known around the Engadget offices, is expected to be named the next chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. His primary concern? Network neutrality. As with most things in politics, the appointment is likely to be a double-edged sword for consumers; on one hand, we'll greatly benefit from a higher-up pushing open internet development and increased deployment, but on the other, we can pretty much kiss any faint hopes of à la carte pay-TV arrangements goodbye. Of course, before he tackles any of that, he'll first have to deal with the impending digital TV transition, which should be immensely riveting to watch from the sidelines.

Not quite sure what makes this "gaming router" so suitable for you "gamers" out there, but TRENDnet's a firm believer that its CES-announced TEW-647GA is ready and willing to handle those online deathmatches. Though not nearly as minuscule as the TEW-654TR, this 300Mbps 802.11b/g/n router promises a lag-free connection (provided that your broadband connection is worth a darn) and simple setup with PCs and all manners of game consoles. Check it someday after today for some price greater than a penny.

Okay Yahoo!, we're sorry we teased, we give up, you win. After what certainly seemed on this end to be an endless run of HDTV manufacturers announcing support for the Widget Engine today -- and serving up a hefty slap in the face to Microsoft and others who've been moving the Internet to TV movement for some time now -- all we can do is look over the carnage. Signed up on the app side of platform formerly known as Konfabulator are content providers like eBay, MySpace, CBS, Blockbuster OnDemand (in its first off-2Wire MediaPoint appearance), Netflix, Showtime, USA Today and Twitter, while the Widget Development Kit has opened up to developers interested in putting their apps on the screens of millions. Hardware should street starting this spring from the likes of Samsung, LG, Sony and Vizio leaving the biggest question mark as how the competition and their clumsy external boxes can possibly respond.

So, there's good news and bad news, and per tradition, we'll be starting with the latter. Three of four undersea cables that route internet traffic from Asia to North America have inexplicably been cut, meaning that your international Quake III server may be a bit slow this evening. The good news is that this fiasco clearly hasn't affected you yet. The AP has confirmed via Egypt's communications ministry that the cables have indeed been severed, causing massive outages in select portions of the world. Oddly, no suspicions of subterfuge have been mentioned, but we have all ideas rumors will start to swirl if another gets snipped. So, tell us readers -- are you still online? Wait, don't answer that.

[Via ZDNet]

Man, we're clearly in the wrong line of work. It seems that being in the FCC means that you can basically ignore everything else going on so long as you squint really hard and pretend to make progress on an imminent event that's just over two months ago. Sure, we're just bitter, but we're struggling to understand why an agency this large can't work towards auctioning a slice of soon-to-be-freed airwaves for widespread internet use while educating consumers on the digital TV transition that's coming in February. Caving to requests from Democratic lawmakers, the FCC has canceled a December 18th meeting that would've been used to discuss the next step in making the most of white spaces, but unless we see these very suits walking the streets with signs saying "THE END IS NEAR! FEBRUARY 17TH, 2009!," we're going to be rather peeved.

[Via phonescoop]

Brutal honesty here: on election day this past November, the entire Engadget staff (well, those of us with US passports) collectively agreed that casting our vote via SMS or some other incredibly simple method would be infinitely more awesome than trudging out in the streets and waiting in hour-long lines. Clearly, some higher-ups in Estonia are on board with that concept, as its Parliament has approved a law that will likely make it the first nation on Planet Earth to give citizens the right to vote by phone in something that matters (American Idol notwithstanding). 'Course, those who choose to take advantage must first obtain a free authorization chip for their handset, which sort of kills the whole "not having to leave your house" aspect of all this. Ah well, at least we're moving in the right direction.

Here's something that doesn't happen everyday with legacy airlines -- an announcement that something is actually ahead of schedule. After hearing that Delta would equip its entire US fleet with Aircell's Gogo in-flight WiFi in 2009, along comes a release from Aircell that says otherwise. In fact, it proclaims that "Delta Air Lines is expected to launch service before the end of 2008." Furthermore, the company has confessed that "most major US carriers are in advanced discussions with or are already contractually committed to Aircell," which certainly bodes well for avid travelers who take issue with long periods of disconnection. Aircell is hoping to have its in-flight internet tech installed in 2,000 commercial aircraft by the end of 2009 -- talk about making the friendly skies "friendly" again.

[Image courtesy of Gadling]

The time has come, internet mavens... to comment on this post from 35,000 feet up, of course. After launching to a select handful of lucky souls last week, Virgin America has gone live with its Aircell-engineered Gogo internet service on select flights. As of now, an undisclosed amount of VA flights will offer guests unlimited use (with certain restrictions around VoIP, we hear) while in the air for $12.95 on flights longer than three hours and $9.95 for flights under three hours. The airline's entire fleet should be WiFi-ready by Q1 2009, but for now, why not kill some time tracking planes with live internet access? Fun, right?

With Chrysler pushing out an internet-connected package of its own, Mercedes-Benz is attempting to stay one step ahead with the intelligent, intuitive myCOMMAND system. Our pals at Autoblog were able to get a bit of hands-on time with the new setup at the LA Auto Show, and they were kind enough to host up a near-5 minute video showing off its most attractive features. They reiterated that what was being taped was simply a concept for now, but there's zero doubt that the automaker is looking to get this into production as soon as feasibly possible. Hit the read link for a look at the clip, but be sure and pull over first.

Chrysler has been toying with in-car connectivity for months now, so it's really no shock to see the next logical step being taken. At the San Francisco Auto Show this week, the automaker is set to showcase a "Web Edition" package, which would theoretically be available as a dealer-installed option for most Chrysler, Jeep, and Dodge vehicles. The bundle would include an Autonet Mobile router (branded as Uconnect Web), a Dell Mini 9, 8GB iPod touch, Sony PSP and an Eye-Fi WiFi SD card; couple that with one year of internet service and you've got everything that makes up the $1,999 asking price. Reportedly, a slimmed down option will go for $1,100 and only include the router, service and Mini 9, though there's no indication of when it'll be hitting new whips. Nor if Chrysler will survive long enough to tell us.

NASA is reporting the first successful tests of its Deep Space Network modeled after Earth's own Internet. Instead of using TCP/IP, however, the interplanetary communication network relies upon DTN (Disruption-Tolerant Networking) co-developed by none other than Google's Vinton Cerf. As such, NASA's network does not assume a continuous end-to-end connection -- if a link is lost due to solar storms or a planetary eclipse, the communication node will store the information until the connection is re-established. So, what's the big deal you rightly ask, after all, we've been (purposely) transmitting data to and from space for a half-century. As Leigh Torgerson, manager of NASA's DTN Experiment Operations Center explains it:

"In space today, an operations team must manually schedule each link and generate all the commands to specify which data to send, when to send it, and where to send it. With standardized DTN, this can all be done automatically."

Testing of the Deep Space Network began in October with twice-weekly communications between NASA's Epoxi spacecraft (on a mission to rendezvous with Comet Hartley 2) and nine ground-based nodes meant to simulate Mars landers, orbiters, and operation centers. The International Space Station is scheduled to join the testing next summer. Although the nature of the data transmitted wasn't specified, we can only presume that it was laced with Google ads for Mr. Lee's Greater Hong Kong.