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Produced and hosted by Jon Gordon, Future Tense brings you the latest technology topics in daily five-minute capsules. From electronic privacy and digital democracy to spam and computer worms, Future Tense keeps you up to date on the rapidly changing world of technology.
Future Tense is heard in the United States during broadcasts of the CBC's As It Happens.
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Our disparate gadgets will be able to chat with greater ease when Wi-Fi Direct arrives next year.
Guest: Glenn Fleishman, freelance tech reporter
New data from the Pew Internet and American Life Project finds young people aged 12 to 17 have adopted cell phones at nearly the same rate as adults. The small gap that exists now was much larger five years ago, according to Pew's Amanda Lenhart.
Best Buy is selling a Compaq netbook computer for a dollar, when customers sign up for a two year subscription plan for mobile Internet service with Sprint. The tiny computer has a 160 GB hard drive, a gig of ram, and a 10.1 inch screen.
Over the life of the wireless contract consumers will spend at least $1,440.
Guest: Kevin Tofel, jkOnTheRun
Future Tense commentator Dwight Silverman checks in on the thorny issue of using iPhones, BlackBerries and other smart phones during business meetings (and to Tweet that you're eating lunch with a friend you're ignoring in order to send that Tweet).
On today's show, freelance technology journalist Glenn Fleishman provides an update of Wifi on U.S. air carriers.
Fleishman wrote an extensive piece on the topic for Ars Technica.
Barack Obama says he's still clinging to his BlackBerry, but it looks like aides will pry the smart phone from the presidential hands in short order. The Secret Service and Obama's lawyers say the Verizon BlackBerry 8830 World Edition phone is too much of a security risk and legal liability.
Guest: Maggie Reardon, CNET News.com
Delta Airlines is now offering wireless Internet service on board some flights between Washington D.C., New York and Boston. Delta says it will expand the Wi-Fi service to its entire fleet -- including planes operated by its Northwest subsidiary -- by next summer.
Earlier this year American Airlines and Virgin America began selling in-flight Wi-Fi.
The Federal Communications Commission this week decided to free up the little-used "white space" spectrum between television channels. That spectrum slice will no longer be needed when the U.S. ditches analog TV broadcasts early next year.
Backers of the move believe it could usher in the age of a faster, universal wireless Internet. Broadcasters and mobile phone carriers have opposed the move, arguing new devices running in the white space could cause interference.
Guest: Stacey Higginbotham, GigaOm
Sprint Nextel opened a new wireless network to customers in Baltimore this week, offering Internet service for laptops for $45 per month. It's Sprint's first deployment of WiMax technology. WiMax is akin to Wi-Fi, but covers much greater distances.
Sprint calls its WiMax network Xohm and offers speeds of 2 to 4 megabits per second, about twice as fast as cellular broadband networks from the likes of Verizon and AT&T. To use the network, customers need a $60 laptop card or an $80 home modem.
