Building Internet capabilities into another common electronic appliance, Navitel Communications of Menlo Park is preparing to launch a product it calls a TouchPhone . Adding only a few dollars to the price of other chips, the module could place an Internet connection in everything from toasters and clock radios to televisions and air conditioners, says W. Shields Neely, an engineer at National Semiconductor. The scheme has its problems. And then there is the matter of finding an appropriate communication medium. Within a home, devices might communicate using infrared beacons or signals sent along the household electrical wiring.
Few standards exist for such networks, however.
That decision allows anyone, from schools to supermarkets, to set up wireless networks up to tens of kilometers in size without paying a company fees for installation and air-time. The FCC notice did not mention how the agency intends to deal with a new generation of hackers who, armed with the data equivalent of scanners, will soon be able to pull confidential e-mail and credit card numbers literally out of thin air.