Results tagged “tech”

Sprint has been teasing Chicagoans for over two years with its proposed WiMax, a 4G wireless network that would blanket the city with high-speed internet access. Although the network was originally supposed to be available in 2008, PC World reported that technical issues (providing sufficient backhaul to wired networks) and "upheaval in the company" blocked the path to success. As it turns out, Sprint, alongside ClearWire and Comcast, have finally ironed things out and will begin selling WiMax in the next several weeks. Other locations for the end-of-the-year roll out include Philadelphia, Seattle, three North Carolina and three Texas cities, and Hawaii.

Spencer Tweedy -- you might heard of his dad's band before -- is a blogger and tech-writer! And a software developer! And gets drum lessons from Glenn Kotche! And has played Madison Square Garden! And he's insightful! And smart! And a better writer than about 98% of online content providers! AND HE'S ONLY 13! Part of us is so jealous of him we want to hate him, but he's just so charming we can't help but fall a little bit in love with him. Check out his blog.

Last week's announced plan from Governor Blagojevich to tear down Cole Hall has been met with great backlash amongst state lawmakers, NIU staff and students. An email sent yesterday from Northern Illinois University President John Peters to students and faculty put a hold on the Governor’s plan and called for campus-wide discourse regarding the fate of the 40-year-old building. Peters said the future of Cole Hall should “represent a consensus opinion” of the university community.

We loved the Museum of Science and Industry even prior to having our kid (the submarine! the Omnimax! Clarence Darrow’s ghost!), but MSI’s "Idea Factory" is, arguably, the best kid-centered exhibit in Chicago. Since the museum has closed this exhibit for repairs until the end of March, we wondered how toddler-friendly the rest of the museum would be. In short, not much.

We HATE the term Black Wednesday.

First bottled water was cool and tap water was out. Then bottled water was bad (eek! pollution!) and tap water was the name of the game. And now... we say stick with beer, as some scary news has emerged about the people guarding Chicago's H2O.

The US House subcommittee on highways and transit will conduct a hearing here on October 29 to determine what kinds of transit improvements Chicago would need before we could host the Olympics. Why yes, October 29 is a mere 6 days before our public transit system starts collapsing into itself like a dying star! "Mayor Richard Daley, Blagojevich, officials from the Regional Transportation Authority, the three transit agencies and the U.S. Olympic Committee will...

We once dreamed of free municipal WiFi. Now, we'll settle for cheap WiMax, the new standard that will offer WiFi-like speeds but with about ten times the range, which cuts down on the number of towers needed in a coverage area. Tech website Ars Technica was on the Chicago River earlier this week for Sprint's demonstration of its new XOHM WiMax service. The testers were given laptops with XOHM plug-in cards and Motorola cell phones hooked up to the network.

In case some of you may have forgotten, that's Emmy in the picture. Depending on the time of day she's the smartest mammal in our household. She's unusually happy today, because yesterday the City Council inched closer to allowing her the right to join us for meals at outdoor cafés, a notion that flies in the face of common sense, sanitary concerns, arguments posited by a former alderman and the director of food protection for...

In a move a la Stephen Colbert, a computer registered to the multinational energy corporation tried to spiff up its Wikipedia entry late last week, coinciding with the announcement that it will not increase discharges of ammonia and suspended solids into Lake Michigan from the planned expansion of its Whiting, Ind., refinery. According to the record of edits on Wikipedia, on August 23, a computer at the IP address 63.84.4.0, registered to BP Amoco, added...

BP announced yesterday that it was backing down on plans to increase discharges of ammonia and suspended solids into Lake Michigan from the planned expansion of its Whiting, Indiana refinery. BP announced on its website Thursday "ongoing regional opposition to any increase in discharge permit limits for Lake Michigan creates an unacceptable level of business risk for this $3.8 billion investment."

Just in case you're picked for jury duty on this case, we want to remind you that it has been five years since R. Kelly was indicted for 21 counts of child pornography. We know by the time someone gets their shit together and pins him to a chair in a courtroom some people may have forgotten what it was all about in the first place, and even be inclined to think the whole thing was made up.

Absolut Vodka has some new ad campaign where in one of the ads the Cubs go to the World Series. Milton F. Bocek, the oldest living former White Sox player, died. He was 94. Mike Hohensee, the coach of the Chicago Rush, was injured when he was hit by a car on Saturday. Does hip-hop hate women? 400 people gathered to discuss it on Saturday. After the shooting at Virginia Tech officials in Illinois...

Much of mankind's great literature contains conflict, violence, and death. We remember part of our high school curriculum contained Lord of the Flies, which by no means is about children living peacefully on a deserted island. There were many more, but that was just one of the more disturbing ones.

With all that went down this week, we thought we thought we'd cheer everyone up by giving everyone a double dose of dogs. It was a rollercoaster ride of emotions this week at DCist. Like the rest of country, we were floored by the news of so many dead coming out of Virginia Tech, and with so many of the victims and their relatives from the D.C. area, we felt it important to pay...

Chicagoist: Peeking into the minds of the mad, the dangerous and the just plain stupid.

"this is ultimate." by davidhwang.

The Chicago Architecture Foundation architecture river cruise season opens on April 28. Warm up your arm! The US Air Guitar tour will be here on June 15. The Chicago Craft Mafia has a new show called "Spring Loaded" taking place on Saturday, May 5. The show will also be a fundraiser for Rainbow House. The 2nd Annual Juried Photographic Exhibition is taking place at the Morpho Gallery from April 20 - 28, with the...

University of Illinois Athletic Director Ron Guenther will not be punished for his actions during the Illini NCAA Tournament loss to Virginia Tech. During the game, Ron Guenther was playing the role of frustrated fan rather than Athletic Director, as he was heard screaming advice at Coach Bruce Weber. It is reported he did not just stop there; he also berated players for poor performance, including calling forward Warren Cater an idiot. The Illini were...

Sorry, we started thinking about the Genesis tour.... But in all seriousness, the first of the public CTA community meetings regarding the three-track freakout is tonight. It's from 6 to 8 p.m., at Lane Tech High School auditorium, 2501 W. Addison.

Alinea Chef/Owner Grant Achatz

The good news: Metra posted a single-year ridership record with approximately 80 million passengers. This was partly due to construction on the Dan Ryan, expanded rail service, and high gas prices. Amtrak also rang in with a 69 percent increase on expanded routes between Chicago and St. Louis, Carbondale and Quincy. The Chicago-to-St. Louis line showed a 95 percent increase in riders for last quarter over the same period last year. The news: The Regional...

Platteville, WI is planning a Chicago Bears training-camp museum. Thanks to a $200,000 grant from the NFL Grassroots field program, the grass football field at Lane Tech will be replaced with a synthetic playing service. People are loving this idea: For $150 you can get a customized South Side Irish St. Patrick's day parade street banner. They're green and have shamrocks and white lettering and you can put family names and memorial tributes on...

Much like the last TECH Cocktail we attended, last night's TECH Cocktail 3 was a great success. Unlike last time, there were no limos stolen, but we did hear that if you stayed around long enough you'd have witnessed a minor incident where someone caught fire (?). Oh, the drama.

Long before there was a League of Chicago Music Venues or a Hawk Winter Music Festival, the city’s Department of Cultural Affairs (under the guidance of program director – and fellow Lane Tech grad – Michael Orlove) was bringing together the city’s club scene via the World Music Festival. After seven years, the festival has earned a place beside both Blues and Jazz Fest as one of Chicago’s premier music showcases. WMF is also one...

The Gothamist Tech Team has been hard at work over the weekend upgrading and migrating our servers to help fight spam and ensure site stability. Thanks Neil, Jeff & Frank! While they were at it, they incorporated some features that have already been in place at Gothamist and have been popular there. Altogether these new features are called Chicagoist Labs, and they make the site even more interactive and allow you to participate in making the site even better.

DePaul opened it basketball season last Saturday with a thud, losing to Bradley 75-60. Was their opener a sign of what to expect from the Blue Demons this year?

If you've got Comcast for your Internet connection, you've probably noticed lately an unbelievable fall-off in service. Many of Chicagoist's editorial staff use Comcast, and it's contributed to the lack of articles over the past two weeks. It's hard to work from your home office when you've got no Internet.

The March towards the Arch returns to action today, including two games at the AllState Arena. In Chicago, there's really only one game -- Cinderella-story Wisconsin-Milwaukee Panthers vs. top-seed Illinois Fighting Illini. Who'd have thought when the Illini forsaw playing in the Chicago regional, that their opponent's campus would actually be half the distance to the arena? No matter... it'll still be a sea of orange in Rosemont. And that orange sea will be loudly...