Skip to main content

Buses, garbage trucks, and taxis will soon act as moving Wi-Fi hotspots in U.S. cities

Bus wi-fi
Turning pay phones into Wi-Fi stations is fine and dandy, but a startup from Portugal is taking things a step further by turning vehicles into mobile Wi-Fi hotspots. Beyond expanding wireless Internet coverage, these vehicles can also collect useful and actionable data about a city’s infrastructure.

Veniam, a startup based in Mountain View, California, has integrated its technology in more than 600 buses, garbage trucks and taxis in its original home city of Porto, Portugal. The Wi-Fi network serves about 70,000 people a month. The moving Wi-Fi network absorbs 50-80 percent of wireless Internet traffic that would have otherwise happened on cellular networks, according to MIT Technology Review.

Related Videos

The mobile Wi-Fi network equips buses, garbage trucks and taxis with NetRider devices, which open up opportunities for vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure communication and data collection. This meshing of hardware, software and cloud solutions gives Veniam “the networking fabric for the Internet of Moving Things,” according to the company’s website.

A simple example of what Veniam’s network can achieve is found in a pothole: When a bus or taxi that’s part of the network hits a pothole, sensors can send that information to city hall, which can use it to identify areas where road repairs are required.

Here’s another example: If a participating bus or taxi passes a full trash bin equipped with the proper sensor, that information will be sent to the proper department so they can empty it at an optimal time of day.

Veniam recently announced $4.9 million in new funding. Its Wi-Fi network in Porto is free to all consumers, thanks to the sponsorship of local transportation companies and brands.

The company told VentureBeat that it would use part of its new funding to roll out its network in San Francisco; New York City; and Austin, Texas. Its first U.S. network will launch in the first quarter of 2015.

Editors' Recommendations

The next big thing in science is already in your pocket
A researcher looks at a protein diagram on his monitor

Supercomputers are an essential part of modern science. By crunching numbers and performing calculations that would take eons for us humans to complete by ourselves, they help us do things that would otherwise be impossible, like predicting hurricane flight paths, simulating nuclear disasters, or modeling how experimental drugs might effect human cells. But that computing power comes at a price -- literally. Supercomputer-dependent research is notoriously expensive. It's not uncommon for research institutions to pay upward of $1,000 for a single hour of supercomputer use, and sometimes more, depending on the hardware that's required.

But lately, rather than relying on big, expensive supercomputers, more and more scientists are turning to a different method for their number-crunching needs: distributed supercomputing. You've probably heard of this before. Instead of relying on a single, centralized computer to perform a given task, this crowdsourced style of computing draws computational power from a distributed network of volunteers, typically by running special software on home PCs or smartphones. Individually, these volunteer computers aren't particularly powerful, but if you string enough of them together, their collective power can easily eclipse that of any centralized supercomputer -- and often for a fraction of the cost.

Read more
Why AI will never rule the world
image depicting AI, with neurons branching out from humanoid head

Call it the Skynet hypothesis, Artificial General Intelligence, or the advent of the Singularity -- for years, AI experts and non-experts alike have fretted (and, for a small group, celebrated) the idea that artificial intelligence may one day become smarter than humans.

According to the theory, advances in AI -- specifically of the machine learning type that's able to take on new information and rewrite its code accordingly -- will eventually catch up with the wetware of the biological brain. In this interpretation of events, every AI advance from Jeopardy-winning IBM machines to the massive AI language model GPT-3 is taking humanity one step closer to an existential threat. We're literally building our soon-to-be-sentient successors.

Read more
The best hurricane trackers for Android and iOS in 2022
Truck caught in gale force winds.

Hurricane season strikes fear into the hearts of those who live in its direct path, as well as distanced loved ones who worry for their safety. If you've ever sat up all night in a state of panic for a family member caught home alone in the middle of a destructive storm, dependent only on intermittent live TV reports for updates, a hurricane tracker app is a must-have tool. There are plenty of hurricane trackers that can help you prepare for these perilous events, monitor their progress while underway, and assist in recovery. We've gathered the best apps for following storms, predicting storm paths, and delivering on-the-ground advice for shelter and emergency services. Most are free to download and are ad-supported. Premium versions remove ads and add additional features.

You may lose power during a storm, so consider purchasing a portable power source,  just in case. We have a few handy suggestions for some of the best portable generators and power stations available. 

Read more