By Michael Liedtke
Associated Press

A Silicon Valley startup is promising to blanket San Francisco with free wireless Internet service, reviving a crusade that crumbled last year after two much larger companies, EarthLink Inc. and Google Inc., scrapped their plans to build a high-speed network for Web surfing. Meraki Networks Inc., whose financial backers include Google, hopes to complete the ambitious project within the next year by persuading thousands of San Francisco residents to set up free radio repeaters on their rooftops and in their homes. The 21-month-old company is to announce its plans Friday. Read more »

By NBC11 News

Mayor Gavin Newsom said Wednesday the federal government will spend more than $82 million next year toward revamping San Francisco's Hunters Point Shipyard. Newsom said securing the funds was "a huge victory" for the city's Bayview community. The city plans to turn the long-shuttered shipyard into a "world-class location providing waterfront parks, thousands of jobs, affordable housing and a major clean technology campus," Newsom said. The plans also include space for a potential stadium for the San Francisco 49ers. Newsom credits House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-Calif.) for helping to secure the funds. Read more »

By Rachel Gordon
San Francisco Chronicle

It's not too often that the Bush administration points to the San Francisco Bay Area as a role model for the rest of the nation. But the region's proposed efforts to combat traffic congestion were held up by the president's transportation chief Tuesday as an example to emulate. U.S. Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters was in San Francisco to tout the Bay Area's congestion-relief plan, which includes a proposal to charge motorists an extra toll as they come off the Golden Gate Bridge into San Francisco. It also includes the use of high-tech parking meters and traffic signals to combat congestion on city streets. "We believe that the solution to today's traffic problems do not have to be just about building new roads and infrastructure. It's about using technology. San Francisco's leaders understand that," said Peters, who held a brief sidewalk news conference near San Francisco's Civic Center. Read more »

By Alec Ross, One Economy Corporation and Simon Rosenberg, NDN

We believe that America needs to put a laptop in every backpack of every child.  We need to commit to a date and grade certain: we suggest 2010 for every sixth grader.  These laptops need to be wirelessly connected to the Internet, and children need to be able to take them home.  Local school districts should choose how best to do this, but there needs to be federal funding and simple, federal standards.  Funds and strategies for how training our teachers to lead this transformation need to be part this commitment.  We believe it will cost at first $2 billion a year to provide every 6th grader a laptop, about what we spend in Iraq every week. Hardware costs continue to plummet each year, and the idea of a $200 laptop or classmate PC is coming ever closer to reality.  It is not a question of resources, but of vision and political will.  Libya has just announced a national commitment to give all its school children a laptop.  If Libya can do it, so can America.    Read more »