Google stands to benefit significantly if more people start using its services to browse the web over sprawling, free WiFi networks, or make phone and video calls calls via free services Google Voice or Google Hangouts.
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There has been some speculation that both kinds of business model will be undermined by the rise of free social networks such as Facebook, which make it easy for people to share large amounts of personal information with one another.
Cities who decide to launch free wireless networks need to make sure they adequately promote the service, explain how to use it, and need to know in advance how people or businesses want to get online and help promote the project.
Ning was founded in 2004 as a way for people to create their own free customized social networks.
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As Republican Joe Barton, chair of the Commerce Committee, sees it, online companies have been getting a free ride on networks built by the cable and phone companies.
As part of the bargain with the city, the Broadband Challenge should include plans for free public wifi networks in city parks and other places, and increased connectivity to schools, libraries and community centers.
Beginning in the 1920s, broadcast television was delivered free over local airwaves, and even when the industry started charging for service via cable networks, the free broadcasts kept coming.
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Car networks that free you the hassles of ownership and parking are growing rapidly.
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New security guidelines from the Wi-Fi Alliance could put a stop to riding the wireless networks for free.
Although the server edition of Windows 2000 is designed to be cheaper than other operating systems for corporate networks, free is free.
Numerous smartphone apps will allow consumers to do real-time price comparison while they are in stores on Black Friday (often, ironically, taking advantage of free, fast WiFi networks offered by retailers and malls).
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There also might be some special perks: Some providers allow their subscribers to use their Wi-Fi networks around town free, for example.
Social networks are typically free to join and can be used for marketing, or even as an alternative to a company website.
Behind every cordless computer lies a tangle of cables, a web of wires that ties us down and keeps our networks from becoming free.
House Speaker Newt Gingrich is challenging television networks to provide free advertising time to fight drug use, in hopes of creating a "virtually drug-free world" by Jan. 1, 2001.
The glut will get even worse if Hollywood actors and writers follow through on a threatened strike this spring: Since reality casts aren't unionized, networks would be free to flood the airwaves with the guys and girls next door.
Without a legacy in proprietary hardware designed for older legacy networks, Huawei is free to design equivalents that can be easily upgraded and reconfigured for new functions and business models in software updates.
These existing networks are enthusiastic about free schools.
Kinkade's career started while she was still in university, working for free on weekends at the major commercial networks and local newspapers in Sydney.
Free Internet telephony, advanced wireless data networks and video-over-broadband are already gaining traction and proving how disruptive and powerful a telecom technology can be.
With every episode of every season of TV's hottest series, like Game of Thrones, Downton Abbey, Dexter, Girls, Spartacus and Duck Dynasty, plus full, current or most recent seasons of Mad Men, Revolution, The Walking Dead, Touch, Chicago Fire, Psych, Parenthood and The Americans, the first Xfinity Watchathon Week will offer a massive collection of content from the best networks never before available for free in one place.
Google agreed, moving forward, to throw an annual week-long privacy party for employees and to instruct Americans not to let neighbors free-ride on their Wi-Fi networks.
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If the manufacturers had a completely free hand, they would shrink their dealer networks by forcing badly run stores into the hands of strong ones and closing down the weakest locations altogether.
Real Networks, the maker of the free online media player Real Player, on Monday announced a new program it calls Real DVD, designed to let users legally "rip" a DVD's contents to their computers.
Smaller social networks, image-sharing sites, free website hosting platforms and hacked websites are increasingly being used by content distributors desperate to avoid detection.
Posterous is also going after other publishing platforms with a switching campaign, targeting first the formerly free service of Ning, a provider of social networks to groups and individuals.
By capturing and analyzing data across hundreds of job boards and social networks, and offering that as a free, SaaS-based service, an innovative vendor can bring together employers and the best candidates for the open position.
Broadcast networks and some local newspapers provide their wares free and charge advertisers for access to consumers.
When it comes to Aereo, which uses a novel interpretation of copyright law to capture and stream free over-the-air TV signals, the networks have no such negotiating power.
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