Posted 9:39 AM by Sean
Here's something interesting - thanks to a free WiFi (that's "wireless fidelity," a.k.a. connecting to a network without wires) node set up across the street, folks who bring WiFi-enabled laptops to PGE Park in Portland (home of the Padres' AAA affiliate, the Portland Beavers) can get free wireless access to the Internet. And the park's management isn't happy about it:

Metz said he worries Personal Telco's news release late last week -- entitled "PGE Park gets free Wi-Fi thanks to Personal Telco and Moonlight Staffing" -- implied the park management helped market the service.

"Their service might be the greatest thing since sliced bread. That's beyond the point," Metz said. "I just don't like the way it's been portrayed in the press release without our consent."

It's horrible, but he might actually have a point. Some perv is bound to start surfing for porn between innings, and who's gonna get sued when he gets beaten into unconsciousness with his laptop by a bunch of parents? PGE Park, that's who. Which is a shame, because I'd dearly love to be able to watch a game with instant access to splits, situational statistics, and all the rest of the data that's typically nowhere to be found in the printed program. I hope they have the best filtering software ever, and that other ballparks start thinking about setting up nodes of their own, instead of waiting for some altruistic soul to set up shop across the street.