Google to bring 10x faster WiFi to all 7000 US Starbucks locations

Google to bring 10x faster WiFi to all 7000 US Starbucks locations

Starbucks seems to be on a mission to improve the technology inside its coffee shops recently. Yesterday we heard about wireless charging pads being integrated into tables at Silicon Valley Starbucks locations, now the company has done a deal with Google to provide much faster WiFi access.

The collaboration will see Google deliver up to 10x faster WiFi to not just a few, but all 7,000 Starbucks-operated locations across the US. And better yet, if any of those Starbucks fall within a Google Fiber area, Google is aiming to increase speeds 100x.

Upgrading 7,000 locations is quite the undertaking, but Google believes it can get the job done over the next 18 months. After that, visit any US Starbucks and you’ll apparently get to enjoy much faster access.

Google says it is investing to help the Internet grow stronger. It also points to Starbucks web access as being important not only for students and people who choose to work from such locations, but also because they can act as key communication points during a disaster such as when Hurricane Sandy hit.

Indeed, Google isn’t new to the idea of investing in Internet infrastructure for no real monetary gain. You may remember back in 2009 the search giant decided to offer free WiFi access across 47 US airports.

While these upgrades may be great news for coffee drinkers, they could cause Starbucks a bit of a problem. If you’re offering faster Internet access than people get at home for free, free gadget charging, and all it costs is the price of a coffee, why would anyone want to leave? We could see a lot more people testing how long a tall coffee can last just to sit there surfing the web all day.

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Construction of world’s tallest building in 90 days delayed until April 2014

Construction of world’s tallest building in 90 days delayed until April 2014


Construction company Broad Sustainable Building (BSB) had a very bold plan for 2013. They set out to build the world’s tallest building, called Sky City, in Hunan, China in just 90 days.

It sounds like an impossible task, but you wouldn’t bet against BSB hitting that 90 day target. The reason is the prefabricated nature of the building, which BSB has already used to construct a 30-story building in just 15 days.

With that in mind, we expected Sky City to be completed before the end of 2013 and at a cost of $628 million. Both of those goals now won’t be met as the construction has been delayed and the price of the build increased significantly.

No reason has been given for the delay, and this actually counts as the second time construction has been held up. We were meant to see Sky City erected in January, now it looks as though it won’t make an appearance on Hunan’s skyline until April 2014. The cost has also escalated significantly, that $628 million total has shot up to $855 million, again with no reason as to why.

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So, while the final build may end up taking 90 days, the first of those days remains a moving target, and the build cost is getting higher even before a single prefabricated unit has been placed on the ground. If this is the future of large building construction, there’s clearly more than a few kinks still to work out in the process.

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