I would think that these devices would be ideal in a region that
has a geographic-wide free WiFi field, such as is available now in
some city centers (here in downtown St. Louis, for example) and
are in the works for cities like Philadelphia. Maybe even if you live
near a coffeehouse or restaurant that offers free WiFi? I note that
the quoted article's author stated that he had his own WiFi network;
I'd sure like to read some user experiences from people trying these
devices in these "public" WiFi areas.

What I'm particularly interested in is whether these will
work without having a for-real computer to interface with and logon
to the public WiFi net.

73, Will