We know, you're already rolling your eyes, but this time it's really for real. At least that's what Covad Communications wants us to believe. Reportedly, said outfit is jump-starting a gigantic municipal WiFi project to blanket Silicon Valley that fell apart after upstart Azulstar failed to garner funding to kick things off in 2007. Covad is hoping to cover one square mile of downtown San Carlos, California for three months, and during the test period it will gauge just how lucrative such an initiative is. If successful, it may expand into surrounding locales, but at the moment, such an endeavor is "too much to dive into." Best of luck, Covad -- history says you'll need it.

Always down for a little self-glorification, Fujitsu has just announced that it has become the "first Silicon Valley company to install hydrogen fuel cell power." The firm reportedly "dedicated a hydrogen fuel cell on its Sunnyvale campus," which aims to provide "clean, efficient power for the campus data center and other operations" and substantially curb carbon dioxide emissions. The UTC Power PureCell Model 200 system will provide half of the energy necessary to cool the campus data center and labs, and Fujitsu claims that it will have a payback "of about 3.5 years and a lifespan of closer to 15 years."

Granted, we've seen some sizable WiFi networks in our day, and while an entire country has claimed to have nationwide internet on the brain, the largest we've seen implemented here in the states span a city or so at most. Reportedly, a group of firms (including IBM and Cisco) are looking to build a $85- to $150-million outdoor WiFi network that could connect up 37 cities in Silicon Valley. The initiative will not only provide basic, free internet to those willing to deal with the ad-supported service, but it will also dish out subscriber-based signals to residents, high-speed service to businesses, and uber-secure communications to police / firefighters. As of now, the companies plan to erect test networks in Palo Alto and San Carlos later this year, with constructions of the final network to potentially begin in 2008. Just make sure Utah doesn't get a whiff of it, capiche?

[Thanks, Charlie]

It looks like the glory days of walking into a casino, hacking a slot machine, and leaving a wealthy individual is over, as not only are "software glitches" leading to rewards being revoked, but now you'll have devious dutiful system administrators watching (and potentially controlling, you never know) everything that happens to your machine. PureDepth, Inc. has inked a deal with International Game Technology to provide a "realistic digital video display" to add a new level of control to vanilla slot machines. On the nifty side, programmers can change the typical cherries and numbers to baseball bats, for instance, if they know the Red Sox are taking a field trip to their casino, but on the disappointing end, you can now rest assured that folks behind the scenes now have complete control over "cost, payout, and nearly every other aspect of the game." Darn, looks like we're stuck with ATM-jacking from here on out, eh?

Silicon Valley can't be shown up by, say, Singapore, now can it? That's why the Wireless Silicon Valley Task Force has selected the Silicon Valley Metro Connect, a tech consortium that includes IBM and Cisco to build a giant WiFi network for the region. When built, this massive WiFi hotspot will span 1500 square miles (nearly 3900 sq. km), from the city of South San Francisco to Santa Cruz, a distance of over 60 linear miles (96 km). The plan, for now is to have free access for local residents via advertising, but higher bandwidth applications like VoIP or streaming video would cost extra, reports The Associated Press. No word on how GoogleFi fits into all of this, given that Mountain View is part of this territory. Perhaps Google will use its other stronghold in San Francisco to make a power play for the rest of the Peninsula -- creating one giant battleground of free wireless internet access. Still, WiFi for the SiVi is superfly.

The latest piece of technology originally intended for military / security applications to be rebranded for peaceful, consumer purposes comes from a Silicon Valley startup called MotionDSP, which has licensed technology from a military research project that can enhance low-resolution video and improve the output of phone cameras, webcams, and other low quality feeds. The technology, which will go into a consumer beta later this year, compares multiple frames in a video to replace lost pixels in any given frame without an increase in file size. Eventually the company plans to offer an online service where consumers can enhance their pixelated creations for free, although the company also wants to make deals with current online video services. Until that day comes, we'll continue to suffer through our daily fix of YouTube in all its aliased and pixelated glory.