When does wireless computing tilt the seesaw away from pervasive and directly into the invasive realm? Well, one place where this is starting is California State Parks. SBC Communications struck a deal to provide wireless access to 85 of California’s State Parks. The telcom will offer Wi-Fi from picnic tables, RV spaces, tent sites, and cabins. A free service allows users to access state park Web sites, such as https://www.parks.ca.gov/, for park and camping information, such as which roads are closed. I’ve been to enough state parks to know that information is typically available at the ranger station on the way into most parks, anyway. Users who want access to more Web sites and to their e-mail can get that, too, for a fee. This is where it gets more disturbing — because it means that coming from the next tent site I might have to listen to that noise made every time an IM is sent or received. Just like a chipmunk scurrying around a camp site at night can sound like a grizzly bear, the beep a PC emits upon incoming e-mail will carry in the woods. True, no one has to bring their notebook if they don’t want to but, then again, no one has to bring a cell phone out in public either, yet leaving one’s cell at home does nothing to protect them from the annoyance of other people talking on their mobile phone a few short feet away. The deal between SBC and California is being marketed as the largest scale Wi-Fi deployment of its kind. In my mind, though, it is set to become the largest wireless disaster of its kind. I can think of no better way, excluding logging, roads and arson, to destroy the land sanctuaries we have set aside than to transform them into wireless hot spots. Technology Industry