Google has not publicly disclosed the reasons for the Wi-Fi problems, but workers say the 600,000-square-foot building’s swooping, wave-like rooftop swallows broadband like the Bermuda Triangle. [...]

But, a Google spokeswoman acknowledged, "we’ve had Wi-Fi connectivity issues in Bay View." She said Google "made several improvements to address the issue," and the company hoped to have a fix in coming weeks. — Reuters

The Internet is already demonstrating its indispensable value as the fourth utility. [...] However, this presents strains to online infrastructure as the number of simultaneous online collaborations increases dramatically. Service companies, businesses, and individuals must be prepared for continued strain on private and public networks. [...] Likewise, businesses must evaluate their infrastructure and policies to ensure they can support remote participation, both technically and socially. — Brad Kult, HGA

Last month, SpaceX successfully launched 60 500-pound satellites into space. Soon amateur skywatchers started sharing images of those satellites in night skies, igniting an uproar among astronomers who fear that the planned orbiting cluster will wreak havoc on scientific research and trash our view of the cosmos. — The New York Times

Who would have thought that emoji would be revered within the same museum walls that display the paintings of Van Gogh and Picasso? [MoMA] recently added NTT DoCoMo's original set of 176 emoji to their permanent collection as a gift...In early December, MoMA will debut an installation detailing the evolution of emoji and “will present them in a new light (and no doubt inspire a few selfies)”, says Paul Galloway, MoMA Collection Specialist in the Department of Architecture and Design. — Bustler

Whether or not New Yorkers are paying attention, their digital connectivity can sometimes rely on the finer points of a mess of paint on the street.

Some of the markings are orange, others yellow or red. Arrows, lines and letters combine to create a cryptic language of symbols and codes.

“It’s kind of scrawly and intense,” said the artist and writer Ingrid Burrington. “Living in New York, you’re trained not to look down, so it’s funny how rich and dense these markings can get..." — Wall Street Journal

Virgin Media has joined forces with Chiltern District Council in the U.K. to blanket Chesham’s high street with super-fast Wi-Fi. The unlimited service is available to all 21,000 residents and businesses in the town as well as visitors [...]

The Smart Pavement enables those in the area to ‘streetsurf’ with speeds of up to 166Mbps, which is seven times the average U.K. broadband speed. — psfk.com

“There are a lot of people working in architecture who are very frustrated with what’s happening, but feel like they don’t have a voice to speak out,” said Sarah, another of Concrete Action’s co-founders, who also wished to remain anonymous. “We’re hoping that this is going to give them an avenue to do that without worrying about losing their jobs or getting into trouble.” — Vice

[...] the drought is a gusher for a growing number of tech startups in the emerging world of the Internet of Things, the buzzy term for the trend of connecting devices and data in the physical realm to the Internet. Getting more sensors into the environment will help thousands of farms, businesses and cities figure out where water is going and how it can be diverted for the most efficient use. Agriculture is the area most ripe for collecting more and higher-quality data. — forbes.com

[The Great Cannon] allows China to intercept foreign web traffic as it flows to Chinese websites, inject malicious code and repurpose the traffic as Beijing sees fit. The system was used, they said, to intercept web and advertising traffic intended for Baidu — China’s biggest search engine company — and fire it at GitHub, a popular site for programmers, and GreatFire.org, a nonprofit that runs mirror images of sites that are blocked inside China. — NY Times

...the promise of the internet is contact. It seems to offer an antidote to loneliness, trumping even the most utopian urban environment by enabling strangers to develop relationships along shared lines of interest, no matter how shy or isolated they might be in their own physical lives. But proximity, as city dwellers know, does not necessarily mean intimacy. Access to other people is not by itself enough to dispel the gloom of internal isolation. Loneliness can be most acute in a crowd. -Laing — The Guardian

While independent communications infrastructure, renewable energy, and resilient heating and power systems may all be major priorities in contemporary urban development, the three aren’t typically incorporated into the same project. Beyond The Grid — an ambitious plan underway in the Two Bridges neighborhood of Lower Manhattan — does just that. And the fact that the proposal has been created in this neighborhood is no accident. — urbanomnibus.net