Imagine a future in which the whole earth is a giant WiFi hotspot. You’ll check email at 39,000 feet as you’re jetting from JFK to LAX. Your car radio will play songs by accessing your home PC. You’ll videoconference from any street corner with colleagues in Mumbai and ­Munich. The upside? You’ll always be connected. The downside? You’ll always be connected.

That future isn’t far away—wireless coverage to support such applications is in the works. Portland, Oregon, has a citywide wireless network; Philadelphia is set to finish one this fall; and almost 200 cities are cutting their cords too. (For a list, see ­portfolio.com/mag/wireless.) The number of U.S. home-wireless-network users has rocketed from 37 million in 2003 to 223.5 million this year, according to the market-analysis firm ABI Research.

WiFi technology itself is getting an upgrade. Gear built to the n standard, which began trickling into stores this summer, is stronger and up to five times as fast as its g predecessor, which is now used in most homes. The new standard means bigger hot­spots, quicker downloads, and less-jumpy video for those who are catching up on their favorite TV shows online.

It also means more products like the ones below, which deploy WiFi technology in new ways. Welcome to the WiFi world. 

WiFi

• WiFi isn’t short for anything. Interbrand, the consultancy that coined Prozac, invented the term in 1999 after an industry group now called the Wi-Fi Alliance hired it to create a moniker (other finalists: Torchlight, Elevate).

• The father of WiFi, Dutch engineer Vic Hayes, didn’t invent the technology but steered the sector away from a VHS-versus-Beta-style debacle. In the early 1990s, Hayes corralled the many companies working on wireless-networking technology into an agreement on WiFi standards.

• Bluetooth and WiFi are distinct technologies. Bluetooth is used for short-range links between devices. WiFi is up to 12 times as fast, has an average range of 200 feet, and connects broader networks.

H.P. MediaSmart L.C.D. HDTV, $2,200 (42-inch)
This HDTV can pull movies (homemade or downloaded) wirelessly from your PC. It can also access content from the movie-download site CinemaNow.

Com One Phoenix WiFi Radio, $249
Thousands of online radio stations, podcasts, and RSS feeds are off-limits to your old-fashioned sleep shatterer but not to this rechargeable battery-operated clock radio.

Kodak EasyShare Wireless Digital Picture Frame, $230 (8-inch), $280 (10-inch)
This frame is a never-ending slide show. It streams photos, videos, and sound files from your PC, plus any images you’ve saved to Kodak’s online EasyShare gallery.

Sony Mylo, $299
Say goodbye to cellular broadband charges: Email, instant-message via Gmail and Yahoo, and browse the Web for free with this qwerty-keypad-equipped palmtop. Use Skype to make calls anytime an ­email won’t do.

Nikon Coolpix S50c, $350
This 7.2-megapixel camera connects to the photo site Flickr, so shots of your son’s arrival at college can be posted for his siblings to see, even before your goodbye hug. You can also email photos right from the camera.

Panasonic WiFi Phone for Skype Executive Travel Set, $400
This phone renders your PC and cell-phone plan obsolete—use Skype to call from open hotspots. The phone also comes with a compact WiFi router, so you can create a hotspot anywhere there’s broadband access.