I know this sounds a bit Big Brother-ish, but I like the way a public wi-fi service can double as a facility for a public utility, in this case French buses. The excellent Wi-Fi Networking News blog carries a report from Paris about a bus route Wi-Fi network, Subscribers can use while they’re on — and presumably waiting for — a bus. But the buses can use it too: equipped with cameras that automatically take pictures of cars that are illegally driving in the bus lane, they send the photograph automatically via Wi-Fi to bus headquarters, where the system automatically produces a statement of the violation. I like it because it uses one network to do two things. Secondly, I hate cars parked in bus lanes, so I’m all for them being caught and given a good talking to.