The first two of six new commuter rail trains arrived in Austin this week. The diesel-electric trains trains, the last of which should arrive by late spring, were purchased from Swiss manufacturer Stadler Bussnang AG ("We Track Clever Solutions" -- get it?) for $34 million. Cap Metro plans to start testing these cars next month along the rail line from Howard Lane and Mopac down to 47th Street and Airport Boulevard—each will be run......

This was not a very happy week for the -ist network as one of our own, Phillyist co-editor Star C. Foster, passed away early in the week. Her wit, intelligence, and good nature shone through the site, making Phillyist an immensely fun read. She was loved by many and will be missed by all. Phillyist paid tribute to her this week with a heartfelt letter to her and an obituary. And now, the awkward......

Completion of the first leg of the new Capital MetroRail is less than two years away. The 32-mile-long Red Line will run between Leander and Downtown Austin, with stations positioned strategically near the new Northwest Austin development, Highland Mall, Lakeline Mall, Plaza Saltillo, and more. Currently, both the rail vehicle and many of the stations are still being designed, but they're already promising that the former will include Wi-Fi connections. Over the next two weeks,......

Back during SXSW, the City of Austin announced a new partnership with the World Congress on Information Technology (WCIT) and network powerhouse Cisco Systems to deliver what they call the Outdoor Wireless Mesh Project, which aims to set up an enormous blanket of free wireless internet access across Central and East Austin. The three stage deployment began in April with hotspots installed in the lower downtown area, connecting up to existing hubs at City......

Torontoist throws down the gauntlet and challenges all comers: pillow fight, bitch. They also stand up for a fellow blogger taking heat from the TTC and welcome city-wide WiFi. SFist can finally admit it: It's possible that Bary Bonds juiced. Is Bay Area artist (tempted to put quotes around that) Thomas Kinkaid "kinda crappy" or "explosively crappy" or does he just like marking territory? SFist wonders. Technology comes in the form of new Mac goodness......

We once had the good fortune of living in Italy, and there are times we miss it terribly. What is it we miss, you ask? The emasculated, gelled-hair twenty-something guys on their mopeds smoking cigarettes and pleading on the cell phones with their mothers to let them stay out just another hour so they can sit around the fountain in Piazza Santa Maria in Trastevere and butcher Nirvana/Bob Marley songs on an acoustic guitar?......

The hipster digirati were rolling up in their white, stretch-suburbans (complete with WiFi and Instant Bloggerfication), decked out in their designer square-toed shoes and ironic glasses. That, or they were stumbling in from the pre-party from the dauntingly long, but surprisingly fast-moving beer lines across the street at Brush Square Park, laden with laptop bags and the heavy burden of a SxSW badge around their necks - a noosed reminder of a profession with a......