meraki is building wireless networking hardware that aims 'to bring internet access to the next billion people.' their products (including the meraki mini for $49, pictured) are wireless router/repeaters with applicious design. a meraki can be used to create a public or private wireless access point from an ethernet connection (from a cable/dsl modem) or from another wireless network. merakis are designed to create mesh networks, meaning that meraki devices can look for routes to the internet through other merakis in wireless range, rather than each requiring its own direct connection to the internet.