The Sydney Morning Herald's Louisa Hearn looks at the ways in which wireless is "poised to follow broadband into our homes where it will encourage us to interact more intimately with wireless devices."

According to Hearn, a new study by Isobar and Yahoo! entitled Fluid Lives reports that mobile devices like laptops and mobile phones deliver a "more heightened emotional connection than static appliances such as television sets."

"Isobar and Yahoo! found that the addition of Wi-Fi technology extended people's relationship with their PCs from the purely functional to the frivolous as they interacted with them in far cosier ways in more relaxed locations," Hearn writes.

"It's now something I'll relax with in bed at the end of the day," one study participant said of her laptop.

"There was more freedom," another said. "I no longer needed to print out the recipe, I could just place the laptop on top of the microwave."