I spent some time in Minneapolis a while back, and I still have a book I bought in a downtown book store: Scandinavian Humor and Other Myths (the author is John Louis Anderson, published by Nordbook in 1986, and the chapter on Scandinavian cooking is a must). Now Minnesota has another distinction: The state ranks 18th in the nation with 706 public WiFi hotspots. California leads the rankings (with 6,527), followed by Texas (2,534), Florida (2,427), New York (1,927) and Illinois (1,627). Minneapolis has 125 hotspots, the most of any city in Minnesota. The city has selected two finalists--U.S. Internet and EarthLink--for its planned city-wide WiFi network. A decision is expected sometime this spring.

San Francisco led all U.S. cities with 801 wireless connections. Seoul is the world leader with 2,056. The U.S. has more hotspots than any other nation with 37,073, followed by the U.K. (12,668), South Korea (9,415), Germany (8,614) and Japan (5,951). In all, there are now more than 100,000 WiFi hotspots worldwide.

For more on WiFi numbers:
- see this Minneapolis-St. Paul Business Report article