[Andrew Schuetze]

Others will post with more info but you need to set up a network either via a router or ad hoc on the laptop. The samantha is a wireless access point so to speak and you must connect it to your network. There is a protocol that uses a USB drive and cycling the Samantha that flashes the network config file. The sequence uses the red white blue LEDs on the Samantha to show progress.

The Samantha is just a pass through device in the eyes of the user. One could consider it to be a USB over wifi type connection. Google, Bing on the terms Samantha FTC and you'll reach John Toebes pages on the development of this device by Cisco.