United and Verizon Airfone have become the first companies to receive Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) approval to install Wi-Fi for use on US domestic commercial aircraft.
After extensive trials, approval was forthcoming after the two companies successfully demonstrated that using 802.11 b/g wireless technology within the cabin didn’t send the airplane into a loop-de-loop or spark off random explosions of Star Trek-esque white smoke.
Although the FAA approval currently only applies to the cabin of United’s B757-200 aircraft, it’s an important landmark on the way to enabling full high-speed wireless Internet access on board all United aircraft.
“Our research shows that connecting to the Internet is customers’ most preferred form of communication to the ground, and this certification is a crucial step to bring this inflight wireless access to our customers,” said Dennis Cary, United’s senior vice president-Marketing.
Verizon Airfone currently provides voice services and JetConnect(SM) Messaging services on United’s flights, and securing in-flight Wi-Fi Internet access is sure to be a coffer-filling money-spinner.
Verizon Airfone really had no option but to lead this initiative, someone was going to do it, and once done, all of Verizon Airfone’s high prices call revenue would be gone, as the Ilses started to run Skype on their laptops or PDA’s phones.
“Our wireless broadband system will require only the addition of an avionics box, a wireless access point and a directional antenna, making it the faster and more affordable choice for United and its passengers,” said Bill Pallone, president, Verizon Airfone.
Passengers desperate for some in-seat network fragging are going to have to wait on the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) scheduled “Air-to-Ground” spectrum auction to be held in the coming months. At the auction, providers will battle it out for lucrative service rights and the range of frequencies for onboard passenger access to the Internet.
Once a service provider is selected by the FCC, United should be able to meet their passengers’ Wi-Fi needs in double quick time with, no doubt, zillions of other airlines following their lead.
Skype users can now gaze at each other’s ugly mugs (and other body parts) while they waffle online, thanks to a new free plug in from Dialcom.
The deal for Webmasters is that Skype will dish out commissions of up to 10 per cent of its own store purchase revenues when a buyer is referred from their site.
Frontier Silicon has launched a new module that claims to bring personal-video-recorder (PVR) like capabilities to DAB digital radio.
Recordings can be saved onto a memory card on the same radio or played back on any compatible audio unit.
Frontier Silicon’s software provides an interface through which EPG and dynamic service information (DLS) can be viewed, with scrolling text allowing information ‘wider’ than the 16-character screen to be seen.
Here at VON Europe in Stockholm, Sweden, Niklas Zennstrom, CEO of Skype, has just announced the official launch of the Skype affiliate scheme. The scheme has been running as a trial for a few weeks, gaining 1,800 members.
They’ve got a bit of a reputation for being a tad over-affirmative with their announcements, but Californian wireless solutions company Hop-on have revealed details of their new US$39 (~€31~£21.33) WiFi phone.
Of course, the main attraction of this phone is the low, low price, with the company claiming that it “provides all the features and functionality of a VoIP terminal adapter but has the advantage of enabling users to talk from any available public or private WiFi access point. ”
It’s an ugly looking beast all right, but we like the idea of cheap VoIP handsets, although hardened old cynics like us would suggest that you don’t hold your breath on this one, quite yet.
Microsoft has released the final version of MSN Desktop Search, offering new features based on extensive user feedback and boasting extended support for file types.
These advanced indexing options also let users specify file types to be indexed as text, create a list of file types that should not be indexed, decide the location of the index file and boost the priority of the indexing process (although this may cause some PCs to run as slow as a tired sloth on Mogadons, but at least it can be turned off).
As is the norm with search toolbars, there’s a pop up blocker and form-filler installed, although there’s still no Firefox-style tabbed browsing on offer, although MSN says it will be added soon.
BBC New Media is to extend trials of its interactive Media Player (iMP), allowing viewers to download material from 500 hours of its television and radio programming.
The 5,000 trialists will be able to search for programmes they want to watch, filter programmes by channel, select subtitles and, in the case of some series, to collect and watch episodes that they may otherwise have missed.
The pilot will use DRM software to delete programmes seven days after the programme has aired on TV, ensuring that users can no longer watch the content after that time. The digital rights system will also prevent users emailing the files to their chums or sharing it via disc.
Across Europe, interactive services using the DVB Multimedia Home Platform (MHP) standard have been launched on cable, satellite and terrestrial platforms. While not formally mandated by the European Commission, MHP has been embraced as an open and interoperable standard that can be actively encouraged and promoted. Already, several countries have launched MHP-based interactive services on the terrestrial platform.
In Austria, a DTT trial with MHP-based interactive services provided 150 households in Graz with access to an interactive television service called !TV4 using the telephone connection for the return channel. Using their television remote control, viewers could retrieve information services and vote. Given the success of the trial, it is likely that MHP-based interactive services will be launched alongside DTT services.
Of course MHP is not the only interactive television service system in the market. Proprietary systems such as MediaHighway and OpenTV have been installed in a large number of set-top boxes, often for cable and satellite platforms. In the United Kingdom, the MHEG standard is widely used on the terrestrial platform. As a result of the various products and services in the market, the DVB Project has been working on the development of the Portable Content Format (PCF) to deliver a wide range of interactive television services to multiple platforms with a minimum of re-authoring. It has significant interest for operators who wish to migrate towards MHP by allowing them to manage simultaneously a mixed population of devices.
It’s that time again, a new version of OS X has been released! For those that aren’t aware of OS X, it’s Apple’s operating system. As usual, OS 10.4 is named after a cat: 10.2 was named Jaguar, 10.3 Panther, and the new 10.4 has been titled Tiger.
Yahoo has pulled a fast one on its rivals by unexpectedly taking it’s 
Finding video content on Yahoo’s new search facility is easy enough: type in the relevant keywords and you’ll be taken to a results page showing thumbnails of the video files. Clicking on the thumbnail takes you to the hosting page with an option to directly view the video.
In the interests of research, we rummaged around for naughty porn, but couldn’t find anything too racy – until we spotted the ‘turn safe search off’ option. Clicking on this released a veritable cascade of filth that would send Mary Whitehouse’s graveyard residence spinning in turbo mode.