No, You’re Not Getting Fat; Airplane Seats Are Getting Smaller

by Zach Everson on

Finding your airplane seats a bit tighter? Good news, it’s not because you stopped at Cinnabon one too many times while waiting for your flight (well, probably not anyway).

Over the past decade, airlines have been adding seats to their more expensive sections. But rather than carry fewer economy passengers as a result, carriers like “American Airlines, Air Canada, Air France-KLM and Dubai’s Emirates Airline are cutting shoulder space by wedging an extra seat into each coach row,” the Wall Street Journal reports.”For almost 20 years, the standard setup in the back of a Boeing 777 was nine seats per row. But last year, nearly 70% of its biggest version of the plane were delivered with 10-abreast seating, up from just 15% in 2010.”

By cutting back on the already tight seats in coach, airlines are hoping travelers will be more inclined to shell out for roomier, more expensive seats. You can fight this trend by refusing to upgrade and swinging your overstuffed carryon into the shoulders of those who have.

[Via Gawker]

Record Label Accuses Airline Of Ripping Off Britney, JT And Other Artists

by Reena Ganga on

Some of the nation’s top singers and musicians are losing out on royalties because airlines are playing their songs without coughing up adequate payment-that’s what Sony Music is claiming in its lawsuit against United Airlines. The record label says the carrier has been playing music by Michael Jackson, Carrie Underwood, Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake, among others, in breach of copyright.

While it’s standard practice for airlines to make music available to passengers through the inflight entertainment system, Sony is complaining that United is breaching copyright by duplicating sound recordings and music videos and then uploading these illegal copies to servers on its planes.But it’s not just newer music that’s causing a stir. Sony says it isn’t happy that airlines are playing older music by artists like Jimi Hendrix and Aretha Franklin. Copyright laws surrounding music created before the 1970s are a bit hazy, but the record label is going after the airline for that too. Sony wants to stop all the music and is seeking damages from United.

Tourists Invited To Strip Down In South Korea

by Reena Ganga on

While South Korea’s capital city, Seoul, might be a big tourist draw card with plenty of Gangnam Style flair to attract visitors, other parts of the country have had to get more creative when it comes to promoting tourism.

Gangwon Province in the country’s northeast figures nudity might be just the ticket to increasing visitor numbers. It’s planning to open South Korea’s first nude beach in the hopes that tourists will set their sights beyond the capital and venture up north for a bit of skinny dipping.The beach primarily will be aimed at foreigners and may even be open to just overseas visitors initially, as many locals balk at the idea of stripping down at the beach. “Koreans actually love nude beaches when they’re traveling abroad, but the problem with having one within Korea is the fact that Korean society is so interconnected. They won’t be able to comfortably go to a nude beach due to the thought that people they know will find out about it quite easily,” a local reporter told CNN.

Korean tourism officials say they hope to eventually create all sorts of different beaches aimed at families, couples and even pets. They plan to have the first nude beach up and running by 2017.

Might TSA Be Replaced By, Um, You?

by Zach Everson on

A start-up called Qylur said it would begin offering automated security checkpoints next year in which people scan themselves, Business Week reports.

Airports are a distant goal though, with the company focusing on starting at amusement parks and arenas. While five scanners will be deployed at first, Qylur wouldn’t reveal where they’re going. Been asked to scan yourself recently? Tell us about it in the comments.Here’s how Qylur’s machines work:

The machines, which are made of a series of honeycombed cells surrounding a sensor, automatically check for dangerous-looking items and sniff for chemicals and nuclear material. A person puts a bag into one side of the machine, scans a ticket or a boarding pass, and closes the door. The machine then scans the contents and compares their characteristics to those of every item it has ever scanned.

Whether the machines are smart enough to know that the coffee smell they’re picking up is because you used grinds to mask your doobie, however, remains to be seen.

Newest Space Tourism Venture To Dangle Travelers From A Helium Balloon

by Reena Ganga on

Another day, another space tourism venture announced-but this one caught our attention for being a little different from most. Rather than shooting travelers up in rockets, an American company says it’s planning to dangle space tourists in a capsule attached to a helium balloon.

World View Enterprises will use a helium balloon to slowly lift travelers up to the edge of space as they sit in a luxurious space capsule. After the ride is over, the capsule will detach from the helium balloon and float back down to Earth with the aid of a parachute. While that all sounds a little precarious, the company says balloons like this have been sent into space for decades and the whole process is actually quite low-risk.The helium balloon rides will take travelers up about 20 miles into the sky. Although that’s not technically space, which is around 60 miles up, travelers will still be in for a nice view that includes being able to see the curvature of the earth.

And if space travel has mostly sounded like the domain of the super rich so far, the good news is that the balloon space trip will be somewhat more affordable than the other options that have been proposed. A two-hour journey will set you back about $75,000, which is a fair deal cheaper than Virgin Galactic’s space flights that cost a quarter of a million dollars. Tickets for the World View space flights are expected to go on sale in a few months.