Internet: An airline extra that might be worth paying for

by Jamie Rhein on

American Airlines may have actually come up with a way to make more money without ticking people off. Instead of charging for a service that used to be free–did anyone say checked bags?–the airline is piloting a system to charge passengers for Internet privileges.

Yep, that’s right. While you’re winging your way through the skies, you can log on. Need to e-mail? No problem.

You’ll also be able to instant message, download videos, and connect to a smart phone through a secured network using your own laptop.

Passengers on one lucky flight today from Kennedy in New York to Los Angeles and a flight from Los Angeles to New York will be able to test the service for free.

In a couple of weeks, American will expand broadband to other flights on Boeing 767-200 jets. Flights to San Francisco and Miami are next.

These Internet capabilities are being developed through a partnership with Aircell LLC. Aircell’s network is large enough to handle a whole plane load of Web surfers.

Knowing that you need to diversify in business, Aircell is also working out details with JetBlue and Virgin America for similar services.

American Airline’s latest money scheme is one I like. Adding a new service and charging for it instead of wringing money out of folks who used to get the same thing for free seems smarter. The price isn’t bad either. Internet will cost between $9.95 and $12.95 depending on the length of the flight.

And in case you’re wondering about the chances of pornography showing up on the screen next to you–or on yours, not a chance–at least not much of one. According to the article, the flight attendant will stop the funny business. There are already policies against bringing pornography on the plane. The same applies to Internet, even though such sites won’t be filtered out . Blocking them might disrupt service. Mind your manners, and the skies will stay friendly. [via AP]

US border control seizes your laptops, iPods, cellphones

by Jerry Guo on

From the front-page of the Washington Post today comes a scary tale of the legal seizure of electronics at US immigration checkpoints. Many travelers flying into the US have complained about being forced to turn over their iPods, laptops, and cellphones to agents for examination. Often times the data subsequently gets copied–or worse.

It’s probably not surprising that most of the victims are of Muslim or Southeast Asian descent. Because of this policy, several corporations are requiring their business travelers to carry “blank laptops.”

In Canada, one law firm has instructed its lawyers to travel to the United States with “blank laptops” whose hard drives contain no data. “We just access our information through the Internet,” said Lou Brzezinski, a partner at Blaney McMurtry, a major Toronto law firm. That approach also holds risks, but “those are hacking risks as opposed to search risks,” he said.

Update: Turns out the TSA says this shouldn’t be happening. Read their response.

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Travel flexibility has its virtues

by Grant Martin on

In an earlier discussion about travel notebooks, I mentioned that I use an IBM Thinkpad X31, a light little laptop that’s good for bouncing around airports and cities across the world.

On a flight to San Francisco last week, I found another reason why I like these machines: takeapartability. On the first leg of my trip between Detroit and Houston I discovered that my machine wouldn’t boot — something about the hard drive media not being recognized by the BIOS. So using a broken pen cap and another pen I unscrewed the hard drive caddy, reseated the drive and reassembled the chassis. Problem fixed. I’d like to see you do that with your Mac Book.

I suppose one could project this metaphor to many travel-related things: Be flexible and crafty on the road and you can always keep yourself happy. Just make sure that your plans/hardware aren’t so complicated that you can’t fix them on your own.

What’s your travel laptop?

by Grant Martin on

With my professional and personal careers both on the move, I have recently discovered the virtues of traveling with a laptop. I hate burning three hours in a random airport terminal with nothing to do when I could be blogging, writing grants or at the very least playing old-school video games. That’s why I’ve invested in a decent, small notebook, capable of running on batteries for 3-4 hours at a time and fulfilling my basic internet/office/DOS needs.

If you’re thinking of investing this year, check out Laptop Magazine’s Top 10 Notebooks of 2007, where the best units in a variety of categories are detailed. While the uber-media-ultra-expensive hepta-core Dell XPS blasto-station might not be up your alley, a variety of budget and portable laptops caught my eye and should be great for the savvy traveler.

My weapon of choice? The Thinkpad X31 running Ubuntu 7.04. Small, secure, fairly powerful, integrated wireless and none of the corporate chaff that slows down Windows computers. It’s kind of like the 1984 Mercedes Benz 380D that you converted to bio-diesel of computers, but I’ll tell ya, it’s a workhorse, doesn’t lock up and is chronically virus free.

Mile-High Laptop Etiquette

by Catherine Bodry on

First cell phones, now laptops.

When you’re in tight quarters, is it okay to read the spreadsheet of the passenger next to you? What about watching that R-rated movie when there’s children nearby? And what to do about more shocking incidences, like the man hunched over his X-rated flick, or the child who doesn’t use headphones?

As there’s no current rules set for in-flight laptop etiquette, these questions are up for debate.

While manufacturers are making bigger screens, they’re also lengthening battery lives, which means more visibility for a longer time. Furthermore, laptops are becoming more and more affordable, which in turns means more passengers toting them aboard.

As with any flight disruption, flight attendants mediating between laptop abusers and laptop snoopers either move passengers to a different seat or help them come to a mutual agreement.

One solution for those who’d like to keep their financial spreadsheets private but can’t stand a few hours away from their accounts is a filter for their screen. These sell for about $50 to $125 and keep anyone but the person directly in front of the computer from viewing it.

Or, they could try not using their computer for any “business” they might not want anyone else to see.

[via USA Today]