With the announcement a couple weeks ago that Southwest has finally set a date for the testing of their in-flight Internet connectivity it seems that the majority of the US-based carriers have something in the works.  Runway Girl has a couple good posts (Post 1; Post 2) about the various options, but I haven’t been able to find an exhaustive list of all the offerings from all the carriers.  So I decided to put one together.  Here are the airlines, the service and the status of the deployment efforts:

• American Airlines - Aircell’s gogo service currently operational on 767s for NYC-LAX/SFO/MIA routes.
• Alaska Air - Row 44, currently planned for testing on a single plane.
• Jet Blue - LiveTV, but only on one plane and no word on when additional rollout will happen.
• Continental - LiveTV on the entire domestic-focused fleet, starting in January ‘09
• Delta - Aircell’s gogo service, expected on the MD8x planes first and on the entire fleet by mid-2009
• Frontier - Likely LiveTV since they already use the service for television on the planes, but I haven’t seen an official release.
• United - Nothing planned/announced
• US Airways - Nothing planned/announced, though back in February they said they were looking at it.  The fact that they are pulling the entertainment systems to save weight makes me suspect of their ability to actually get it into their planes soon, particularly since they have nothing specific announced, but they supposedly are looking at it.
• Southwest - Row 44, currently planned for testing in Q4 ‘08
• Virgin America - Aircell’s gogo service coming soon and will be fleet-wide.

The Aircell and LiveTV services are both terrestrial, which Row 44 is a satellite-based solution.  Row 44 and Aircell’s gogo are both supposed to be “full” Internet service while LiveTV is very up front about the fact that they are providing access to a very limited subset of the internet, and they’ve increased the content available recently.

Hopefully this helps (and I didn’t mess up the details too much).  If I did, I’m sure you’ll let me know.

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Let me open by saying I’m not always the easiest  to please when it comes to technology. I’ll often start out impressed with something, but after 2 or 3 hours I’ll start to find things that annoy me, and end up hating it.

But I’ve been Blackberry Unite! for several weeks now, and I’m still loving it!

Blackberry Unite! combines the following features:

• Shared calendar and contacts
• Private email server
• Remote file access

The entire server runs on your home PC, and unlike their enterprise server, you do not need Exchange to run it. The heart of Unite! is the Blackberry MDS (Mobile Data Service Connection Service).

Installation

Installing Blackberry Unite! is as simple as running the setup program, and letting it do its job. Once installed, you configure the server through your web browser (IE only, Firefox did NOT work for me).

The first step in adding Blackberry Unite! to your own Blackberry is plugging your device into your desktop. Once the server detects your Blackberry you can register it.

Once registered, your Blackberry will receive several new service books which support the various Blackberry Unite! features. This registration also ensures no other Blackberry device can remotely access your information, the PIN level authentication is extremely reliable.

Once the Blackberry has been added, you can add an email account. Blackberry Unite! can retrieve email from POP and IMAP accounts, and forward it on to your device.

I’m not entirely sure what the advantage is of having Unite! do this for you when most people will already have Blackberry email service from their operator, but I guess that the ability to host your own Blackberry service might be interesting for people who do not trust their mobile operator, or who prefer to have a backup email provider. The Unite! email service can operate together with your current email setup, so there is no need to stop forwarding messages to your current email account.

Read the rest of this entry »

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Beta testing company Centercode has a callout for 100’s of testers willing to help them with a new product:

Centercode has a large beta test which we need several hundred participants in the New York City Metro area. If you know of anyone who might be interested in participating in a very cool beta test, we want them.

This exciting new hardware product will provide portable Internet functionality. Surf the web, read the news, check your stocks or watch videos on YouTube while you walk the streets of NYC.  We have hundreds of open spots!

Centercode Open signup link.

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I’ve written about TrueCrypt in the past, and mentioned how it has suddenly become hot news "thanks" to a ruling that US Customs can search the contents of your laptop without "probable cause".

TrueCrypt just updated this powerful open source application to version 6, and added several new features. TrueCrypt 6 now supports multiple core processors (which you’ll find in almost every new PC). It can spread the encryption/decryption load over these cores, making things much faster.

It also adds support for a hidden operating system. With a hidden operating system you can completely hide and encrypt your entire Windows installation. If you do end up getting asked to turn your machine on, you can even boot into a decoy operating system where you can show that you have nothing to hide!

TrueCrypt 6 is free, and be found here.

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I’ve been running a  beta version of the Blackberry OS on my device for a few months and it has been quite impressive so far. But things just got better when RIM updated their BIS (Blackberry Internet Service) servers over the weekend; I can now receive and view HTML emails.

This finally puts an end to emails telling me to visit their site to view the message, and it adds some color and images to my emails.

To get the feature you’ll need to find a beta version of the "4.5 firmware" for your device, and you’ll need to login to your control panel and resend your "servicebooks".

Of course, none of this applies to users on a corporate (BES) Blackberry server and if messing around with your device isn’t something you fancy, then be patient, because RIM have announced that everyone should be able to get an official version of the newest software by September.

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The press have been covering in-flight broadband trials by Aircell for some time now. They even managed to get Walt Mossberg on a flight to test the service. But in-flight broadband is not new, and the service being offered here is (on paper) quite similar to something that was launched back in 2004; Boeing Connexion.

The Boeing system was first put into service on a Lufthansa flight on May 17th 2004. Services included Wi-Fi Internet access, streaming video to the in-flight entertainment system as well as streaming video to laptops.

Connexion ceased operation In August 2006 due to a lack of commitments from major US operators. The Connexion network still exists, but is only being offered to the US government and has been renamed the “Boeing Broadband Satellite Network”.

So, why could Aircell succeed where Connexion failed?

Read the rest of this entry »

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American Airlines is the next big carrier to embrace in-flight broadband Internet. The service runs off the Aircell system I previously wrote about back in January.

Some American Airlines Inc. transcontinental passengers will get a chance to browse the Internet in-flight on Wednesday.

The Fort Worth-based carrier and technology provider Aircell LLC said Tuesday that they are planning a dress rehearsal of the service on a round trip flight between New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport and Los Angeles.

A broader customer trial on flights between New York and San Francisco and New York and Miami is expected to begin in the next couple of weeks and the carrier is considering expanding to other fleet types, said H. Douglas Backelin, American’s manager of inflight communications and technology.

"I think there will be great reception to the service," Mr. Backelin said. American and Aircell have spent the last three months conducting in-flight tests on the carrier’s fleet of 15 Boeing 767-200 airplanes, but Wednesday will be the first time the airline’s customers can give it a whirl.

Access will cost $12.95 for long flights (over 3 hours) and $9.95 for shorter flights. Access to some sites (like Frommers) will be free.

Source: Dallasnews.com

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If you regularly travel with tons of data, then this drive may be just what you are looking for.

Enclosed in the tiny aluminum case are 2 500Gb 2.5" drives. The Little Big Disk has ports for USB, Firewire 800 and eSATA.

It’s priced at pretty insane $699 which is hard to justify when you consider that a regular desktop drive of the same size can be found for $169. But if size matters, then this is the largest capacity drive in the smallest enclosure available at the moment.

LaCie Little Big Disk

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If any of you were on the road back in the 80’s, then chances are you ran into Lotus Symphony. What used to be "sheet, doc, graph, form and comm" has evolved into Documents, Presentations and Spreadsheets (DOS not required).

The new Lotus Symphony is based upon OpenOffice 3.0, which means it is open source, FREE and a great alternative to Microsoft Office.

Be sure to check out the long list of plug-ins to make it even more powerful.

Product page: Lotus Symphony download (be sure to select "download with HTTP" on the final download page, their Java downloader does not work very well).

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Things are pretty slow in gadgetland, and the 3G iPhone news is finally dying down, so it’s as good a time as any to focus a little on web browsers. Mozilla have set a date for the release of Firefox 3; June 17th.

Mozilla want to set a world record for browser downloads on that day, so head on over to the download day 2008 site and pledge that you’ll come back on the 17th to get Firefox for yourself.

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