| September, 2007 |  |
< Prev Page 5 Next > |
Some airlines offer limited messaging
Even before in-flight broadband connectivity catches on widely, some airlines are allowing passengers a limited form of instant messaging.
Intraflight messaging allows instant text communication between passengers on the same flight.
When Virgin America, the USA's newest airline, takes flight on Wednesday, one of its key features will be intraflight messaging.
It's part of the in-flight entertainment system that Virgin America calls Red, after the color of its planes' tails.
Virgin Atlantic, the well-established London-based carrier, has offered the free feature since 2003 on its flights. It's part of Virgin Atlantic's V-Port entertainment system, which has preprogrammed movies, TV and audio.
To initiate an instant chat, the sender has to designate the receiver's seat number by typing it on a touch-screen keyboard.
Passengers may extend invitations to chat to any seat. For privacy, no passenger is identified by name.
People can elect to turn off the messages during the flight. When they receive an invitation to chat, they can respond or decline.
"Thousands of people use it each month," says spokeswoman Brooke Lawer. "We've seen its usage increase since we put it on."
Colleagues and friends who are sitting apart, sometimes in different classes, use intraflight messaging to catch up on work or to be social, Lawer says. A passenger can approach a stranger if they've left the system on.
Passengers may be seeing more such systems on other airlines.
Thales Group, which specializes in aerospace electronics and communications equipment, says that later this year it will introduce InTouch Passenger Chat as part of its in-flight entertainment system.
It has signed three customers, including United Arab Emirates-based Etihad Airways and Chile's LAN Airlines. Northwest will incorporate the feature on its new fleet of Boeing 787 Dreamliners, scheduled for delivery in mid-2008.
Official: MySpace finds 29,000 sex offenders on its site
MySpace.com has found more than 29,000 registered sex offenders with profiles on the popular social networking website — more than four times the number cited by the company two months ago, North Carolina officials said Tuesday. North Carolina’s Roy Cooper is one of several attorneys general who recently demanded the News Corp.-owned website provide data on how many registered sex offenders were using the site, along with information about where they live. After initially withholding the information, citing federal privacy laws, MySpace began sharing the information in May after the states filed formal legal requests. At the time, MySpace said it had already used a database it helped create to remove about 7,000 profiles of sex offenders, out of a total of about 180 million profiles on the site. Two MySpace spokeswomen did not immediately return calls seeking comment Tuesday. Cooper is pushing for legislation that would require children to receive parental permission before creating social networking profiles, and require the websites to enact procedures for verifying the parents’ identity and age.
Amateur Radio satellite Delfi-C3 video available
A video on the new Delfi-C3 Amateur Radio satellite, to be launched in
a few months, is now available on the web.
It will be launched into a 630 km 90 degree sun-synchronous orbit from
the Indian launch site at Sriharikota. Currently the launch is expected
to take place in September/October this year.
The video and PowerPoint presentations are at
http://www.delfic3.nl/press/
Direct link to video (120 megs)
http://www.delfic3.nl/press/DelfiC3_promo_movie.rar
Delfi-C3 carries a 70 cm to 2 metre linear transponder for SSB and CW
working. The satellite will be in telemetry only mode for approximately
the first three months of the mission, after which it is switched to transponder
mode.
Frequencies:
- Primary telemetry downlink: 145.870 MHz 1200 Baud BPSK AX.25
- Backup telemetry downlink: 145.930 MHz 1200 Baud BPSK AX.25
- Linear transponder passband downlink: 145.880 - 145.920 MHz (inverting)
- Linear transponder passband uplink: 435.570 - 435.530 MHz
- Transponder mode beacon: 145.870 MHz CW
Indian Space Research Organisation http://www.isro.org/
Innovative Solutions In Space (ISIS) http://www.isispace.nl/
| September, 2007 | |
< Prev Page 5 Next > |