Airplanes

Southwest Airlines announced Wednesday that it plans to begin trials of satellite-to-airplane broadband Internet service sometime this summer.

Spokeswoman Marilee McInnis said Wednesday morning that initially Southwest plans to test the service on four planes. But because the airline's planes fly many different routes, she did not anticipate--at least not yet--that travelers would be able to plan to fly on one of those planes.

That means that in the early going at least, the service--which will allow passengers to access the Internet if they have their own Wi-Fi-enabled laptops--will be available at random.

McInnis did not say if Southwest'… Read more

Once, when I was waiting on a subway platform in New York, there was a fire of some sort in an adjacent tunnel. Presumably, subway officials issued directions for what those of us inside the station should do to get away from the smoke.

But neither I nor anyone around me would have benefited from those instructions because the public address system in the station was so bad that all we could hear was garbled, voice-like sounds coming from the speakers. I remember bewildered people looking at each other to see if anyone could divine what was being said.

I … Read more

For those of you who made plans to visit NASA's Kennedy Space Center today to see the launch of the space shuttle Atlantis, you'd better hope you can keep your hotel room another day.

That's because the space agency announced this morning that it has decided to delay Atlantis' launch until at least Saturday because "of a problem with a fuel cutoff sensor system inside the shuttle's external fuel tank," according to a NASA press release.

The shuttle program managers expect to have a meeting Friday afternoon at Kennedy Space Center to decide what … Read more

You might have noticed if, for some reason, you have followed my work over the last couple of years, that I have a thing for 747s.

I can't really explain why that is. I suppose it's just that the jumbo jets are sort of a physical manifestation of adventure for me: When I see them flying overhead, I know they're off to some faraway place where I'd probably like to be going.

So when I heard about 3D Mailbox, an e-mail client that uses visual images as representations for e-mail messages, and the fact that the … Read more

Since I'm kind of an airplane nut--of the amateur variety--this is somewhat of a Homer Simpson moment.

Mmmmmm...A380.

Singapore Airlines flight SQ380, from Singapore to Sydney, took to the air Thursday and in the process made aviation history as the first commercial flight of the long-awaited mammoth flying machine, the Airbus A380.

I've never seen one of these planes up close. But I'm longing to. It recently made its first (test) flight into San Francisco and I was out of town. And sadly, neither Airbus nor Singapore Airlines invited me to take this first flight today. … Read more

When I was in high school, all those years ago, being a nerd, or a geek, was a painful thing. We were the outcasts, the forgotten ones who couldn't get a date to save our lives, and for whom the future seemed certain to be a blur of solitary days and nights spent coding.

Over the years, as my lot in life improved, it occurred to me from time to time that I should go back to that school, take a few of these unfortunate souls aside, and give them the good news: Sure, today you're alone and … Read more