We've seen more than our share of new laptop bags that adhere to TSA guidelines for getting through airport security quickly. Almost all follow the same basic premise of a two-compartment bag that butterflies open to lie flat on the X-ray machine conveyor belt. The separate compartment that holds your laptop isn't allowed to have any pockets or any other items (wires, iPods, magazines, etc.) in it, so the TSA checkers can get a clear view of your laptop without requiring it to be pulled out of its bag and run through the machine by itself.
The latest one we've checked out is Belkin's FlyThru, and it scores highly by both working as a security checkpoint bag and also being a generally good laptop case on top of that. We liked that it could fit a standard 15-inch laptop without being too bulky, and its generally sharp looks (in fact, we've gotten a couple of e-mails from readers who have seen the Belkin bag used in laptop photos for system reviews on CNET and wanted to know what bag it was).
The shoulder strap, however, was not our favorite -- the clips that attach the strap to the bag are both on the top edge, and were too close together, which made the whole thing feel a little unbalanced.
The ScanFast laptop bag--backpack version.
(Credit: Mobile Edge)Hey, we're ready to cheer anything that can move travelers through an airport security queue faster--and a new line of "checkpoint friendly" laptop cases by Anaheim, Calif.-based Mobile Edge falls under that rubric. Owners of the ScanFast bags don't have to dig their computers out of their cases. Airport screeners can X-ray the machine while it's still inside.
The bags come in briefcase, backpack, and messenger-bag styles; all are compliant with Transportation Security Administration guidelines. The collection is set to launch in late summer, with a tentative price range of $79.99 to $99.99.
The ScanFast bags, of course, aren't the first entry to the speed-security-lines genre. Among other offerings, there's the LapStrap, a laptop case that's essentially all strap and no bag.
Maybe you'll fly inside a saucer someday.
(Credit: CleanEra, Delft University)The grand Boeing 787 Dreamliner and Airbus a380 may usher in an era of more fuel-efficient air travel, but their bird-shaped designs could look downright primitive later in the century.
Dutch aerospace engineers are imagining aircraft that look less like today's big-nosed winged planes, which haven't changed much in shape since the 1950s, and more like flying saucers. So maybe you can rest assured that those UFOs you spotted aren't signs of spying aliens, but instead are just your great-great-great-grandchildren traveling home for the holidays from a future when both saucer planes and time travel exist. The design comes from the CleanEra project at the Delft University of Technology in The Netherlands. CleanEra stands for Cost-effective Low Emissions And Noise Efficient Regional Aircraft.
The project is geared to meet European goals to design quiet, lightweight, post-2025 passenger fleets that halve the globe-warming, air-polluting carbon dioxide and nitrogen oxide spewed by today's planes. While radically re-imagining the architecture of aircraft with saucer shapes or even bringing back propellers, CleanEra's plans are also putting biofuels and hydrogen on the table.
By contrast, the new Boeing 787 already looks retro.
(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)Airplanes emit up to 3 percent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions, an amount that could double by the middle of the century as more jet-setters take to the skies, according to the International Governmental Panel on Climate Change. But the airline industry has a long journey ahead to make air travel cleaner and greener.
(via LiveScience and Treehugger)- prev
- 1
- next
