The Social

Las Vegas: Where pasty geeks stand out even more than they do otherwise.

(Credit: Caroline McCarthy/CNET News.com)

In the tech community, Las Vegas has somewhat of a bad rap. Sin City, after all, is home to so many large-scale industry trade shows (case in point: CES) that just mentioning the name is bound to induce a headache, and not in the I-got-plastered-and-lost-all-my-money sense.

The guys at Thrillist, the e-mail newsletter for 20- and 30-something dudes, may have changed that a bit. To celebrate their recent launch of a Vegas-centric newsletter (joining New York, Boston, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and soon Miami), as well as the fact that trendy airline JetBlue is one of their biggest sponsors, founders Ben Lerer and Adam Rich opted to fill up a party plane and let loose 150 New York digital folk into the land of casinos and showgirls. (Disclaimer: It wasn't a "press trip," per se, but I opted to pay for my ticket.)

Clearly, online ad recessions weren't anywhere on the radar--but in opting for heavy sponsorships rather than straight-up paying for everything, Thrillist was likely cutting some costs.

So what went down? Well, when you've got a crowd that includes representatives from Gawker, the Huffington Post, Coolhunting, the Onion, and a dozen dot-com start-ups, some scandal is bound to surface. Here's the G-rated version.

JUICIEST NEWS: Insiders tell us that Bob Pittman, the MTV co-founder and former AOL exec whose Pilot Group investment firm has a big stake in Thrillist, has a fun new project in the works. The media veteran is working on launching his own tequila label, thus putting him in the league of Jimmy Buffett. Guess that means Pilot Group's portfolio brands, which also include DailyCandy, Spongecell, and (to a lesser extent) Buzznet, won't need to hunt for liquor sponsors for their parties much longer.

Upon reaching the Thrillist pool party, Richard Blakeley immediately found some arm candy.

(Credit: Caroline McCarthy/CNET News.com)

BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENT: Videoblogging Star magazine columnist and rumored reality-show-star-to-be Julia Allison didn't bring her ubiquitous dog, Lilly, along for the trip. (But Lilly didn't stray too far from New York media-land: the white Shih Tzu was in the care of Fimoculous blogger Rex Sorgatz.)

BEST STYLE: Gawker Media producer and new-media boy-about-town Richard Blakeley showed up for Friday night's parties in a white suit that was one part Tom Wolfe, one part Colonel Sanders, and one part Pillsbury Doughboy. He then jumped into the pool and seemed to be having a blast until management asked him not to swim with clothes on.

It was the second time this year that Blakeley had been unceremoniously dismissed from a Vegas venue. Remember, he's been banned for life from CES.

BEST SPONSORSHIP: Like any good dot-com party, there were plenty of sponsors. But the one people will probably be remembering is over-the-counter mainstay Alka-Seltzer, which provided guests with ample quantities of its new "Wake-Up Call" hangover remedy.

(Credit: New Line Cinema)

United Airlines has been subject to some pretty bad press recently for being one of several airlines to slap a $15 fee on checked bags, but here's a perk: the commerical carrier announced on Monday that it's starting to install iPod and iPhone connectivity features in its airplanes.

More specifically, owners of Apple's media devices can hook them up to the planes' in-flight entertainment systems; they can navigate through music and video on the seat back televisions while charging the devices in the process. The connectivity technology has been manufactured by Panasonic Avionics.

United is the first U.S. carrier to provide this service, it said in a statement. Late in 2006, iPod manufacturer Apple announced that it had struck a deal with the airline--as well as fellow domestic carriers Continental and Delta, as well as overseas carriers Air France, Emirates, and KLM--to configure in-flight iPod connectivity.

For United, the iPod cables won't be everywhere immediately. For the most part, they'll be installed on planes that make transatlantic flights, and in some cases will be restricted to those with first- and business-class seats. The first "iPod flight," United 936, will take off at 5:40 PM EDT on Monday in Washington, D.C., and fly to Zurich, Switzerland.

So, D.C.-to-Zurich pond hoppers: you can can now watch Snakes on a Plane on a plane (on an iPod, without draining your battery).

A Rocket Racer lifts off for a test flight.

(Credit: Rocket Racing)

NEW YORK--Top Gun and Ender's Game fans take note: Rocket Racing is here.

It'll be like Formula One or Nascar in the sky, or at least that's what the leadership of Rocket Racing said at a press conference at the Yale Club here on Monday morning. The aeronautics entertainment start-up announced the debut of its long-awaited Rocket Racing League, which will have its first exhibition race on August 1-2 at the EAA AirVenture air show in Oshkosh, Wis.

The science fiction-like Rocket Racing pits aircraft called Rocket Racers against one another in a high-speed dash around the sky. The pilots are equipped with 3D helmets and navigation panels to visualize the virtual "raceway" they follow, and spectators on the ground and at home will have access to footage from remote and rocket-mounted cameras. This is accomplished through "cockpit-based augmented reality," which the Rocket Racing League ultimately wants to bring into general aviation as a way to make navigation easier and more efficient for pilots.

Rocket Racing, which hopes to have a formal racing season in 2010, simultaneously announced the acquisition of Florida-based Velocity Aircraft to produce the frame for all its aircraft.

"If you're going to race Ferrari in your league, why not own Ferrari?" Rocket Racing CEO Granger Whitelaw said of the acquisition.

In a hypothetical Rocket Racing event, up to 10 pilots will be racing at a time in a 90-minute race. The aircraft can fly up to 350 miles per hour. "It's great for TV," Whitelaw said. "It'll be very fast, very thrilling. It's all about competition." There will ideally be Rocket Racing video games released to fans in conjunction.

The company also plans to hold exhibition races at the Reno National Championship Air Races in September, the Aviation Nation event in November, and the 2008 X Prize Cup. Six teams have already signed up for the Rocket Racing League's first season, and Whitelaw said that two television networks have already offered deals.

But the announcement itself was a long time coming, and Rocket Racing's short history has been rife with delays. "It's almost now three and a half years since we announced the concept to the media and the world and I've very proud of the incredible progress that's been made by this team," Rocket Racing League co-Chairman Peter Diamandis, who also serves as the CEO of the X Prize Foundation, said at the press event via videoconference. "We waited quite a long time to unveil this, until we were ready."

Indeed, after launching in 2005, "we were very optimistic in hoping to race in 2006," Whitelaw admitted in the press conference. "I take full responsibility for missing our target date. We're about 15 months behind schedule." Ultimately, the Rocket Racing League didn't have its first successful test flight until November 2007.

And the Federal Aviation Administration has not yet given the league the green light. "We have no reason to believe they won't," Whitelaw said. But this is key to the company's promises of safety, which Whitelaw reiterated to an audience that seemed mildly skeptical at the prospect of rocket-powered planes zipping around the sky with spectators on the ground below. "Every plane in every air show has to be approved by the FAA," Whitelaw explained. He added, "We will never be flying directly at (spectators)."

Rocket Racing filed an extensive safety-related patent on Monday."We have the technology today," Whitelaw said.

And on the subject of environmental friendliness, he explained that "we like to say that 95 percent of our fuel is grown on trees." He provided the example of IndyCar, which now powers its vehicles with ethanol, but admitted that some of the Rocket Racing aircraft engines' technology does run on kerosene. But the company is currently looking at using more biofuels "to be as environmentally friendly as possible, and we'll be introducing those when we can."

The biggest problem with JetBlue's inaugural "BetaBlue" flight, equipped with Yahoo and BlackBerry e-mail and instant messaging, was the fact that there aren't power outlets on board the aircraft.

Sure, there are those little 110-volt things in each bathroom. But if you hog the airplane toilet so that you can give your laptop some juice, you're going to be the second most unpopular person on that flight. (The screaming kid in seat 15D still beats you.)

All joking aside, if in-flight Wi-Fi is going to take off, airplanes are going to need power outlets. Virgin America already has them, as do many pricier foreign airlines (some only in first class). So do high-end Amtrak trains, like the Acela Express line from Washington, D.C., to Boston. Sure, you might be able to make it from New York to Miami on your laptop battery, but New York to San Francisco just doesn't cut it, especially if you're not sure when you're going to be able to get to a power outlet on the ground.

As for the service itself, let's just say it's complicated. If BetaBlue's connection were my home ISP, I'd ask them to cancel my subscription; it was hardly ultra-reliable, and the instant-messaging application took quite a bit of time to boot up. But this was the first flight of a brand-new program, so I'll give JetBlue the benefit of the doubt here.

And JetBlue representatives, including a handful of engineers from its LiveTV division, which operates the Wi-Fi service, seemed quite thrilled when BetaBlue touched down. It didn't have to work perfectly. It just had to happen.

That's because the upside to BetaBlue (in addition to the fact that I was able to send IMs to every single one of my co-workers and say "Guess what?! I'm on a plane!!!") is that it was an actual realization of in-flight broadband access. In other words, JetBlue's extremely limited offering was potentially a kick in the pants to any other commercial carrier that's been wringing its figurative hands over a similar project. After the disaster that was Boeing's Connexion service, and the trepidation that followed, some airline needed to take that first step forward in order for Wi-Fi on planes to become a reality.

And there are going to be a ton of questions to answer. Will it be free? Ad-supported? Will there be a subscription charge? What if the guy in the seat next to you is looking at porn? Even worse, what if he plugs in a Skype headset and starts yakking away?

But at least the ball is rolling. TechCrunch reported last week that the Aircell service--which owns part of the same 800 MHz spectrum that hosts JetBlue's air-to-ground wireless--may soon make appearances on both Virgin America and American Airlines.

And additionally, I will remember BetaBlue fondly for this most paramount of reasons: it lifted me up from cold, rainy New York and planted me in the middle of a sunny, mild San Francisco day.

If there were snakes on this plane, you could IM your friends and tell them.

Low-cost airline JetBlue has equipped one of its Airbus A320 planes with an onboard wireless network and has forged partnerships with Yahoo and BlackBerry manufacturer Research In Motion to give passengers access to the companies' e-mail and instant messaging functions while in the air. The airline considers the plane, nicknamed "BetaBlue," to be an early-stage test as the company explores expanding in-flight communication options.

(Credit: JetBlue)

Passengers won't be able to surf the full Web. But if they bring Wi-Fi-equipped laptops along, they can access lightweight versions of Yahoo e-mail and instant messaging services; BlackBerry owners who have Wi-Fi-enabled handsets (the BlackBerry 8820 and BlackBerry Curve 8320) will be able to access their personal and corporate e-mail. BlackBerry models that have only cellular connections rather than Wi-Fi won't be compatible--the Federal Communications Commission still has a ban on cellular service in-flight.

The plane will take its inaugural flight on Tuesday morning, making the cross-country trip from New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport to San Francisco International Airport. After that, "BetaBlue" will be added to JetBlue's regular flight lineup; a company representative told CNET News.com that there will be no way to specifically request the messaging-equipped plane, nor will any additional fee be charged for the service.

It's been known for well over a year that JetBlue had been planning some sort of in-flight wireless initiative. LiveTV, a division of the airline, was awarded a 1MHz air-to-ground wireless license from the FCC in June 2006, following an intense bidding war. After 120 bids, LiveTV paid $7 million for the license, which offers full coverage of the continental U.S. above 10,000 feet. Another company, AirCell, obtained a 3MHz license for $31.3 million in the same FCC auction.

Earlier this year, JetBlue representatives hinted that they were interested in exploring options for in-flight text messaging--but that would require a relaxation of the FCC's stringent regulations.

As the major players in the airline industry compete with one another in an increasingly tech-savvy world, carriers have touted in-flight tech innovations like satellite TV service and electrical power connections. JetBlue already offers DirecTV service, as well as XM satellite radio on some of its newer planes. When Virgin America first took off in August, geeks drooled over the USB and power connections, MP3 library, and a messaging service that lets lonely passengers strike up conversations with fellow travelers on the same plane.

But when it comes to communication services (Virgin America's intra-plane messaging aside), there have been some major momentum issues. Cell phone use on planes is still a contentious topic, but it's nevertheless likely imminent on some foreign carriers and some wireless companies see it as a potential source of profit.

Broadband Internet is a different story. Connexion, a paid in-flight broadband service from Boeing, was used by a number of foreign airlines, like Lufthansa and Singapore Airlines, before it was officially shut down at the end of 2006. There's been no word from Panasonic recently on a rumored plan to succeed where Connexion had failed.

And when BetaBlue takes off on Tuesday, it will make the Forest Hills, N.Y.-based JetBlue the first domestic airline carrier to offer any kind of wireless service in the air. Virgin America's planes have Ethernet ports at each seat, but they remain inactive.

JetBlue representatives said that if BetaBlue proves successful, expansions to the program will become evident over the next year. This would possibly include either installing the Yahoo and RIM services on other planes, or expanding the wireless offerings.