| June, 2007 |  |
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Southwest explores in-flight Wi-Fi
Could e-mail or other in-flight entertainment be coming to Southwest’s 737s? Travel Weekly (free registration)
writes that “Southwest said it expects to issue a request for proposals
within a few weeks to equip a handful of its aircraft as a ‘prototype’
for in-cabin wireless connectivity, which would enable in-flight e-mail
and perhaps entertainment. CEO Gary Kelly said Southwest is hoping to
begin prototypes within the next nine months to see whether such
systems will work and can be provided at an acceptable cost to
Southwest.”Travel Weekly says Kelly mentioned the idea as part
of Southwest’s efforts to find ways to boost ancillary revenue.
Presumably, Southwest would charge fliers for wireless connectivity, if
it is eventually installed. Travel Weekly says that Kelly did
not “(rule) out on-board sales or charges for assigned seats should
Southwest ever offer them, Kelly did essentially declare some things
off limits.” Those “off-limits” items would include charges for checked
luggage, paper tickets, reservations center calls He said Southwest
does not plan to charge for checked baggage, paper tickets,
reservations center calls and “other things Southwest currently
provides inclusive with its fares,” according to Travel Weekly.
Dead man travels unnoticed on train
JAKARTA, Indonesia — A dead passenger traveled unnoticed for at least half a day on an executive passenger train, an Indonesian newspaper reported Friday. Anxious family members found the body of Edy Haryanto, 55, sitting in a locked lavatory on Thursday afternoon, more than a day after he had boarded with a group of friends in the central Javanese town of Tegal, the Warta Kota newspaper reported. His family became worried when Haryanto didn’t get out at the station in Jakarta at the end of the 6-hour journey and his cellphone went unanswered. The body traveled back and forth between Tegal and Jakarta before a janitor told the family he had been unable to clean one lavatory because the door was locked, the report said. The cause of the death was not immediately clear, but Haryanto had recently suffered a stroke, it said. Dina Nurhandayani, the man’s 29-year-old daughter, said she planned to file a complaint of negligence with the state-owned train company PT Kereta Api Indonesia.
IBM develops chip-stacking technique
IBM said on Wednesday it will be able to make microchips faster and more energy efficient by stacking components on top of each other, a breakthrough that cuts the distance an electrical signal needs to travel. The technique works by drilling tiny holes through a wafer of silicon and filling them with metal. Components such as memory can then be stacked on top of the main part of the chip, eliminating the need for wires stretching out to the sides. IBM likened the method to replacing a sprawling airport parking lot with a multi-storied garage right next to the terminal. Like people walking from the garage to the terminal, electrical signals do not have to travel as far in a chip with stacked components. “It opens up a range of applications and neat things we can do,” said Lisa Su, head of semiconductor research at IBM. IBM will use the method to make power management chips for wireless devices later this year, allowing them to use 40 per cent less power than previous versions, Su said in an interview. Eventually, IBM plans to incorporate the technique into full-blown processors, she said. It is the latest achievement by International Business Machine Corp’s semiconductor researchers, who have in recent months hit upon several breakthroughs in materials science and chip design. “We have been working on techniques like this for the past 10 years and you never know when they are going to come to market,” Su said. “The scope of innovation you have to deal with is much larger. It’s not just materials and atoms, but systems and how you put components together.” [Thanks, N3CVA for forwarding this to us]
Contact Les, at: lesmcclure@comcast.net
| June, 2007 | |
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