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iPod Seat-Back Video Coming To Flights
cameronk writes, "Apple announced partnership agreements with Air France, Continental, Delta, Emirates, KLM, and United that will let you display video from your iPod on the screen of the seat in front of you. Plus, the connectors charge iPods throughout the flight. This will be great for inter-continental flights where even my iPod Nano runs out of juice. I wonder how the airlines are going to keep inappropriate video (i.e. porn or even just movies like "Snakes on a Plane" or "Alive") from appearing on the seat-back displays."
I wonder how the airlines are going to keep inappropriate video (i.e. porn or even just movies like "Snakes on a Plane" or "Alive") from appearing on the seat-back displays."
That's funny as I was wondering the same thing when Apple's press announcement appeared in my inbox. Of course the issue of other movies like those you mentioned should not even be an issue as it is content that the user has loaded on their own iPods (and you should not be looking at your neighbors content anyhow). As to porn and other questionable content, this really comes down to etiquette and if there are those on the flight that will display such content where others may see it (like kids), they are likely pissing people off for other reasons. All told, this is a great idea and I'd rather have to deal with other people's movies than having to listen to them talk on their cell phones (Please! FAA, Nnnoooooooo!) or worse. Flying anywhere is becoming more and more onerous these days and at the very least, having airlines support ways to charge laptops or iPods during long flights would be a huge benefit as Empower outlets are pretty hard to find on many flights in coach and sometimes even in first or business class.
I've had to deal with enough problems flying anyhow again and again and again and anything that will keep people quiet and minding their own business is a good thing.
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Why would this movie, or Alive, or even United 93 or Twin Towers be inappropriate? it's not like I'm going to show it to a hysteria-prone man on the brink of snapping and hijacking the plane. If I have it on my iPod I know what it's about and I maintain full control to turn off the movie at any time.
Gee, it's not like watching it is actually going to make snakes appear in the plane. Plus, I don't think it'd be nearly as bad as depicted in the movie.
The engines generate electricity much like the alternator in your car does. Yes, having a bigger alternator takes away some power from the engine. But if the engine is designed to handle the load of the alternator and still have plenty of power to do it's job, then there is no problem.
Power outlets and more TVs just require more juice than what was used in the past. People are plugging their laptops in and watching DVDs for entire flights. Charging a plane full of iPods seems rather trivial in comparison.
This is a clever way for the airlines to bypass the MPAA's atrocious licensing fees for movies stored on the aircraft's entertainment system. If the airline doesn't 'own' the copy, they aren't responsible. I predict the MPAA will soon be having shit fits over this system.
Are you sure about that?
Kinda weird how you first seemed almost humanist, what with your suggestion to communicate and use common sense in social situations. Then you turn a quick 180 and suggest artificial class barriers to society like "with children" vs "you." Sure, some kids are annoying because they don't understand why their ears are hurting. Some people in seat 13B are annoying because they like watching the climax of "Airport 1977" on a bigscreen laptop and can't understand why it might be a bit anxiety-inducing for their neighbors. If you can live with one but not the other, what does that say about you?
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So it would be the largest commercially available product... and the warship would in essence be a government funded i-pod accessory, right?
My girlfriend already saw 'Alive' on a plane as part of the usual entertainment program on board a few years ago.
Funny thing is that she actually was on a flight over the Andes, from Argentina to Chile with a local airline.
For example, how long is it going to take to get everyone on and off one of the A380s?
According to what I've read, the 380 can board both decks simultaneously via separate bridges, as long as you set up the terminal to take advantage of both entrances.
So yeah, you've got 555 passengers in three seating classes, but half of them will go in through another gate, so it should, in theory, board faster than a 747.
As for baggage handling... I find it hard to conceive of how anybody could handle baggage loading and unloading more poorly than the typical American airport. It would probably be faster to just make everybody walk their bags out on to the tarmac and hand them to a porter before climbing a portable staircase up in to the plane.
At some airlines, it's so bad that you can be the last one off the plane, walk for 10 minutes to the baggage claim area, and still be forced to wait a half-hour or so for the little chute to crap your bag out onto the carrousel. What were the baggage people doing when the plane was just sitting there at the terminal for the 15 minutes before they let you out???
To make matters worse, by allowing large-ish carry-on bags in overhead bins, you guarantee that every... last... person will stand in the middle of the aisle, blocking everybody else from boarding and de-boarding, while they monkey around with a small suitcase they can barely hold over their heads, let alone manipulate into a tight-fitting compartment. At a half-minute each for a few hundred people, that adds up to a lot of wasted time. But getting rid of that "feature" is not an option, because checked baggage is such a major pain in the ass that anybody on a trip for a long weekend or less is going to want avoid checking a bag entirely by hauling their entire lives with them on to the plane.
If I owned an airline, everything would be structured around making sure you got your bags back right away. Then I'd bolt the overhead compartments shut, and allow nothing in the passenger section bigger than a laptop bag unless you buy another seat for it. Flight attendants would consider it part of their job to forbid people from standing still in the aisles while people are trying to get in and out of the plane.
Get in, get out, grab your bags, and be driving out of the airport less 10 minutes after the plane touched down on the runway. That would be my idea of a perfect airline. Bus terminals do it every day (although on a much smaller scale). Why can't the airlines get this right?
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
touche with the periods and punctuation, which are bad-english liberties i often take in my own writing, and even though it is a valid complaint, i often see i.e. and e.g. given without periods, especially when set off with parentheses and commans (eg, in this sentence). in my grandparent post, i set them off with quotes.
but i disagree with your complaint about my translation of e.g., which my dictionary gives as literally 'for the sake of example', and i think is fairly translated 'gratuitous example', and example given to make something more clear; when i translated i.e. i specified it was a literal translation, but i purposely did not make that specification for e.g., because i wanted to give my own translation, which helpfully provides an English backronym.
yay grammar! or as i've seen it said, yay grammer!