Our US readers contemplating flying cross country travel this week might be putting worries about the data and power impact of air travel to the back of their minds. But if they do opt for that enhanced pat-down they might comfort themselves with the knowledge they are helping offload some of the bandwidth and power a modern …

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Monday 22nd November 2010 14:55 GMT Buzzword

The future is already here

"the use of mobile phones as passenger boarding cards via a 2D bar code sent to the phone"

Several airlines already do this; for example the BA iPhone app.

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1. Monday 22nd November 2010 15:42 GMT JaitcH
  
  And your cell phone number stored in databases around the world including ...
  
  Sabre.Amadeus/Appolo/Galileo GDS; Various marketing databases - including the airlines; Us homeland Security/TSA, etc.
  
  And you thought they were doing you a favour! Suckers!
  
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Monday 22nd November 2010 15:41 GMT JaitcH

And just to think amidst all this high falutin' technology, a few yards away ...

are multi-million dollar/pound aircraft that communicate with the ground using Amplitude Modulated VHF radio's!

Kind of ironic.

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1. Tuesday 23rd November 2010 10:17 GMT Anonymous Coward
  
  VHF radio's what?
  
  And when the server has a hissy fit and the boarding screens are showing the Blue Screen of Death, what's still working? Good old steam-powered VHF.
  
  This message has been brought to you as a community service announcement by your local Air Traffic Control and the Apostrophe Police.
  
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Monday 22nd November 2010 16:28 GMT Maty

And with all this tech

you still have to pay through the nose for the basic wireless access on a laptop that most North American airports supply as standard.

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Tuesday 23rd November 2010 22:10 GMT Anonymous Coward

500 Displays - 10 Gb/s

The '90's are calling,they'd like to tell you about multicast.

By the way, no one can hear the CNN/ITN/BBC news on the monitors anyway, so why not save the power/cable/network ports/service fees and just get us onto the plane/out of the airport quicker.

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