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Verizon and AT&T begrudgingly agree to avoid airports as they finally turn on C-Band 5G
Airlines want bigger buffer zones, perhaps more of them
AT&T and Verizon have delayed their plans to turn on C-Band 5G towers around even more airports than they originally promised to avoid in response to yesterday's multi-airline petition against them to government regulators.
FCC kills plans to allow in-flight phone calls to either your great relief or mild disappointment
The proposal had been in the pipeline since 2013
There are plenty of ways to pass time on a plane during long flights, but making phone calls or using personal data plans aren't going to be one of them. Today, the Federal Communications Commission canceled plans to set rules that could have allowed in-flight voice and data services via passengers' personal phones — it only took seven years of hearing arguments from both sides.
If you're not an airplane buff (I'm not), chances are that you haven't heard of ADS-B tech. In layman's terms, it's a surveillance technology that uses satellite navigation to position and track an aircraft, and it's gradually replacing ground radar. The FAA has created a virtual reality app to showcase what using ADS-B is like in flight, and it's out now on the Play Store.
For those of you who haven't heard about it, PowerUp makes smartphone-controlled paper airplanes. They're relatively inexpensive, with a basic PowerUp 3.0 costing $24.99, and they work pretty well which has led to them becoming incredibly popular. The last time PowerUp used Kickstarter to launch a product, it closed on .2m after asking for only $50,000. This time around, the goal is just $25,000. It's not hard to see where this is going.
Ajit Pai was appointed as the Federal Communications Commission's new chairman shortly after the election of President Donald Trump. As a self-described opponent of net neutrality, it came as little surprise when he closed the organization's investigation into zero-rating in February.
A few years ago getting Internet access while on an airline flight seemed like magic. Now in the not-too-distant future, the connection in your plane might be faster than the one in your home. According to a press release issued by Virgin America, new technology from corporate partner ViaSat will improve its satellite Internet connection by a factor of five to ten times thanks to a next-generation satellite. The new technology offers speeds of up to 140 gigabits per second spread across the entire network, which should mean "8 to 10 times faster" speeds for individual users, enough for reliable music streaming and (maybe) some video.
Let's change the way we think about Google Glass for a moment. At the end of the day, they're just too jarring for the average person to feel comfortable wearing in public. To people who don't know what they are, they're weird. To people who do, they're $1,500 worth of easily-stolen accessory being flaunted on your face.
For a long time now, Southwest Airlines' Android app has been awful. I mean just lamentably bad. No, seriously, here are some screenshots of the app before today's update... and oddly, Southwest hasn't even updated the screenshots in the Play Store.
We've all been there: for 20 minutes during takeoff and landing, the cabin of an American airliner becomes a virtual Faraday cage as every passenger is told to turn off everything with a battery, from the latest Android superphones to the humble Game Boy. This practice has been heavily criticized in the last few years, and there's finally some real movement towards tossing it out the window. The Wall Street Journal reports that a Federal Aviation Administration advisory panel has recommended approving electronic devices for use during takeoff and landing, including WiFi data access.
If you long for the sound of a Packard engine sputtering to life inside an aluminum death machine, you'll definitely want to check out Bombshells: Hell's Belles. But don't look for killer gams on the nose art: Glu Mobile's latest offers plenty of eye candy sitting right inside the cockpit. Bombshells is an air combat game in the vein of Crimson Skies or SkyDrift, with a definite slant towards cartoony, arcade-style gameplay rather than simulation. The game is a free download from the Google Play Store, and like most of Glu's offerings, it's supported by in-app purchases.
American Airlines began rolling out Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablets to premium cabins today, giving premium passengers innumerable ways to pass time on long flights. The initial rollout sounds quite impressive, covering select transcontinental and other domestic flights, and offering 70 movies on top of the Tab's numerous other entertainment options.
A couple of weeks ago, I ran into a new game by Art in Games called AirAttack HD Lite, which was a free preview version of a top-down plane shooter, but with only 2 levels. The game was polished so well that I finished the 2 levels in a heartbeat and was left longing for more. In fact, if you remember, I called AirAttack HD "not your dream game, but the one after that."