Ben Preiss
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To start with, every seat has 110v power, an Ethernet jack and USB ports; EVERY seat. Add to that the in-flight entertainment system called “Red” developed by Virgin and run over Linux servers giving passengers access to a 3,000 song mp3 library, satellite TV, movies, games and plane-wide chatting! That’s right, you can hook up with someone right on the plane with direct passenger to passenger messaging. You can order food and drinks though the system and play Doom, so there’s pretty much no reason to leave the plane. Another cool feature is the “food hot” button - Your movie or game is minimized and you’re able to select twhat you want from a list of food and drinks which you can add to your cart. You can pay by credit card and the flight attendants come by and bring you your order. Sweet!  Most impressive is how integrated everything feels, from the website to the in-flight experience. If you build a playlist from the 3,000 mp3s on board, the reservation system will remember it and pre-load it the next time you board. Small touches like that are easy to implement if you have the right architecture and are bound to bring a smile to at least some customers.
The IFE runs Linux, boots over the network and has a full qwerty keyboard. All the processing is done locally, with the media residing on three servers living in the rear cargo area. There are even two wifi base stations onboard, with internet access promised sometime next year.
(radar.oreilly)References: gizmodo, radar.oreilly Filed In: |
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