Traveler 2.0

Phone Calls in Flight over Wi-Fi -- Just Say No?

USA Today reports that some airline travelers in the U.S. are making phone calls in flight.

Case in point: Roger Flessing, who says he talked to his son recently on his iPhone while in the skies. Flessing told USA Today he used Truphone, an iPhone VoIP app, which was connected to the Internet over the American Airlines aircraft's wireless broadband service.

If that weren't enough, Flessing fired up his laptop and had a video chat with his brother over Skype during the flight.

I'm all for using your tech toys in the clouds. But the thought of sitting next to a chatterbox on a packed plane during a cross-country flight gives me a sinking feeling. There's only so much noise you can block out with noise-canceling headphones. And I don't think a 'talking' zone on an airplane is the answer, either, just as no-smoking zones in restaurants don't keep the smoke from drifting.

Already some airlines outside the U.S. are allowing cell phone conversations. My hope is that the U.S. carriers will continue to ban cell phone chats in the sky, and that VoIP conversations will be verboten as well. Do you agree?

 

USA Today Article -- Most Bizarre Places to Sleep

I've spent the night in the schoolhouse that was featured in Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds, a lighthouse in San Francisco Bay, and a few other offbeat places I'd rather not mention.

But spending the night inside a wooden replica of a beagle? Can't say I've been there, done that.

But you can, if you venture to Cottonwood, Idaho. That's where you'll find the Dog Bark Park Inn, a 33-foot high B&B resembling a beagle. The inn is one of 10 great places for a bizarre night's sleep featured in USA Today. The article also includes places where you can sleep in a gypsy van, a coffin, and a jail.

Shockingly, the article fails to mention if you can get Wi-Fi access in the coffin.

My final Mobile Computing blog post ran today. http://ping.fm/Cx2Ox Focusing now on social media, SEO.

Spending all next week in a training workshop on search engine optimization. I hope to emerge by week's end as a search guru. But do gurus have to wear sandals?