Passengers will no longer be able to pack loose lithium batteries in checked luggage beginning January 1, 2008 as new federal safety rules take effect. The new regulation, designed to reduce the risk of lithium battery fires, will continue to allow lithium batteries in checked baggage if they are installed in electronic devices, or in carry-on baggage if stored in plastic bags.

Common consumer electronics such as travel cameras, cell phones, and most laptop computers are still allowed in carry-on and checked luggage.  However, the rule limits individuals to bringing only two extended-life spare rechargeable lithium batteries, such as laptop and professional audio/video/camera equipment lithium batteries in carry-on baggage

The following quantity limits apply to both your spare and installed batteries. The limits are expressed in grams of “equivalent lithium content.” 8 grams of equivalent lithium content is approximately 100 watt-hours. 25 grams is approximately 300 watt-hours:

• Under the new rules, you can bring batteries with up to 8-gram equivalent lithium content. All lithium ion batteries in cell phones are below 8 gram equivalent lithium content. Nearly all laptop computers also are below this quantity threshold.

• You can also bring up to two spare batteries with an aggregate equivalent lithium content of up to 25 grams, in addition to any batteries that fall below the 8-gram threshold. Examples of two types of lithium ion batteries with equivalent lithium content over 8 grams but below 25 are shown below.
• For a lithium metal battery, whether installed in a device or carried as a spare, the limit on lithium content is 2 grams of lithium metal per battery.
• Almost all consumer-type lithium metal batteries are below 2 grams of lithium metal. But if you are unsure, contact the manufacturer!

Indeed this regulation will first be applicable on US registered aircrafts but as usual we may see this new regulation applicable on all International flights. 

Usually all electrical devices, including batteries, are subject to safety certification so either their are considered to be safe or manufacturer has to review quality and safety of its products. 

I really wonder on which basis these new rules are made from. Did anyone saw any incident statistics, reports etc.. (apart Sony made laptop batteries) or is it just one additional constraints air travel passengers will have to deal with.

After lighters and matches in 06, liquids in 07, 08 will add batteries to the restriction list.

All details are here as well as the complete list of items with air travel restrictions

Not yet sure if it is a good news or not, but Air France has become the first airline in the world to offer an in-flight mobile phone service on international flights.

One Airbus A318 aircraft operating European routes has been fitted with a mini GSM base station to provides 123 passengers the possibility to :

• Send and receive sms and mms messages
• Send and receive emails via all phones with Internet access

During the second half of the trial, passengers will be able to make and receive phone calls, with the service being regulated to maintain passengers’ comfort and well-being.

If passengers kindly turn off ringing traffic data from/to an aircraft should not be a big deal, if not journeys may become quite annoying with uninterrupted flow of incoming messages ringing alert.

Hard to imagine how will be a long haul flight with full mobile phone services (voice and data) "offered" to passengers. 

At the end of the six-month trial, Air France will examine the feedback and comments made by customers to determine whether to launch this service on all its flights.

What is your feeling about the availability of in-flight mobile phone service ? 

For the technical part,
Air France uses Mobile OnAir onboard mobile telephony system, certified by EASA (European Aviation Safety Authority) which does not interfere with the radio-navigation instruments on this Airbus A318 and may only be used at cruising altitude once the new illuminated sign “Switch off your phone” is turned off (recycling the "no smoking" sign ?).  The system is activated at 3,000 metres (10,000 feet).

More about this trial on AirFrance site including a video of the 1st trial flight.

8th of November: World Usability Day "Make life easy" 

Swiss UPA, the Swiss chapter of the Usability Professional Association proposes to ease access to free public wireless networks using a specific sign ((o)) that would help users to detect easy to use wireless networks. 

Today, before getting online using a wireless device, users have first to find an user-friendly wireless access point and then try to connect to it.

The user has to detect which wireless networks are available from his location and check if they are public and free of charge. Often wireless network names do not inform the visitor if the access to the network is free or not. The wireless access point might not be protected but once connected users are redirected to a page where they will be invited to purchase access rights.

Swiss UPS also highlight the fact that once connected to a free and public wireless network, it is not uncommon to reach an authentication page before getting access to the Internet. This procedure has 2 main disadvantage:

• Some authentication pages cannot be completed when using a Smartphone or a PDA.
• Some services such email, Instant Messaging, VoIP, etc… do not require the use of a browser and users cannot pass easily through this authentication method.

To make users' life easier, Swiss UPS proposes to include at the beginning of the SSID (Service Set Identifier which broadcasts the name of the wireless network) of public and free wireless networks the  following distinctive sign:  ((0))

Usage of the sign ((o)) is free and open to all individuals, collectivities and organizations which operate a WiFi network respecting  Swiss UPA usability charter.

More about Swiss UPA (in German), UPA International (English) and about World Usability Day

Source: Canard WiFi 

Cory Doctorow wrote this Creative Commons-licensed fiction story for Radar Online magazine.

  Une version française est disponible ici

“Give me six lines written by the most honorable of men, and I will find an excuse in them to hang him.” –Cardinal Richelieu

“We don’t know enough about you.” –Google CEO Eric Schmidt

Greg landed at San Francisco International Airport at 8 p.m., but by the time he’d made it to the front of the customs line, it was after midnight. He’d emerged from first class, brown as a nut, unshaven, and loose-limbed after a month on the beach in Cabo (scuba diving three days a week, seducing French college girls the rest of the time). When he’d left the city a month before, he’d been a stoop-shouldered, potbellied wreck. Now he was a bronze god, drawing admiring glances from the stews at the front of the cabin.

Four hours later in the customs line, he’d slid from god back to man. His slight buzz had worn off, sweat ran down the crack of his ass, and his shoulders and neck were so tense his upper back felt like a tennis racket. The batteries on his iPod had long since died, leaving him with nothing to do except eavesdrop on the middle-age couple ahead of him.

“The marvels of modern technology,” said the woman, shrugging at a nearby sign: Immigration–Powered by Google.

“I thought that didn’t start until next month?” The man was alternately wearing and holding a large sombrero.

Googling at the border. Christ. Greg had vested out of Google six months before, cashing in his options and “taking some me time"–which turned out to be less rewarding than he’d expected. What he mostly did over the five months that followed was fix his friends’ PCs, watch daytime TV, and gain 10 pounds, which he blamed on being at home instead of in the Googleplex, with its well-appointed 24-hour gym.

He should have seen it coming, of course. The U.S. government had lavished $15 billion on a program to fingerprint and photograph visitors at the border, and hadn’t caught a single terrorist. Clearly, the public sector was not equipped to Do Search Right.

The DHS officer had bags under his eyes and squinted at his screen, prodding at his keyboard with sausage fingers. No wonder it was taking four hours to get out of the god damned airport.

Read the rest of this entry »

It is impressive to see the quantity of bad news that reached Microsoft's headquarters this week.

Motivation may not be at its highest level in Redmond.

• Only 60 millions licenses (sic!) of Windows Vista have been sold. It is rather low considering that includes OEM and Corporate agreements (companies getting Vista licenses as part of their contract, but with no short-term plan to deploy it).

• Yahoo announced the acquisition of Zimbra, an open source server and client software for messaging and collaboration (email, group calendaring, contacts, and web document management and authoring).
• Google welcomed "Presentation", a new addition to the Google Docs & Spreadsheets family which has now all elements to compete with MS Office.
• IBM released the beta version of Symphony, a web-based open source office suite, based on the open document format (ODF).
• International Standard Organization (ISO) rejected Microsoft Office 2007 file format, called Office Open XML (OOXML), to be recognized as an ISO standard. Critics said the format was flawed and laden with MS-specific features.
• SCO group, a Microsoft ally to seize parts of the Linux market, took step of filing for Chapter 11 protection in U.S. Bankruptcy Court.

Last but not least

Microsoft lost its appeal before the European Court of First Instance regarding 2004 European Commission act that found MS abusing of its near-monopoly position. Final  Microsoft's bill in fines (689 millon USD) and penalties could reach about 2.8 billions USD.

Don't worry Bill, on Monday starts another week!  

At 15h35 local time (08h35 GMT), flight OG/OX269 crashed during landing at Phuket Airport. Apparently landing took place under heavy rain and the Boeing MD-80 went out of the runway, crashing into the jungle near by breaking in tow parts before bursting into flames.

123 passengers (70 foreigners) and 5 aircrew were on board and according last official report, 87 of them have perished. Wounded have been transfered to Bangkok's Phuket Hospital. 

Bangkok Pundit is live blogging information about this crash as they are released from thai and international media.

One Two Go airlines has released additional phone numbers for enquiries regarding this accident 

085-155-4622
085-911-5092
085-918-3422
02-535-7662
02-504-3227
02-504-3641

On Sunday at Kathmandu International airport, Nepal Airways sacrificed two goats in front of one of their flagship Boeing 757 aircrafts to appease Akash Bhairav, the Hindu sky god, following technical problems that force the company to suspend flights in the recent weeks.

"The goats were sacrificed in accordance with Hindu traditions, and the snag in the plane has now been fixed and the aircraft has resumed its flights" according a senior airline official.

We all feel safer now, isn't it?

It is certainly more as efficient as most rules that passengers must obey during air travels (no matches; no liquid; no electronics as well as windows shade up and seat back up right during take-off/landing etc..). Who knows!

A Swiss man, was convicted on 29th of March for 10 years in Prison on charge of insulting His Majesty the King by vandalizing His portraits during a drunken spree. 

Pleading guilty to five counts of lese majeste — the crime of offending the dignity of a sovereign — for defacing several portraits of His Majesty with spray paint in the northern city of Chiang Mai, the court has reduced his sentence to 10 years.

He could have faced up to 75 years in prison as Lese Majeste is a serious crime in Thailand.

On Thursday 24th of April, the prosecutor announced that His Majesty the King Bhumibol Adulyadej has pardoned the Swiss man. As a result, he will be deported from Thailand after his release.

A good news for this 57 year old guy and a good gesture which will hopefully be followed by others, as the actual political turmoil has seriously damaged the international image of the Kingdom.

Happy Sonkran ! 

Sources: The Nation and BBC

Three months after the United States successfully pressed the United Nations to impose strict sanctions on North Korea because of the country’s nuclear test, Bush administration officials allowed Ethiopia to complete a secret arms purchase from the North, in what appears to be a violation of the restrictions, according to senior American officials.

Article continues in the New-York Times

Questions : 

• May Kim Jong-Il have his new ipod now ?
• Who will complain first when UN resolutions will not be followed and respected by most of its members ?  

Further reading :

• United Nation Resolution 1718 : Acting under Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter, but barring automatic military enforcement of its demands under the Charter’s Article 41, the Council unanimously adopted resolution 1718 (2006), which prevents a range of goods from entering or leaving the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and imposes an asset freeze and travel ban on persons related to the nuclear-weapon programme…continues

• Leading by Example: How We Learn About Leadership, a Paper Presented at the NEIA Annual Conference, Sun Valley, Idaho – June 9-13, 2004. (NEIA = National Executive Institute Associates, Major Cities Chiefs Association, Major County Sheriff's Association).

The weekend was the grand opening of the 28th International Motorshow of Bangkok. The perfect opportunity to see how different such an exhibition can be here in Asia, as the only one I knew so far was the Geneva's one. 

The first surprise was to see where some exhibitors are located inside the exhibition hall. Imagine, just beside the prestigious british car maker Bentley you can find Carryboy (fiberglass hard tops & accessories manufacturer) and Club Car (golf cars & utility vehicle).

Then, come the real show…lots, but a lots, of pretty models everywhere. Normally (or I guess so), they are here to guide and inform potential customers on presented vehicles…nothing is less sure. In fact, I was wondering if cars were just there to serve as shiny background for the casting of new Southern Asia Top models (it's not a complain).

In South Korea, times have changed, and Korean design has advanced to the point where the need has waned to employ hundreds of pretty models at the upcoming Seoul Motor Show (6-15.4). Hyundai models will drop in number from 46 to 36, Kia is going from 44 to 36, and miniskirts and "sleeveless shirts" will be less prevalent in an effort to put more emphasis on the cars.

In resume, with global warming concern, if car sales go down and skirts stay up, the planet will be a better place to live (Monday philosophy!).

Flickr Photo Set : Intl. Motorshow
Source (about Seoul) : Autoblog