Travel & Travel Technology News.Aug 13, 2007 How Safe Are E-Passports? The US Department of State began issuing electronic passports (e-passports) a year ago this month. E-passports are virtually the same as traditional passports, except for one very special feature: a small integrated circuit integrated circuit (IC), electronic circuit built on a semiconductor substrate, usually one of single-crystal silicon. The circuit, often called a chip, is packaged in a hermetically sealed case or a nonhermetic plastic capsule, with leads extending from it for or "chip" embedded in the back cover. This chip is meant to securely store the biographical information and digital image that are visually displayed on the passport, but a German security researcher has now twice demonstrated that it may not be very secure at all. According to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. a recent article in tech magazine Wired, Lukas Grunwald, an e-passport consultant to the German parliament, last year found ways to pull information from the passports chips. This information could be transferred to a forged read-write chip that would appear valid to security officials when read. Now Grunwald has found flaws that will allow someone to replicate valuable information from these chips, such as fingerprints, as well as ways to disrupt passport readers made by two different manufacturers. He says these two manufacturers readers are presently in use at some airport entry points. Grunwald believes this means people can manipulate the readers to approve defunct passports, as well as forged ones. At this time the U.S. Department of State's Web site has no response to these new findings. Aug 10, 2007 A new mobile phone operator, Roaming Network, will shortly launch a world premier in mobile technology with the first ever dual-SIM phone, which enables customers to use one operator SIM for local calls and the other, Roaming Network SIM, for calling abroad. Aug 8, 2007 Companies jockey to bring broadband to the skies. The first steps to bring the Web to the skies were tripped up by the industry slump that followed the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Now it appears that better technology and an ambitious group of would-be providers will soon make in-flight Internet connections available to commercial passengers. Aug 7, 2007 Air France KLM KLM Kaiserliche Marine (Enigma: Rising Tide game) KLM Koninklijke Luchtvaart Maatschappij (Royal Dutch Airlines) KLM Klub Langer Menschen (German: Tall Person Club) KLM became the first airline to offer self-service check-in to passengers at Kuala Lumpur International, using the SITA-installed CUSS kiosks now in operation there. Together with Malaysia Airports, SITA installed 12 CUSS kiosks with 24 more to follow over the next few months. SITA said CUSS check-in applications for both Malaysia Airlines and Cathay Pacific will be placed on the kiosks before year end and the option also will be available to some 40 other carriers using KLIA KLIA Kuala Lumpur International Airport . Aug 7, 2007 American Airlines, AirCell American Airlines is teaming with Colorado-based communications provider AirCell in the launch of an onboard Wi-Fi system on transcontinental flights early next year. The high-flying broadband service is expected to give travelers the ability to check e-mail, surf the Web, access corporate intranets, and monitor the latest news through the use of any Wi-Fi enabled laptop, PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) A handheld computer for managing contacts, appointments and tasks. It typically includes a name and address database, calendar, to-do list and note taker, which are the functions in a personal information manager (see PIM). , or smartphone. Aug 10, 2007 Kahn Travel Communications Kahn Travel Communications Ends Reign With CT Richard Kahn and his team of 10 employees at Kahn Travel Communications (KTCpr) will end their stretch of nearly 14 years as the public relations public relations, activities and policies used to create public interest in a person, idea, product, institution, or business establishment. By its nature, public relations is devoted to serving particular interests by presenting them to the public in the most agency for the Caribbean Tourism Organization The Caribbean Tourism Organization's main objective is the development of sustainable tourism for the economic and social benefit of Caribbean people. The CTO provides to and through its public and private sector members, the services and information to accomplish this goal. (CTO (Chief Technical Officer) The executive responsible for the technical direction of an organization. See CIO and salary survey. ) as the CTO is migrating its marketing and public relations responsibilities to the newly formed Caribbean Tourism Development Company effective Sept. 1 Aug 7, 2007 KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, SITA KLM Royal Dutch Airlines is offering self-service check-in to passengers at Kuala Lumpur International Airport Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) (IATA: KUL, ICAO: WMKK) is Malaysia's main international airport and is situated in Sepang district, in the south of the state of Selangor, about 50 km from the capital city, Kuala Lumpur. (KLIA), using the SITA-installed Common-Use Self-Service (CUSS) kiosks which are now in operation. In its plan to upgrade its IT system, KLIA in partnership with SITA has included CUSS as part of the programme. KLIA handled 24.1 million passengers last year and it is expected that some 40% of the passengers using the airport will eventually check-in using SITA's AirportConnect CUSS kiosks Aug 6, 2007 Lockheed Martin Savi Technology, a Lockheed Martin company and provider of Radio Frequency Identification See RFID. (RFID (Radio Frequency IDentification) A data collection technology that uses electronic tags for storing data. The tag, also known as an "electronic label," "transponder" or "code plate," is made up of an RFID chip attached to an antenna. )-based total asset management solutions, today announced the first six companies that have agreed to license Savi's intellectual property, which is now incorporated into the new global standard (ISO (1) See ISO speed. (2) (International Organization for Standardization, Geneva, Switzerland, www.iso.ch) An organization that sets international standards, founded in 1946. The U.S. member body is ANSI. 18185) for electronic cargo seals (e-Seals). E-Seals are an emerging class of active RFID devices with built-in security and tracking features. Aug 6, 2007 Lufthansa Systems Lufthansa Systems will help Air Dolomiti implement e-ticketing. In a first phase, the Italian carrier will incorporate interline in·ter·line 1 tr.v. in·ter·lined, in·ter·lin·ing, in·ter·lines To insert between printed or written lines. in agreements with Lufthansa and Austrian Airlines. Aug 9, 2007 Microsoft NASA NASA: see National Aeronautics and Space Administration. NASA in full National Aeronautics and Space Administration Independent U.S. and Microsoft have teamed up to give people a 3D photographic look at the space shuttle Endeavour before its launch this week, in a public-private partnership that could lead to more use of digital imagery in future space-agency missions. Microsoft on Monday will release a downloadable viewer that includes hundreds of photos of the space shuttle, NASA's vehicle assembly building and the shuttle's launch pad at the Kennedy Space Center Kennedy Space Center (Cape Canaveral) U.S. launch site for manned space missions. [U.S. Hist.: WB, So:562] See : Astronautics in Cape Canaveral, Fla. Aug 6, 2007 Polynesian Airlines Radixx International announced that Polynesian Airlines selected the Radixx Air Enterprise Edition reservation and distribution management system. Aug 7, 2007 Sabre, Amadeus Sabre and Amadeus apply for non-air business JV In an extraordinary development, arch-rivals Sabre and Amadeus have filed for anti-trust immunity with the European Commission (EC). The two bitter competitors have asked the EC for anti-trust approval to create a joint venture focusing on non-air operations such as hotels, cruise, tour, car and rail. Aug 8, 2007 TravelClick TravelClick, a hotel e-marketing company, has released the results of its quarterly eMonitoring service, revealing global hotel revenue from electronic bookings has risen 16.8% in the first quarter of 2007. TravelClick also revealed the top ten worldwide destinations for electronic hotel bookings in the first quarter of 2007, with London in the lead at 1,464,544 bookings, up a sizeable 18.9% from the same quarter last year. Interestingly, all other destinations on the list were in the US: New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of , Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington/Baltimore, Chicago, Dallas, Atlanta, Houston and Boston. However, none of these showed anything like the rise of London bookings, with New York increasing by 6.6% and Los Angeles a mere 0.2% since last year. Aug 8, 2007 TravelClick TravelClick, a hotel e-marketing company, said the number of bookings made through global distribution systems (GDS GDS Global Distribution System GDS Google Desktop Search (Google) GDS Goodie Domain Service (Vienna University of Technology, Austria) GDS Guards ) and key internet sites has grown 5.7% compared with the same period in 2006, while the Average Daily Rate (ADR ADR - Astra Digital Radio ) increased by 10.5%. Length of stay remained consistent at 2.11 nights. Reservations made by travel management companies (TMCs) and agents represent 81.2% of total hotel bookings and are a key source of higher rate business for the hotels, with average room rates 43.6% dearer than internet fares. Aug 8, 2007 Virgin America Virgin America passengers can download music, send text messages. Virgin America will offer air travelers the opportunity to text message and download music from a 3,000-song library on flights. Aeronautical aer·o·nau·tic also aer·o·nau·ti·cal adj. Of or relating to aeronautics. aer  o·nau Radio will provide a real-time broadband payment system. Aug 7, 2007
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