Airplane WiFi Poses Sticky Situation

Find tickets, new flights, even lounges

(NEWSER) - Every air traveler armed with a smartphone should load up on these five apps, says the Travel section of USA Today:

• SkyScanner (Free): This app will hunt down the best price for your ticket. It scans not only all of the airlines' websites but all of the online travel agencies (Expedia, Priceline) as well.
• Next Flight ($2.99): Yeah, it's relatively pricey, but worth the cost when needed. If your flight is canceled or delayed, or you just plain miss it, the app provides a list of all available flights from all carriers over the next two days. If none are there, it searches for hotels and car rentals.
• Priority Pass (Free): This app supplies a list of all the lounges at your airport. You can look through photos and amenities before deciding whether to shell out money for a pass.

For fuel or unpaid fees, depending which report you read

(NEWSER) - Flying: It’s just not what it used to be . The latest example? A plane was grounded in Vienna for six hours as the airline forced passengers to come up with an additional $31,000. Apparently charter airline Comtel is in financial trouble and hadn’t paid "landing fees or taxes," one passenger tells the Telegraph —which puts the amount raised at closer to $38,000. The AP , however, says the staff told fliers the money was needed for fuel. "They lined up the buses and said we would be removed from the plane if we didn't pay up," says one passenger. More»

He also had to forfeit his driver's license and passport

(NEWSER) - A Utah man may have gotten us that much closer to peanuts being banned on planes. Pogos Paul Sefilian is accused of throwing peanuts and pretzels at crew during a flight, and is now prohibited from flying on commercial airlines, reports Connect2Utah . He also allegedly refused to put away an electronic cigarette, opened overhead bins, and physically threatened flight attendants just before landing. He was arrested, had his driver's license and passport taken away, and will now be forced to wear a GPS tracking device. Of the verdict, Sefilian's lawyer says, "I thought it was reasonable." More»

Governments will use Internet against citizens, he warns

(NEWSER) - The Internet is the "greatest spying machine the world has ever known," WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has warned in a speech. While the Web holds great promises of increasing transparency in government operations, it will more likely be used by officials to spy on their own citizens, he told students in a rare public appearance at Cambridge University. The Internet is "not a technology that favors freedom of speech. It is not a technology that favors human rights," he warned. "Rather, it is a technology that can be used to set up a totalitarian spying regime, the likes of which we have never seen." More»

Ahumanright.org will buy, re-purpose satellite

(NEWSER) - One NGO has an ambitious New Year's resolution: to reconfigure a commercial satellite in order to offer free, low-speed wireless Internet to poor parts of the world. Ahumanright.org , a Berlin nonprofit, has placed a bid for TerreStar-1, a communications satellite that belongs to a bankrupt company. From TerreStar's perch over Papua New Guinea, the organization plans to offer wifi to portions of South Asia, Central Asia, Southeast Asia, Siberia, and Polynesia. More»