What is Digg?43 Comments
- iQuinn, on 10/12/2007, -0/+39Virgin actually seems to "get it", unlike the rest of the industry.
- drizek, on 10/12/2007, -1/+23Thats why they run linux...
- xabstract, on 10/12/2007, -0/+19I would choose an airline if they offered free internet. Simply based on that.
- themastersb, on 10/12/2007, -2/+18I wouldn't go inside anything other than a Virgin.
- zombiedog, on 10/12/2007, -0/+12Don't worry. The Inflight Entertainment is totally separate from the flight control system computers. In fact, there are 7 flight control computers backing each other up.
And paulmdx, all the planes are new. No older planes at Virgin America. - spazmotron, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8Very cool.
I'll be flying with Virgin if the price is right. - wilf_brim, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8Humm. Text chat in an airplane. At least now you will KNOW that teenhottie69 is a 52 year old fat, hairy guy.
- paulmdx, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9How disappointed are you going to be if you book a Virgin flight then get one of their older planes..
"No, you don't understand, I don't want to upgrade my seat, I want to upgrade the whole %&*ing plane!" - megamind5005, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7This look like a new emerging platform for developers; no doubt some people will come up with excellent ideas to make them rich and make flying geeks happy!
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5http://www.engadget.com/photos/mega-hands-on-virgin-americas-airbus-a320-with-red-in-flight-entertainment/156820/
LOL - schestowitz, on 10/12/2007, -3/+7Here's another video of this:
http://johncacka.com/a-geeks-dream-plane - malcolmreynolds, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I say....
Let VA fly! - bewareofcabbage, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4I guess most of these culture-lacking swine haven't seen "The IT Crowd" :p
- zombiedog, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3We are working on internet in flight. Right now there are cost & bandwidth issues. The good news is the planes are ready when the linkup becomes ready.
- raada, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Scandinavian airlines (SAS) had it until this New year... The provider than dropped it for some strange reason..
http://www.scandinavian.net/EC/Appl/Home/FrontDoor/0,3479,SO%253DF1B7DA08D37042A7_A1E1D318E95EA28B%2526MKT%253DUS,00.html - EmileVictor, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I'd like to make note that the moment someone puts USB ports (or any type of port) in a commercial airline they will be filled with chewing gum within a few weeks. I do not envy the person with the job of clearing chewing gum out of 300 USB ports.
- bmson, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2This system is coming to Iceland-air later this year.
I would also expect it in other airlines. - cdlund, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2As this is Virgin America all of the planes will have this system. I do not know if they plan on brining the full version to Virgin Atlantic.
- cbergeron, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2This is incredibly impressive...!
Let's lobby our damn politicians to let these planes fly here in the USA! - kingkilr, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2It seems really cool, but I can't imagine using any of those features if they charge for them above and beyond the cost of the ticket, I'd much rather sit down and just listen to my iPod and read a book then shell out for their service.
- omaryak, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2It brings back the social element of travel. People used to get together in the dining areas on train cars.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2*goes in virgin plane*
*sits down and pops up the Linux monitor*
KERNEL PANIC!! - lordnibbla, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Yeah, all that seems like it would be great, USB!?!? hah Sweet. I'd LOVE to fly Virgin again. Last time (~5? yrs ago) I was on a trip to London for vacation with my dad and brother, and they had a games console in the back of the seat back then too!! But it had snes games witch was pretty cool, idk but it seemed that they had a similar service set up cause I doubt they had a real snes. Well really multiple snes's for each passenger. But it was my guess at the time that they had a similar setup to what they got now runnin snes emus :D I even got all kinds of goodie bags filed with : socks, notepad, toothbrush/paste, AND a rubber ducky.
Now thats what I call service! - LeeVal, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1http://www.letvafly.com/VADIFE.php. Better description of were everything is and what everything runs and does
- nandasunu, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1They had practically all this stuff when I flew Virgin Atlantic a few years ago, don't remember seeing any usb ports though. The best thing is that they don't just have one or two episodes of a few shows/movies, they have complete seiries, for some shows (UK office etc.) they have every show ever, on demand...
Now if we could get this stuff on Virgin trains also... =) - tiburon33, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I'm in. If only the DOT had approved it sooner rather than waiting.
I would go to Orlando in this, and feel rested and ready for Universal studios. Oh well.... - omaryak, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I'm afraid to learn too much about this entertainment system for fear that I may never see it in the air - too much excitement only to be followed by too much disappointment. I can only hope that VA's competitors are paying attention.
- eaasness, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Not to sound like a noob, but what are the USB ports for? Powering USB devices?
- galore, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0WOW. Every time I fly with an American carrier I am stuck in a super old MD80 with super old grouchy flight attendants. What a difference...
- rajulkabir, on 10/12/2007, -0/+010 movies? Pfft. That's why Korean is the ugly duckling of Asian flag carriers. There's 100 video-on-demand channels on Singapore Airlines. Plus countless CDs, player-to-player video games, etc.
- gexplorer, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I went to Korea too with Korean airlines and I was so surprised about that entertainment service that the 14 hour flight was almost short for my taste heh It's really impressive, they had even movies that came to the theaters to Spain one month after the flight. And yeah, you could just enjoy the flight falling in love with the cute flight attendants hehe They all were in front of me while entering the airport and... wow.... xD
- rajulkabir, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Asian and Middle Eastern airlines have had this stuff for many, many years. It's mainly in the US (and even worse, Europe) that in-flight service is so horrible.
That said, Northwest's A330s for international service have great legroom and the same video-on-demand service that's being talked about here, and have had it for at least four years.
The day you see it in coach class on a ***** airline like Lufthansa or KLM is the day the world ends. - bobartig, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I had something like this flying on Asiana back from korea. I saw this funny button array on the seat divider, and thought 'gee what a terrible place to put seat controls.' After I sat down, I realized it popped out of the seat divider and was a controller for the in-flight entertainment. The controller was like a bar phone on one side with a card swipe for making over-priced calls, and the other side was the normal airline seat controls, along with directional pad and buttons a la SNES controller (complete with shoulder buttons). Using the controller, I could select from about 10 movies, a few dozen videos, such as concerts, sit-com episodes, or E! style celebrity news shorts, and videogames from Popcap and some other casual game devs. On top of this, it controlled music stations, and the usual in-flight GPS/map style info screens. No internet or chat functionality, and the whole setup looked a few years old. Flying trans-pacific is a lot easier when you can watch movies on demand, or play a few rounds of Bookworm adventures and arkanoid-clone on the plane! And if that doesn't keep you busy, you can always oggle their super gorgeous flight attendants.
- Simtech, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0I hope you aren't disappointed when your bags don't arrive because there was no room to put them on the plane. All these gadgets take up cargo space and they may have to bump a few bags.
- diggsIt, on 10/12/2007, -4/+3Never flown before?
- gparkla, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1Yeah, being inside a nice, shiny Virgin is nice but there is still something to be said about an older more experienced airline.
- MrVW, on 10/12/2007, -4/+1thats quite a few
- cbergeron, on 10/12/2007, -4/+1@spazmotron:
And if you don't live in the USA. Virgin Atlantic isn't allowed to fly in the United States.
We need to fix that *****, ASAP. - diggsIt, on 10/12/2007, -7/+3This is going to make many people wonder, 'how this thing works w/o Windows'?
- MrVW, on 10/12/2007, -6/+1yep just think if they ran a windows OS it would not only make your computer crash but also the plane
- Persol2point0, on 10/12/2007, -7/+2A virgin who 'gets it'?
- MrVW, on 10/12/2007, -16/+5so wheres the IT department on this plane for when things go wrong or they plane gets a virus.
"hello virgin A320 IT Department"
"hi yes im in seat 23B and i seem to be experiencing a problem with my system"
"have you tried turning it off and on again"
The Digg Toolbar for Firefox lets you Digg, submit content, and keep track of Digg even when you're not on the Digg site. Download the official 
© Digg Inc. 2009
— Content created and posted by Digg users is