Hasta La Gadget!

Updated. JetBlue now says they’ve returned Live TV and entertainment to all of their flights. Wow, things change fast.

Original post. New security regulations put in place after last week’s terrorist incident aboard a Northwest Airlines jet are going to make flying into the US difficult, boring and unpleasant, at least for a little while.

First, the good news: both Virgin America and Southwest confirmed that new regulations don’t seem to affect domestic US flights. So laptops, Live TV and other distractions are still A-OK if you’re flying within the USA.

The problem comes for folks flying into the USA from elsewhere. According to rules quoted on Gizmodo, you can’t hold anything in your lap or access your carry-on bags for the last hour of a flight, and any in-flight communications equipment, including live TV and Internet, must be turned off for the entire duration of the flight. Airlines have so far interpreted this to mean that you can read an analog book, but not use a laptop during that final hour. It’s unclear whether this prohibits iPods or other gadgets that could be stored in a pocket rather than a lap.

But wait! It gets worse! JetBlue confirmed to me this morning that because they can’t unravel their Live TV system from the rest of their in-flight entertainment, they’re turning off all in-flight entertainment on flights from foreign countries into the US. That means no movies for the whole flight (although you can use your laptop, except for the final hour). They’re working on a solution to allow for movies on flights into the US, they said.

JetBlue only flies relatively short international routes, mostly to and from the Caribbean. We haven’t heard details from any longer-haul carriers who don’t have live TV integrated into their entertainment systems.

Fortunately, reliable airline analyst Chris Elliott says that several of the security bulletins involved expire on January 1, which means that this draconian regime may be short-lived.

For a full guide to the new security regulations – independent of gadgets – check out Frommers.com.

VUDU, the video streaming service, is giving users a new way to explore movie content with today’s latest firmware upgrade: Wikipedia is now embedded into the service. Each movie page in the VUDU user interface will now have embedded links in the film descriptions. Clicking on a film’s title, for instance, will take you to its Wikipedia page, and links within Wikipedia will also work, so you can skip from topic to topic if you are really into Wiki-surfing. Probably the best feature, however, is “Links on VUDU”, which allows you to jump right back to VUDU via Wikipedia. In other words, if you click on a Wikipedia link for Edward Scissorhands, then click on Tim Burton’s Wiki link and decide you’d like to see what movies of his are available for download or streaming on VUDU, you can easily do so with the click of a button. Recently, VUDU also embedded Rotten Tomatoes into its user interface.

It’s also worth noting that, while we said this is a “firmware upgrade”, since VUDU’s user interface is streaming and web-based, the update will be automatic for all users–there’s no need to actively upgrade anything.

It’s Friday, and it’s just about Halloween, which means you’re probably sitting in your cubicle eating candy for lunch and looking at photos of dogs dressed up as Darth Vader. Just me? Well, Gearlog has a few
spooky sites for you to check out.

1. If you didn’t get around to carving your own jack-o-lanterns this Halloween, then you can do so online. Check out this virtual pumpkin carver from vidugiris.com.

2. It’s too late to mail a Halloween card, but it’s not too late to send an e-card! Take a look at these Halloween e-cards from MyPunchBowl.com before it’s too late.

3. Although this has nothing to do with tech, it’s still extremely disgusting, and a great cake for this spooky holiday. Check out Instructables’ Brain Cake.

4. Thanks to Popular Mechanics, you can spy on those hooligans coming to toilet-paper your house, or steal your Halloween decorations with this DIY pumpkin surveillance camera.

5. Spruce up your computer with a flashy Halloween desktop. (Via LifeHacker)

6.  It might be a little too late for this year, but you can always get an early start for next Halloween:  Check out the Pumpkin Pal Stake (pictured above) which lights up your jack-o-lantern by sticking the stake directly in the pumpkin. 

Happy Halloween!

Finding it difficult to be happy with the current state of the world? Boy have we got the hat for you. The Happiness Hat takes a Pavlovian-style approach toward smiling, driving a metal spike into its wearer’s head should he or she make the mistake of frowning.

The hat’s designer Lauren McCarthy describes the function of the Orwellian device thusly,

An enclosed bend sensor attaches to the cheek and measures smile size, a servo motor moves a metal spike into the head inversely proportional to the degree of smile. Through repeated use of this conditioning device you can train your brain to smile all the time. The device runs on Arduino.

The knitted cap seems to be little more than an art project at present, but heck, it made us smile.