American Airlines passengers will now have Wi-Fi access on some flights.

The airline said Wednesday (20th August 2008) that it has finally launched its in-flight Internet access service via Wi-Fi on 15 of its 767-200 airplanes. The service, called Gogo, will be offered on nonstop flights between New York and San Francisco, New York and Los Angeles, and New York and Miami. The cost is $12.95 per flight. Passengers will be able to sign up when they boot up their browsers.

The airline will be restricting the use of voice over IP services, such as Skype, and it will still restrict the use of cell phones in flight.

Gogo is a service offered by Aircell, which is also providing Wi-Fi access to Delta Air Lines planes. Earlier this month, Delta said it was outfitting all of its domestic fleet with Wi-Fi by the middle of next year. Virgin America, which is also using Aircell’s Gogo service, will launch its service by the end of the year, the company has said.

And JetBlue Airways is testing its Wi-Fi access on routes between San Francisco and New York. Southwest Airlines and Alaska Airlines are also testing in-flight Wi-Fi. And others such as United Airlines are considering offering Wi-Fi, but it hasn’t announced tests or a commercial launch.

Aircell’s pricing is uniform across all the airlines that use it. The company charges $9.95 for flights of three hours or less. And it’s $12.95 for all flights over three hours. Initially, American Airlines will only be offering Wi-Fi on coast-to-coast flights.

Helping my mate to get a router since I’m going again (with the “free” ticket), this time around, the security collected my entrance ticket Anyway,  this is the ASUS WL-500W router at the price of HK$499 (MYR 220) but packed with lots of great features like Bitorrent download without PC, Samba server, FTP hosting, Web Camera remote monitoring and more! To me, this is really a good buy as it’s a Wireless N router, even the famous Linksys UFO router selling about MYR 260 in KL (IIANM). Check out the pics…

Infact, there are lots of nice gadgets in the fest, like this one, I like it very much but didn’t buy. Guess how much they are selling for ? Just HK$1480 (MYR 645) but of course the recording media is SDHC, so you need to top up a 8GB card for 3 hours of 720p HD recording. Full specs and details at SPEED-HK website.

I’ve been checking review online and looks like quite a good DVCAM to consider if you are shooting some personal video very often. The recording in memory card make it very easy to do editing compare to the old MiniDV video camera.

And since I’m going with my Sony DSC-T5, more booth babes…

Just realise there’s no specific date printed on the entrance ticket and it says valid from 22nd – 25th August 2008. Does that means I can go again and skip the long Q to get in today ? Okay I think I will try my luck this time with a better camera…

After a long long day out for HKCCF (the PC Fair in HK), I’m finally back in the hotel. If you think the PC Fair in KL is crowded and packed with people, the “PC Fair” here is worst! First of all, the entrance is NOT FREE! Everyone has to pay HK$20 to enter unless you are in the “FREE” category like Trade Customer, Elderly Citizen, etc. Since I’m here, I don’t mind to pay the HK$20 but I have to queue for more than 1 hour just to get to the ticket booth! Thank god I bring along my PMP (Portable Media Player) so I’m still fine with the waiting (except for the standing all the way!)

During the walk in the fest, there are numerous occasion where I was wrapped with lots of people and just couldn’t move even one step forward and have to force myself to “stone” for few minutes. Can you imagine? Just so “sardine” feeling…I spend about 6 or 7 hours in the fair walking around. Guess what? I found a dirt cheap PDA, it cost HK$20 (MYR 8.70)and it’s new set (I’m not kidding!). It’s an old old Handspring Visor Solo, Palm OS 3.1, 2MB RAM running on 2 x AAA battery. Check it out…

And I bought a “pocket size” wireless router which cost about HK$219 (MYR 95.00) from ASUS, this is a real small size router which can easily fit into anyone’s pocket! Good to pack it with your laptop and instantly create a small wireless hotspot of your own! See…

Just like every IT EXPO, there are booth babes everywhere. I should have brought a better camera, anyway, enjoy the shots!

Here is the latest Tropical Cyclone Bulletin issued by the Hong Kong Observatory.

At present, strong winds are prevailing over Hong Kong with gales over offshore waters and on high ground. In the past hour, the maximum sustained winds recorded at Waglan Island, Lau Fau Shan and Chek Lap Kok were 87, 59 and 59 kilometres per hour respectively.

One thing good to be physically in Hong Kong (just realise earlier today), as many of you like to watch the famous TVB drama series, I like it too! But when I’m physically here in Hong Kong and saw some of the nice spot in the drama, I realise I can just check out that spot in like few mins or hours with MTR or taxi ? Isn’t that nice ?

But I’m yet to do that, see if I’m “hardworking” enough to move my arse…

After watching the pathetic Olympics Badminton Men Final (Malaysian player LeeCW did badly and lose to Lin Dan from China), I came across an interesting map while surfing…

More info @ http://www.telegeography.com/products/map_cable/index.php

Do you know Tracey Cox? Some people probably do but I bet many of my friends don’t. I’m not going to introduce her (not giving free advertising!) but suggest you to google for her and you’ll probably come across tons of articles written by her.

I hope you enjoy reading them…