OnAir has so far tested their calling/texting-only service on two aircraft--one operated by Air France, one by TAP Portugal--even though RyanAir announced plans that its planes would started being unwired with the service by late 2007. Still no word on that fleet progress.

Qantas will apparently launch cached Web browsing and limited Web email (probably through a proxy) along with instant messaging, with full Internet service coming "later in 2009." This is clearly due to a lack of satellite coverage that was just remediated a few weeks ago (see below). The first plane with limited service, a new A380, should be in flight 20-October-2008.

The Morning Herald seems to overstate the importance and scope of a complaint filed by the union representing American Airlines' flight attendants. The detailed coverage in the U.S. had more to do with the potential for issues, and likely attendants lack of interest in policing yet another media on the plane. Filtering doesn't work, the attendants probably already know, and this may just be a negotiating point with the airline.

On why Qantas is waiting until late 2009? This requires unwinding how OnAir gets its signal.

Aeromobile and OnAir both rely on Inmarsat satellites for their service. Both companies had several years ago staked their futures on the fourth-generation network Inmarsat was to inaugurate with three satellites that would use beamforming to allow precise delivery of nearly 500 Kbps per receiver, with hundreds or thousands of regions being able to be targeted from a single satellite. Inmarsat's third-gen network--don't confuse this with 3G cellular ground-based networks--can deliver about 64 Kbps per channel.

Now, unfortunately, Inmarsat was three years late on launching its trans-Pacific bird. While the company claims 85 percent coverage of the earth and 98 percent coverage of population, there's a big gap over the Pacific that also prevents them from having good overlap between the U.S. and Japan/China/Korea, as well as the southern Pacific, covering Australia. Since the biggest market for long-haul flights would likely be Australia, Japan, and China, traveling trans-Pacific or trans-hemispheric routes, that gap is rather large.

Aeromobile opted to build out a service, deployed only by Emirates airline as far as I can tell, that uses the 3G service since it was available, and most necessary equipment is already installed on most over-water planes. OnAir was waiting for 4G, which has necessitated a long wait, but allowed them to launch in Europe with a seemingly next-generation service. Given that OnAir is controlled by an airline-owned integration firm, SITA, and by Airbus, they're not going anywhere.

Inmarsat finally lofted its third satellite on Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on 19-August-2008, and the launch and separation was reported as successful. Previously, the company has needed up to a year to verify and deploy its 4G satellites. (You can read extremely close coverage of the launch at a Web site devoted to space enthusiasm.)

However, the dirty little secret about Inmarsat's BGAN is that it costs a fortune to heft bandwidth across it. Thus, in-flight broadband over BGAN, if it's ever available, is going to be changed on an extremely high per-MB rate. None of the providers want to say this. This is in contrast to Row 44 (and, once, Connexion by Boeing), which relies on leased Ku-band transponders where they can fix costs and they require high volumes to keep per-bit costs efffectively low.

OnAir's launch of calling on Air France's service involves paying a few euros per minute for calls, which might help you understand what data costs could ultimately run.

The Zune doesn't include a Web browser or any Internet focused features; it's not an iPod touch. But you can use Wi-Fi to browse the Zune Marketplace for music and games, and download new songs in programmed channels, music selections created by a variety of artists and stations. Zune offers both music purchases and a subscription for unlimited music listening. The new models range from $149 for an 8 GB flash model to $249 for a 120 GB hard drive-based player.

The feature I'm most interested in is Buy from FM, which leverages the built-in FM tuner and very low-bandwidth data that's already pushed over analog AM/FM. (See my write-up of this feature from last week.) With Buy from FM, when you're listening to radio stations that participate, you'll be able to click a button and buy the song you're listening to if you're connected to a Wi-Fi network. Zune Pass subscribers can download the song at no additional charge. If there's no Wi-Fi network, the song download or purchase is queued.

Wayport's marketing head Dan Lowden said, "Obviously, it's cool because folks who already own a Zune device and just need to do an upgrade will be able to use this just as with any of the new Zune devices that they start selling as soon as possible." (Microsoft may have a little accounting work to do: Sarbanes-Oxley doesn't let you enhance a product in the market without a fee if you realize the revenue all at once.)

The benefit for Wayport is to have yet another hefty but undisclosed fixed sum underlying its fixed infrastructure costs. In the past, Wayport has done deals with Nintendo, ZipIt, and Eye-Fi to allow all devices in a category unlimited access at McDonald's locations. McDonald's obviously gets more customers, or existing customers who spend more time or visit more frequently.

A partnership with a hotspot operator means that Microsoft doesn't have to provide tools and their users endure frustration in joining a network. "We're experts enabling one click to get this network connected," Lowden said. He noted that Wayport has opened test labs to work with manufacturers in Japan, San Francisco, San Diego, and Seattle. "We're working with these guys from day 1 to make sure it's one click to get connected," he said. I'd also note that San Diego happens to be where Qualcomm's headquarters are located, not that Lowden gave me any tip-off there.

And I have to just say: burn, burn, burn on Apple. Despite Apple partnership with AT&T, which relies on Wayport to operate the AT&T-branded hotspot network and resells access to Wayport's own network, iPhone and iPod touch users have no inclusive Wi-Fi service. AT&T slipped a few times and ostensibly opened up their network or released details that iPhone users would gain free hotspot access--like all AT&T's fiber and all its standard and premium DSL customers.

As Wi-Fi becomes an expected part of any handheld gadget, the venues in which Wi-Fi is used multiply beyond cafes and hotels. Lifestyle locations--which could be clothing stores, nightclubs, ski resorts, and the tops of mountains suddenly become places where people want the same kind of access they have at home. Ultima thule is already unwired.

The New York Times rounds up using cell phones as hotspots: Though the reporter, Bob Tedeschi, mentions the issue of having to have an unlimited data plan to avoid unpleasant charges, and worries about bad drains and malicious users, he doesn't note that many carriers don't allow this kind of sharing or routing without a separate "tethering" plan, that can run $20 or more per month. Also, U.S. carriers have now all imposed a 5 GB per month reasonable use cap; some will cut you off, some charge you more, some cancel your service based on exceeding this use.

Gigabit Wi-Fi? Someday: TechWorld considers the IEEE's Very High Throughput (VHT) study group, which wants to start work on 1 Gbps or faster Wi-Fi standard for completion in 2012. With 802.11n offering raw symbol rates up to 600 Mbps--even though no devices have shipped with the radios and antennas to offer that optional high speed yet--there's interest in other frequencies that would allow faster encodings, as well as aggregating multiple links to achieve high speed rates. My experience in testing and using 2.4 GHz with Draft N would show that wide or aggregated channels doesn't work very well. The article's writer, Peter Judge, notes that ultrawideband had potential (over short distances) to approach the gigabit mark, but that UWB hasn't really reached the market in any substantive way years after it was promised to be a big technology.

Flight attendants express concerns about in-flight broadband porn: When I've spoken to airlines, industry experts, and service providers, I find that they all have stories about how porn is viewed on computers, through DVD players, and in convenient magazine form on planes today. Adding the Internet may provide new salacious imagery, but the problem predates Internet access, and filtering Internet service is never as good a solution as a social one. Someone idiotic enough to view porn on a plane over the Internet is also stupid enough to bring along inappropriate DVDs they watch while seated next to children. Flight attendants already have the power vested in them to take care of this. The flight attendants for American might be expressing this concern as part of a bargaining issue, where their responsibilities but not commensurate pay have increased.

Spokane ends free Wi-Fi: Remember Vivato? Boy, I sure do. A company with a reach far exceeding its grasp, Vivato initially powered Spokane's downtown network. The network has continued to run on some basis--I'm not sure using what equipment--and now will move from free to fee. OneEighty Networks will charge about $10 per month to cover the costs of the network, for which local businesses at one point chipped in.

Brazilian TAM airline signs up for in-flight calling, messaging: OnAir has signed up the Brazilian carrier TAM, which will deploy the service on its Airbus A320 craft. Brazil hasn't yet provided regulatory approval, so no launch date is noted. TAM is the largest domestic and international carrier for Brazil.

Is it possible that the F.B.I. is right about the statistics it cites, and that there could be 122 nine-out-of-13 matches in Arizona's database?

Perhaps surprisingly, the answer turns out to be yes. Let's say that the chance of any two individuals matching at any one locus is 7.5 percent. In reality, the frequency of a match varies from locus to locus, but I think 7.5 percent is pretty reasonable. For instance, with a 7.5 percent chance of matching at each locus, the chance that any 2 random people would match at all 13 loci is about 1 in 400 trillion. If you choose exactly 9 loci for 2 random people, the chance that they will match all 9 is 1 in 13 billion. Those are the sorts of numbers the F.B.I. tosses around, I think.

So under these same assumptions, how many pairs would we expect to find matching on at least 9 of 13 loci in the Arizona database? Remarkably, about 100. If you start with 65,000 people and do a pairwise match of all of them, you are actually making over 2 billion separate comparisons (65,000 * 64,999/2). And if you aren't just looking for a match on 9 specific loci, but rather on any 9 of 13 loci, then for each of those pairs of people there are over 700 different combinations that are being searched.

So all told, you end up doing about 1.4 trillion searches! If 1 in 13 billion searches yields a positive match as noted above, this leads to roughly 100 expected matches on 9 of 13 loci in a database the size of Arizona's. (The way I did the calculations, I am allowing for 2 individuals to match on different sets of loci; so to get 100 different pairs of people who match, I need a match rate of slightly higher than 7.5 percent per locus.)

"Q: Where do you see Russia fitting into this as it comes onto the scene?

Rogers: I don’t. Russia will continue to disintegrate. The Soviet Union has already broken up into 15 countries. Putin controls Petersburg, Moscow, a few airports, et cetera, but Russia never has been a homogeneous [nation] - I mean, in the Soviet Union there were 124 - the "official" number was 124 - ethnic, linguistic, religious, historic and national groups. 

It’s broken up into 15 states. It’ll be 50 … it’ll be 100 [states] before it’s over. Ukraine may break up next. Who knows who’ll break up [after that]? Maybe even parts of Russia. 

To the bulls who say I’m wrong, my rejoinder is this: Let me ask you about Chechnya. The Russians have been trying to deal with Chechnya for 15 years with no success. 

Chechnya’s the size of Connecticut. Chechnya has a million-and-a-half people. If they can’t handle Chechnya, how is the Soviet Union, or Russia, going to handle these other places that are pulling away? 

There’s capitalism there, but it’s outlaw capitalism. If you’re good with dealing with the Mafia, you can probably make a fortune, if you’re on the ground [there]. For the most part, they have a lot of natural resources, which has been great. 

They have huge foreign reserves, but they’re stripping the assets. 

They’re not reinvesting for the most part in productive capacity. They’re stripping the assets. You know, oil production has peaked in Russia, even though there could conceivably be gigantic amounts of oil there somewhere. Nearly everything has peaked, because they have been stripping the assets, rather than reinvesting. "

We write to express our firm belief that research on security vulnerabilities, and the sensible publication of the results of the research, are critical for scientific advancement, public safety and a robust market for secure technologies. Generally speaking, the norm in our field is that researchers take reasonable steps to protect the individuals using the systems studied. We understand that the student researchers took such steps with regard to their research, notably by planning not to present a critical element of a flaw they found. They did this so that their audience would be unable to exploit the security flaws they uncovered. . . .

The restraining order at issue in this case also fosters a dangerous information imbalance. In this case, for example, it allows the vendors of the technology and the MBTA to claim greater efficacy and security than their products warrant, then use the law to silence those who would reveal the technologies’ flaws. In this case, the law gives the public a false sense of security, achieved through law, not technical effectiveness. Preventing researchers from discussing a technology’s vulnerabilities does not make them go away - in fact, it may exacerbate them as more people and institutions use and come to rely upon the illusory protection. Yet the commercial purveyors of such technologies often do not want truthful discussions of their products’ flaws, and will likely withhold the prior approval or deny researchers access for testing if the law supports that effort. . . .

Yet at the same time that researchers need to act responsibly, vendors should not be granted complete control of the publication of such information, as it appears MBTA sought here. As noted above, vendors and users of such technologies often have an incentive to hide the flaws in the system rather than come clean with the public and take the steps necessary to remedy them. Thus, while researchers often refrain from publishing the technical details necessary to exploit the flaw, a legal ban on discussion of security flaws, such as that contained in the temporary restraining order, is especially troubling.

It will be interesting to see what arguments the MBTA uses to keep the students from speaking on a topic where all the important vulnerability information seems to have already disclosed. Sure the students haven’t presented a cookbook exploit tool but they have also stated they have no intention of doing so.

Perhaps the court will investigate what the MBTA’s and their technology vendors response has been to the MiFare card vulnerabilities that were disclosed responsibly. If there has been no vigorous response to responsibly disclosed vulnerabilities of many months ago how can they say with a straight face that are truly responding to new security information and just need more time.

We write to express our firm belief that research on security vulnerabilities, and the sensible publication of the results of the research, are critical for scientific advancement, public safety and a robust market for secure technologies. Generally speaking, the norm in our field is that researchers take reasonable steps to protect the individuals using the systems studied. We understand that the student researchers took such steps with regard to their research, notably by planning not to present a critical element of a flaw they found. They did this so that their audience would be unable to exploit the security flaws they uncovered. . . .

The restraining order at issue in this case also fosters a dangerous information imbalance. In this case, for example, it allows the vendors of the technology and the MBTA to claim greater efficacy and security than their products warrant, then use the law to silence those who would reveal the technologies’ flaws. In this case, the law gives the public a false sense of security, achieved through law, not technical effectiveness. Preventing researchers from discussing a technology’s vulnerabilities does not make them go away - in fact, it may exacerbate them as more people and institutions use and come to rely upon the illusory protection. Yet the commercial purveyors of such technologies often do not want truthful discussions of their products’ flaws, and will likely withhold the prior approval or deny researchers access for testing if the law supports that effort. . . .

Yet at the same time that researchers need to act responsibly, vendors should not be granted complete control of the publication of such information, as it appears MBTA sought here. As noted above, vendors and users of such technologies often have an incentive to hide the flaws in the system rather than come clean with the public and take the steps necessary to remedy them. Thus, while researchers often refrain from publishing the technical details necessary to exploit the flaw, a legal ban on discussion of security flaws, such as that contained in the temporary restraining order, is especially troubling.

It will be interesting to see what arguments the MBTA uses to keep the students from speaking on a topic where all the important vulnerability information seems to have already disclosed. Sure the students haven’t presented a cookbook exploit tool but they have also stated they have no intention of doing so.

Perhaps the court will investigate what the MBTA’s and their technology vendors response has been to the MiFare card vulnerabilities that were disclosed responsibly. If there has been no vigorous response to responsibly disclosed vulnerabilities of many months ago how can they say with a straight face that are truly responding to new security information and just need more time.