[Aerial VOD]
Pat, You're a globe trotter so I thought you might enjoy the cropped story below. It's got nothing to do with copper but illustrates what we can aspire too down here.
Emirates Airlines, of the Middle East, which flies to Melbourne three times a week from Dubai, was the first airline in the world to base its global marketing on in-seat services. It took a decision to install pop-up videos in every seat in every plane - and other airlines started to sit up and take notice when Emirates, in several different surveys, was voted best airline in the region by business travellers.
Of course, pop-up videos are now simply a piece of standard hardware: it's what can be done with them that is at the centre of the action.
Singapore Airlines (SIA), which, with its ever-popular"Singapore Girl" image, likes to market itself as first with the latest, went with the Kris video system supplied by Japan's Matsushita Corporation, which is being fitted to every seat in the company's fleet, including economy class. Aside from about nine video channels and a raft of audio channels, the control unit for each seat includes a satellite telephone activated by a swipe with a credit card (at about $A10 a minute).
But even before it has completed its fleet fitout, SIA has announced that it is buying a new Matsushita system, dubbed AVOD (audio-visual on demand), that roughly doubles the number of video channels available and enables passengers to dial up movies and other video programs on demand, instead of at pre-set screening schedules. |
