Emirates, the airline based in Dubai, has become the first to allow the use of mobile phones for making calls and sending texts during flights. So farit’s only been done on a flight between Dubai and Casablanca, on an Airbus A340 that had been fitted with special equipment to prevent the calls affecting electronic flight systems, but it willbe expanded to other planes and routes, the BBC reports. Later this year the company will be able to accommodate BlackBerrys and other smart phones. The system will only be allowed once theplane reaches cruising altitude, and can be monitored and controlled by the cabin crew, who will prevent voice calls during night flights, when they might disturb other passengers. Nor will there bethe chirping of ringtones, as passengers will be asked to keep their phones on silent. The airline, which flies to some 60 countries, has introduced the service because of passenger demand.The system, developed by Aeromobile, has the approval of the international air safety groups. AeroMobile Chief Executive Bjorn-Taale Sandberg said, "We have gone to considerable lengths to ensure that all safety and regulatory issues have been fully addressed."
Tag Archive: Dubai
Emirates Allows In-Flight Mobile Calls
Repairs Begin on Undersea Cables to Mideast
A week after damage to undersea fiber-optic cables severely crippled Internet access in much of the Middle East and India, repairs on the cables have finally begun. Work has commenced on two of the three cables that were severed last week, but finishing the repairs could take another week.
Flag Telecom’s Europe-Asia cable and another known as SEA-ME-WE 4 were both cut last Wednesday off the coast of Egypt, while another Flag cable, FALCON, was severed on Friday near Dubai. Flag sent ships to repair both of its cables on Tuesday, despite extreme weather conditions on the site of the Europe-Asia cable repair that could hamper the process. Repairs on that cable are expected to take six to seven days, while FALCON repairs should be done in three to four.
Third Cable Break Cripples Mideast Internet
The two cable breaks last week put massive pressure on Internet and telecom communications in the Middle East and South East Asia. Could it get any worse? Apparently so. A third cable break, forinstance. And that’s exactly what happened. With repairs on the first breaks not due to begin until tomorrow, another one, known as the Falcon cable, has snapped, according to theBBC. "The situation is critical for us in terms of congestion," Omar Sultan, chief executive of Dubai’s ISP DU,told AP. It’s meant that communications have had to be rerouted around the globe, but the big problem has been Internet access. In areas of the MiddleEast there was a 70% disruption, while the first break caused a 60% disruption in India. The new break means there’s only one, older cable connecting the Middle East and Europe. It could be several more days before Middle Eastern Internet service is back to normal, although India was at 80% capacity by the end of last week.
Much Of India, Middle East Loses Internet
If you live in India or the Middle East, there’s a good chance you’re not able to read this right now. Two undersea communications cables in the Mediterranean were severed yesterday,severely disrupting Internet services and international phone calls across the Middle East and India, the Associated Press has reported (and, incidentally, taking outquite a few of those Indian call centres). It’s estimated that 70% of the Internet service in Egypt is down, and 60% in India. The damage could take up to a week to fix. Aspokesman for DU, one of the ISPs in Dubai that’s been affected, told AP that the fault was in a cable between Palermo, Italy and Alexandria, Egypt. In astatement the company said, "We are working actively with the submarine cable system operators (FLAG Telecom and SEA-ME-WE 4) to ascertain the reasons for the cables being cut."However, there’s no suggestion of terrorism. The current theory seems to be that a ship’s anchor did the damage near Alexandria.
New LG Qiblah Phone Points To Mecca
LG’s F7100 model is equipped with more upgraded functions compared to the initial Mecca indicator phone launched last year. Thus, LG Electronics is pushing to further strengthen itsregion-friendly marketing.
LG Electronics has introduced to the market the Qiblah phone (model:LG-F7100) which comes complete with embedded compass, direction indication and prayer time alarm (Azan feature), usable in 500cities worldwide. LG Electronics has launched the Mecca indicator phone in UAE, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and other Middle East nations, as well as North African nations. LGE held a launching ceremony inDubai, on July 20th.
Sanyo range of multimedia LCD projectors ex
The new technology launched by Sanyo comes at an appropriate time, as a response to the growing demand created by the region’s ambitions to become an international conference hub.
Sanyo, currently market leaders in the LCD projector segment with a global market share of over 30%, has introduced a new range of projectors that are feature-rich and are set to redefine theprojector market. The portable PLC-XP46 and the large venue PLC-UF15 have been developed to upgrade and enhance the capabilities of a number of projector models. The PJ-Net Organiser Plus, a wirednetworking system provides advanced tools for the control and administration of one or more projectors from a single computer.
