Author: Julie Campbell

The first B747-8 planes have now been delivered with the in flight AeroMobile service.

Boeing has now delivered its very first B747-8 aircraft that will be completely line fitted with the in flight AeroMobile mobile technology service that will then be expanded across many more.

This first craft has been delivered to Lufthansa, a German carrier which seeks to expand the service.

Lufthansa has stated that it will be rolling out the mobile technology throughout all of its long haul fleet before the end of this year. Aside from the B747-8 model aircraft, there will be another model from Boeing that has also already received its clearance for the line fit of AeroMobile. This will be the B777-300ER. Among the customers for that aircraft are Singapore Airlines, Etihad Airways, and Thai Airways.

The AeroMobile mobile technology is based in the United Kingdom and allows for cell phone use.

The tech makes it possible for passengers on the fitted aircraft to be able to use their smartphones to be able to make calls, send texts, and surf the web while they are on a flight. AeroMobile has established roaming agreements with over 240 wireless operators that will then pass the costs onward to their own subscribers.

According to Kevin Rogers, the chief executive at AeroMobile, “Consumers expect to be connected 24/7 and being up in the air is no longer an exception.” Clearly, it is the intention of these airlines to be able to provide a service that allows them to continue to meet those expectations so that they can provide consumers with the experience that they want.

Rogers went on to explain that last year, this mobile technology service observed an increase of nearly 80 percent in the number of passengers who were using their smartphones and mobile devices while they were onboard. Within that same span of time, there was also ten times more data usage than there had been the previous year, and there was a 50 percent rise in the number of text messages that were sent and received. Clearly consumers expect to be able to communicate regardless of whether they are in the air or on the ground.

Students in Lufkin are enjoying a much more technology friendly experience in their lessons.

Students across the Lufkin district in Texas took part in a Digital Learning Day, which allowed them to learn about how to use a popular type of mobile devices to be able to scan QR codes in order to gain more information through the use of technology.

The students discovered how mobile gadgets could read the quick response codes.

According to Jaren Chavros, a student at Dunbar, “A QR Code without the devices, it just looks like black dots, but the devices can scan and all the little dots are like words for the device.” The students learned how to use common mobile devices to scan QR codes and open up a range of information. In this case, it was presented to them in the form of clues that were critical to moving forward in a recycling scavenger hunt.

The QR codes were seen as a great opportunity to help to bring together technology and a lesson in recycling.

According to Summer Garcia, the LISD technology specialist, “I thought it would be a great way to integrate what they are doing with recycling and something they could easily use with the devices they were bringing.”

Once the students used the mobile devices to scan the quick response codes, they would receive the clue that they would need to head off to the next among the five different stops – the first among which was the playground. Finally, when they had completed the scavenger hunt, they had the opportunity to show adults what they had discovered along the way.

Although the program was available to children from the second grade and up, Garcia acknowledged that they could have started younger as kids before that age are already well aware of how to use those mobile devices and could quickly learn how to scan QR barcodes.

By the time the children had scanned the QR codes and learned all of the recycling lessons from the scavenger hunt, they were then keen to share what they had discovered with their parents, spreading the word even further.