Today's Top Stories After months of rumors and news leaks, the Federal Aviation Administration has finally decided to allow business travelers and other airline passengers to use their personal electronic devices throughout the flight. The new policy will not take effect immediately, because each airline has to certify that their aircraft can operate safely with electronic devices turned on during all phases of flight. The FAA expects that airlines will have completed the process by the end of the year, so that passengers can anticipate being able to use their electronic devices in airplane mode through flights next year. The FAA said it based its decision on input from a group of experts that included representatives from the airlines, aviation manufacturers, passengers, pilots, flight attendants and the mobile technology industry. The group of experts, set up by the FAA, submitted a report in September recommending that most restrictions be lifted on use of personal mobile devices on airplanes. "These guidelines reflect input from passengers, pilots, manufacturers and flight attendants, and I look forward to seeing airlines implement these much anticipated guidelines in the near future," says Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx. There is one big exception to this, however. Passengers still cannot use their cell phones to make voice calls during the flight, based on Federal Communications Commission rules prohibiting their use. The FAA is asking the FCC to reconsider those rules. The concern is that long-range cellular communication could interfere with the airplanes avionics, so no mobile devices can use cellular communications during flight, the FAA explained. So the cellular connection must be disabled. Wi-Fi and Bluetooth wireless connections can be used during flight, the agency added. During takeoff and landing, lighter electronics, such as tablets, e-readers and smartphones should be held or stored in the seat back pocket. However, heavier items, presumably laptops and notebooks, have to be stored under the seat or in overhead bins during takeoff and landing. Commenting on the FAA's decision, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), chairwoman of the Senate subcommittee on consumer protection says: "This is great news for the traveling public-and frankly, a win for common sense. I applaud the FAA for taking the necessary steps to change these outdated regulations and I look forward to the airlines turning around quick plans for implementation." As FierceMobileIT reported earlier this year, McCaskill had been pushing for the FAA to lift its restrictions and threatened to introduce legislation to force the FAA to act if it didn't act on its own. The Air Line Pilots Association, which represents nearly 50,000 pilots in the United States and Canada, is less exuberant about the FAA decision. "While we applaud the FAA's view that [personal electronic device] use must be shown to be safe before being allowed, we remain concerned that relying on passengers to selectively turn off their devices in areas of extremely poor weather is not a practical solution," ALPA said in a statement. For more:
- see the FAA release
- check out McCaskill's statement
- see the ALPA statement Related Articles:
Expected FAA move long overdue
Report: FAA set to relax restrictions on passenger access to mobile devices
Report: FAA may loosen restrictions on passenger access to iPads, Kindles Read more about: Federal Aviation Administration
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In the not-dead-yet news category, BlackBerry has lined up two new customers for its BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10 enterprise mobility management platform: NCG Banco Spain and the Australian Transport Safety Bureau. NCG Banco Spain, a regional Spanish bank based in Galicia with close to 6,000 employees, is employing the BES 10 platform to managed its mixed mobile environment of corporate-liable and BYOD devices. "The integration of BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10 into NCG Banco's IT infrastructure was completed in a record time of two months, thanks to the quality and experience of BlackBerry partner ISEC7," comments José Manuel Valiño Blanco, assistant general manager of systems at NCG Banco. On the other side of the world, Australia's national transport safety investigator is migrating to BES 10 and purchasing BlackBerry 10 smartphones for its employees. "With BlackBerry 10, our investigation teams are able to navigate to locations, take and share high-quality photos and collaborate on data from any site they're sent to, all within a network that conforms to the high security standards that we need," says Martin Dolan, chief commissioner at the Australian Transport and Safety Bureau. NCG Banco Spain and the Australian agency join KPMG as a recent BES 10 customer. Earlier this month, KPMG in Italy purchased 3,500 new BlackBerry 10 smartphones and decided to migrate to BES 10. The struggling Canadian mobility firm is seeking buyers, having failed to stem its decline in the consumer smartphone market with the launch of its BlackBerry 10 smartphones. The deadline for offers is set to expire this Monday, the Financial Times reports (sub. req.). The deadline stems from the preliminary offer by Fairfax Financial, a BlackBerry shareholder, to buy the rest of the company for $4.7 billion cash offer for the company. Monday is the deadline for Fairfax to make a definitive offer and for other potential bidders to submit competing offers. Others rumored to be interested in BlackBerry include company co-founders Mike Lazaridis and Douglas Fregin, as well as Cerebus Capital Management, IBM, Microsoft, Samsung, Lenovo, Google, Cisco, SAP, Amazon and Facebook. For more:
- see BlackBerry's release on NCG Banco and the Australian agency
- read the Financial Times article (sub. req.) Related Articles:
BlackBerry Messenger for Android, iOS finally resumes rollout
BlackBerry's death notice premature Read more about: BlackBerry, BES 10
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Apple's iOS in the Car and MirrorLink will be the dominant smartphone-integration technologies used for in-vehicle infotainment systems shipped in 2018, predicts ABI Research. In that year, ABI expects 35.1 million in-vehicle infotainment systems with smartphone integration technologies to be shipped. "Car OEMs face the difficult challenges of not only how best to integrate smartphones into their vehicles, but also how to ensure that the integration strategy remains viable throughout the life of the vehicle and multiple generations of smartphones," says Gareth Owen, principal analyst at ABI. The research firm explains that smartphone-connectivity technologies integrate a smartphone into a car's head unit and enable it to be controlled by the driver through voice, head unit touchscreen or steering wheel controls. MirrorLink was developed by the Car Connectivity Consortium, which has 94 member firms, including auto makers as well as mobile communications and consumer electronics companies. The consortium includes the largest Android smartphone makers, such as Samsung, LG and HTC. There are also proprietary technologies, such as Apple's iOS in the car, RealVNC and Abalto Technologies' WebLink, ABI related. "It is inevitable that consumers will demand to be able to use their smartphones in cars, even in luxury cars equipped with the latest top-of-the-range fully embedded infotainment systems. However, OEMs producing lower-end mass-market cars will probably invest significantly less on developing their own systems and rely more on smartphones-centric infotainment solutions," Owen concludes. For more:
- see ABI's release
- check out the CCC website Related Articles:
TechNavio: Telematics market to grow at a 22.7% CAGR through 2016
Apple shifts iOS in the Car into high gear Read more about: Apple, Samsung
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