Fliers Ready For Airborne Cyber Access
Tech-savvy frequent fliers yearn for the ability to surf the Internet and exchange e-mail at 30,000 feet, a new survey shows.
The poll, sponsored by Lycos Inc., Hoover’s Online and inflightonline.com, found that 77 percent of airline passengers would pay for a service that offers e-mail, World Wide Web access and entertainment options on their PCs, if the costs are spelled out ahead of time.
The survey also showed that interactive weather (75 percent), news (63 percent) and stock quotes (49 percent) would also be popular services in the air.
While only 49 percent of those surveyed said they’d use such a service for 30 to 60 minutes on a two-hour flight, 92 percent of respondents said they’d surf for that amount of time on a flight longer than two hours.
The study was conducted by Ipsos-ASI Interactive research company, which polled airplane passengers, ages 25-60, who had flown at least once in the past three months and used a laptop while flying. It has a margin of error of plus or minus five percent.
Whether you’re earthbound or airborne, the following Web sites may be worth a glance:
M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O …: The Walt Disney company, synonymous with family entertainment, has launched a new Web site that specializes in family travel.
Walt Disney Internet Group says VacationTogether “caters to the special travel needs of a family and is committed to making the difference between an OK trip and a great vacation.”
The site includes sections on vacations; places to go; flights, cars and hotels; and travel tips.
http://www.vacationtogether.com
Market pickers rewarded: If you fancy yourself an astute student of the stock market, here’s your chance to pick up some cash for correctly guessing closing values for three market indices.
If you can predict exactly the close of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the Nasdaq Composite index and the Standard & Poor’s 500, you can pocket $10,000 from Stockbrokers.com, which is running the contest as part of a one-year anniversary celebration.
Even if you don’t nail all three, you can pick up $50 for coming closest to the actual Dow Jones figure. And you’ll get $25 for referring a friend who later becomes a winner.
http://www.stockbrokers.com
Fighting the good fight: Anyone concerned about environmental degradation and the threat of global warming can use a new feature of the American Forests’ Web site to measure his or her carbon dioxide emissions.
Visitors to the site can enter exact data, such as their car’s gas mileage and the number of kilowatt-hours of power they used last year, or use pull-down menus to enter U.S. averages.
You’ll be given the option of “planting” trees online — at a cost of one buck apiece — to help offset those climate-affection CO2 emissions.
http://www.americanforests.org