Sunday, November 18, 2007

Open Source Office in the Sky

Singapore airlines Linux in-flight entertainmentThe Singapore airlines A380 airliners have OpenOffice.org's office software available from passenger seats. The passenger plus a flash drive into supplied USB socket with their documents, then uses a thumb board and the LCD screen to look at the documents. This must make the A380 one of the biggest mobile offices ever built. ;-)

A380 thumb keyboardA380 USB socketThe only images I could find of the setup were in a Singapore airlines video. Here are two still images from the video of the thumb keyboard and the USB socket on the seat back. There is also a larger keyboard in the video which appears to be plugged into the USB socket.


The eX2-branded upgrade of the Krisworld in-flight entertainment (IFE)
system running on Panasonic Avionics’ S3000i platform will provide 100 movies,
more than 150 TV programmes, 700 audio CDs, and 22 audio programmes – all on
demand.

Passengers will be able to access files on thumbdrives via the IFE by
plugging the drives into at-seat USB ports and using the ‘QWERTY-thumboard’
provided to run documents, spreadsheets and presentations on a system based on
Sun Microsystem’s StarOffice.

From: Singapore
Airlines unveils A380 and lays out service plans
, By Kieran Daly, Flight,
15/10/07

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