techno.blog("Dion")

As I went through the lovely process of international travel last weekend, I found myself thinking about how technology could potentially help out in a few areas.

As I picture the Finns (and others) walking up to a Coke machine, hitting a few buttons on their mobile, and getting a can out of the bottom, I wonder if we could do the same with travel?

Imagine the following scenario:

• Mobile tells you that you are able to select a seat, and checkin to your flight, 24 hours from NOW
• You choose a seat on the screen, and are officially checked in
• You are constantly updated with information on your flight. Its status, the gate number, whether the plane is actually ARRIVED to the gate yet, etc
• Some kind of handshake between your phone, and the airport systems occurs
• You can see where your luggage is at ALL times!

It would also be cool if you could select food for your flight from any food vendor at the airport, and have it delivered for your flight. Considering the quality of plane food, that would be a plus (although there are logistical issues such as what if your flight is cancelled, stand-by, etc etc).

Update

I was pinged about Airport Monitor which shows flight info in a nice Java Applet (yes, a Java Applet). It shows a backlog of info, as to not help people use the data for bad ;)