I’m always fascinated by the way people find information, especially on the Internet. This past weekend I was graced with the presence of my parents who came into town for a visit. We ended up going to dinner with a couple who were their old college friends who they had not seen for over 40 years! In fact they had no communication of any sort with them for that entire length of time. How did my 65 year old mother find them? A few pieces of key data and Google was all it took.

She started off with the most obvious of searches – the first and last name of the husband. Next she added in the city of Los Angeles as a clarifier. Both searches yielded a ton of results.

The couple was originally from Asia and my mother knew their Chinese names. It’s very common for Chinese Americans to use their Asian name as their middle names so she added in a middle initial to her search query. Bingo, a much narrower set of results.

After clicking on a few results, she was able to find his full name, an age that seemed to fit, occupation which matched his old college major, and an address within the Greater Los Angeles area. She wasn’t 100% sure this was their old friends so she next tried a search of the first and last name of his wife. She quickly found results with the same address as the husband to corroborate her first data point. A quick snail mail letter yielded a phone call and  a face to face dinner to reminisce about their good ole college days.

It’s amazing how much information lives on the Internet and how just the smallest of clues can lead to a positive search outcome. The next search for my mother? Another long lost college classmate whose name was brought up during dinner. Sounds like another 40 year old gap is about to be bridged.

Finally…is how I feel to have a working WordPress app again on my iPad. I didn’t realize how much more I enjoyed blogging via the iPad then logging in through a PC. It’s pretty obvious now as it’s been many months since my last post. It’s time for bed but this is a good sign of more blog posts to come….

I flew on the new Airbus A380-800 on my flight back from Sydney and it’s definitely more impressive than I thought it would be.

First off, the plane is pretty large – two levels and 90+ rows. In economy, it has a 3-4-3 seat layout. The seats have a new look too. The cushions have a bright checkerboard weave pattern. The seat back has a plastic faux carbon fiber look/feel. As an added bonus, the lower seat cushion slides forward for a more comfortable position when reclining.

The key feature is the large approximately 10-inch wide touchscreen entertainment system. It houses a ton of new, family, and best picture Oscar winning movies. There’s tv shows, business documentaries, audio books, music, games, and even a skycam from the top of the plane’s tail. Everything worked pretty smoothly and all through an easy to use touchscreen. Much easier than fiddling around with a remote control.

Here’s a quick snapshot of the screen:

For a guy who’s over 6 feet in height, seeing a Smartcar as a rental car was definitely a head scratcher. We’ve rented small, economy cars before like the Kia Rio but this one was the smallest one yet (at least from the outside).

The interior was surprisingly roomy but did only have space for two people. The dash was laid out efficiently with all the controls within an acceptable reach. There was also space to store your pocket items like iPhone and sunglasses so that was a plus. The mirrors were tiny and your over the shoulder view was straight into the trunk. Speaking of the trunk there was enough space for a Costco pack of toilet paper and not much else.

In terms of driving, the car felt like a golf cart. The seat felt high off the ground, the roof was tall, and the outside seemed closer then it should be. The motor was small and underneath the trunk floor. Supposedly it supplied only 70 HP and it definitely felt weak. The acceleration was slow and the steering felt shaky above 60 mph. Ever bump was felt and strong winds felt a bit unnerving. The brake was floor mounted and definitely needed to get used to.

All in all, the results were mixed. I liked the concept and was pleasantly surprised by the interior space. On the other hand, the drive was pretty crappy and felt unstable. The jerky motion from the gear box shifting and strange brakes were undesirable. It’s probably ok for local putting around to the grocery store but not much else. For guys my size you’ll probably feel like your driving a clown car — not the feeling you’d probably want. Fun for a rental but definitely not one to own.

I just flew to SJC and started to think about how technology could be used at airports to make flying more efficient. There are definitely implementation and privacy for some of these ideas but here they are:

1. An app/website that allows you to track where parking shuttles are. It would be great to know how long before the next one would arrive. Also the ability to check in at shuttle stops could help alert drivers which stops have passengers waiting and if they need to send more than one.

2. The ability to use iPhones and other smart phones as your boarding pass. Already being tested by airlines like Delta but something that definitely should be rolled out.

3. Geolocate/track passengers. Allow for gps tracking of passengers so you can track them to make sure they are in valid areas of the airport. Also you could use it for tracking passengers if they had checked in but aren’t at the gate and the flight is getting to leave.

4. Create a marketplace to easily trade seats. Have the ability at a kiosk or mobile app to post a price you’d be willing to trade your seat for. That way if you had an exit row seat, aisle seat etc. you could sell it for a profit if you didn’t value the seat as much as someone else. Airlines could facilitate the transaction and take a percentage for the move.

5. Offer limited free wifi on airlines to purchase content. Airlines could offer a closed system accessible by wifi to stream content to someones laptop, iPad, iPhone, etc. This could be a pay per use model to get new movies, games, ebooks, and more. You could easily change content since it’s all in digital format and you wouldn’t have to retrofit old seats with new screens.