The crafty little advertising move comes at a time when Chrome needs a boost to take on the Web browser competition. Currently Chrome has 8.5 percent of global users, according to NetMarketShare, compared to 59 percent for Internet Explorer, 23 percent for Mozilla Firefox and 5.4 percent for Apple’s Safari. Yesterday, the new social browser RockMelt launched, and while the only people using it so far are avid followers of tech blogs, the company will obviously need to figure out a way to use some of its $10 million in funding and its investors’ experience building browsers to gain market share. (Interestingly, NetMarketShare says mobile browsing is only 2.8 percent of the market. Room to grow.)

Google’s in-flight Wi-Fi will be on domestic AirTran, Delta and Virgin America flights (which use Aircell’s Gogo service) from Nov. 20 to Jan. 2 (which is sadly 23 days shorter than last year’s promotion).

Image courtesy NASA.

But while it’s technically possible to use that same technology to Skype with your friends or families or whomever, airlines won’t let you do it.

The reason should be self-evident, but not to Federated Media’s John Battelle. Who apparently does this all the time.

Except on a flight this week, when a United Airlines attendant told him that using Skype in flight is a security violation.

That’s not true. But with the help of the Web–and, apparently, State Department employee Katie J. Stanton–Battelle pieces it together: Airlines ban in-flight video chat because it’s incredibly annoying for everyone who’s not chatting.

Or in Federal Aviation Administration-speak, the airlines are “simply responding to the overwhelming majority of their customers, who prefer silent communications to the public nature of Voice-over-Internet-Protocol (VoIP) calls.”

Battelle insists his Skype chats provoke nothing but “amusement” from his seatmates. But my hunch is that it’s only dumb luck that has kept him from getting pummeled by a fellow passenger to date. That United attendant did him a real favor.

Provided by Aircell, the service will cost laptop users $9.95 for flights of less than three hours and $12.95 for longer flights. Travelers using Internet-ready handsets will pay $7.95 regardless of the length of their flight. And make no mistake, the data show they will pay. Apparently, $10 is a pittance for distraction when you’re trapped in a center seat on a packed flight with “Paul Blart: Mall Cop” as your only in-flight entertainment.

“[People are] working, they’re doing their e-mail, they’re going into their corporate networks, they’re going to their Facebook page, they’re Twittering, they’re doing YouTube and other video sites, but they’re in fact doing more of it,” Aircell CEO Jack Blumenstein told the Dallas Morning News. “The data shows that people use almost twice as much of data during the course of a session and stay on almost twice as long as when they’re at a hotel or a hotspot on the ground. People clearly are engaged by it when they’re flying.”

[Image credit: Flickr/Bekathwia]

Provided by Aircell, the service will cost laptop users $9.95 for flights of less than three hours and $12.95 for longer flights. Travelers using Internet-ready handsets will pay $7.95 regardless of the length of their flight. And make no mistake, the data show they will pay. Apparently, $10 is a pittance for distraction when you’re trapped in a center seat on a packed flight with “Paul Blart: Mall Cop” as your only in-flight entertainment.

“[People are] working, they’re doing their e-mail, they’re going into their corporate networks, they’re going to their Facebook page, they’re Twittering, they’re doing YouTube and other video sites, but they’re in fact doing more of it,” Aircell CEO Jack Blumenstein told the Dallas Morning News. “The data shows that people use almost twice as much of data during the course of a session and stay on almost twice as long as when they’re at a hotel or a hotspot on the ground. People clearly are engaged by it when they’re flying.”

[Image credit: Flickr/Bekathwia]

Airline passengers will soon have a new option for getting wired at 30,000 feet.

This morning, Delta Air Lines said it will offer wireless Internet access across its entire domestic fleet by mid-2009. Though much larger in scale, the service is identical to the one used American Airlines (AMR), which Walt reviewed earlier this year.

Provided by Aircell’s Gogo, Delta’s (DAL) in-flight broadband will offer 3.1Mbps-connectivity for $9.95 on flights three hours or less, and $12.95 on flights of more than three hours. Not an unreasonable price. According to a 2007 survey by Forrester Research, 26 percent of leisure travelers would pay $10 for Internet access on a two- to four-hour flight and 45 percent would pay that on a flight longer than four hours. For business travelers, the percentage is quite a bit higher.

“Time on an airplane was either time lost or time found,” said Tim Mapes, Delta’s vice president of marketing. “This is going to totally change the dynamics of what a business trip is. Our customers are demanding of us the same type of wireless service they have on the ground.”

And they may even be able to use it, if they can get their laptops past The Department of Homeland Security …

Airline passengers will soon have a new option for getting wired at 30,000 feet.

This morning, Delta Air Lines said it will offer wireless Internet access across its entire domestic fleet by mid-2009. Though much larger in scale, the service is identical to the one used American Airlines (AMR), which Walt reviewed earlier this year.

Provided by Aircell’s Gogo, Delta’s (DAL) in-flight broadband will offer 3.1Mbps-connectivity for $9.95 on flights three hours or less, and $12.95 on flights of more than three hours. Not an unreasonable price. According to a 2007 survey by Forrester Research, 26 percent of leisure travelers would pay $10 for Internet access on a two- to four-hour flight and 45 percent would pay that on a flight longer than four hours. For business travelers, the percentage is quite a bit higher.

“Time on an airplane was either time lost or time found,” said Tim Mapes, Delta’s vice president of marketing. “This is going to totally change the dynamics of what a business trip is. Our customers are demanding of us the same type of wireless service they have on the ground.”

And they may even be able to use it, if they can get their laptops past The Department of Homeland Security …