Boeing to speed up inflight information systems innovation to once every 20 years?

Volkswagen, Google and Nvidia are teaming up, it seems, to build a Google Earth-based car navigation system.

The idea is to use satellite image-derived pictures on the carnav screen so you can relate what's on the screen more easily to your actual surroundings.

Cool idea, wrong application. Such a system requires a lot more accuracy than Google Earth can offer now or in the near future. But it's good news for inter-city nomads: it's about time that the inflight navigation systems which first started to appear about 20 years ago were revamped. The little screens showing you the plane's progress seem somehow to have fallen between the cracks of progress.

The most obvious coalitions would be - let me think - Microsoft and Boeing ("Seattle Satnav Systems") and Google plus Airbus ("Euro Earth Entertainment").

Come on guys, who gets there first?