From cell phone use to high-speed Internet access, the connected life is spreading to the skies. In January, Emirates airline plans to launch mobile phone usage in its planes, making it the first airline to allow passengers to make cell phone calls on its flights. And Australian carrier Qantas plans to start evaluating technology that lets fliers use their cell phones and PDAs during flight early next year. Fliers have long been able to keep in touch with those on the ground by using phones built into the backs of airplane seats. But the costs of those seatback phones can be upwards of $10 a minute, plus a connection fee. In contrast, the cost of calls made in-flight on Emirates will be in line with international roaming rates, the airline said. Those rates vary by mobile carrier and by location but can be as low as $1 to $2 a minute.

AccuWeather.com announced a content partnership making it the Web weather provider for Mobileplay. Through this relationship, AccuWeather.com will become the weather provider on Mobileplay’s ad-supported wireless Web portal and Mobileplay customers will gain simple access to a superior range of wireless weather information.

BoxWave has released their Stealth Armor case for the O2 XDA, the FlexiSkin for the Moto Q, and the ClearTouch Anti-Glare and Crystal screen protector for the T-Mobile Dash.

Couldn’t find a Wii? No one going to buy you that fancy laptop? Someone else is going into space with Virgin Galactic? There’s no need to fret. No matter how down on your luck you are, we can find a fun, inexpensive, or completely weird and possibly insulting gift for you.

Read this Computing Unplugged article.

For people who are ready to move up to a full-featured mobile phone that includes everything needed to stay organized, Palm and SingTel introduced the Treo 680 smartphone, a GSM/GPRS/EDGE quad-band world phone, on the SingTel network in Singapore. SingTel customers will find the Palm OS based Treo 680 smartphone easy to use, slim and compact, yet packed full of features beyond its stellar phone capability, such as email, Web browsing, messaging, multimedia, calendar, contacts and more.

In an age when many consumers sought to express themselves by accessorizing common tech gadgets like iPods and cell phones with distinctive clips or colorful decorations, Henry Elgrissy felt that cool laptop covers should have their own place in the market. The Lapstyle designer laptop covers are constructed from breathable materials that allow air to flow freely. Elgrissy and Lapstyle.com have conducted lab tests on several brands and models of laptops. In addition to a growing selection of laptop computer covers, Lapstyle.com will offer designer iPod covers, clips and belt accessories. The site will also feature MPpillows, colorful and fashionable pillow covers with high-end speakers built into the fabric for convenient plug-and-play use with iPods and other portable music players.

Business professionals are constantly on the go and, as a result, they do not have time to complete every task in a given a day, even a simple task such as reading an email. MobileVoiceControl, recently acquired by Nuance Communications, believes that it has a remedy for that problem with its Narrator service, which will allow users to have their emails read aloud them. The Mason, Ohio-based speech products provider announced Dec.19 that its Narrator service is available for BlackBerry Pearl smartphone users, allowing incoming email messages on their BlackBerry device to be read aloud to users through their handset’s speaker phone, headset or hands-free car kit.

Oxy Systems, developer of mobile music and social networking services, reported new consumer and subscriber data demonstrating a great desire among teens and young adults for mobile music and social networking services on their mobile handsets. Oxy Systems’ new phling! mobile music and social networking service is currently being offered as a free pilot service to all subscribers of Swisscom Mobile, Switzerland’s largest mobile carrier.

BoxWave has released their extended battery for the Dopod 838 and various styli, cases, and cradles for the HTC Trinity and TyTN.

For the past five years, industry observers and IT professionals watched as notebooks have taken bigger chunks of the PC market, with corporate users and consumers looking for increased mobility and flexibility in their PCs and turning away from the traditional desktops that once permeated the desk and cubicles of enterprises for years. Still, the desktop remained as a mainstay of enterprises and small businesses as the expense and limited performance of notebooks remained in question. However, it seems that 2007 could be the year that notebooks, more than desktops, become the bigger revenue generator for major PC makers like Hewlett-Packard, Dell and Lenovo.