Japanese Airplanes Ban Next-Gen Handheld Gamers

[wraggster]

Via OLGN

Playing wireless hand-held video games on Japanese airplanes no longer will be allowed after a revised law enforcing an earlier ban went into effect Monday. This includes PSP and the DS (but not Laptops) Also wireless computer mice and headphones that are not provided by the airlines have also been banned aboard flights. Battery chargers and toys that give off electronic sounds can’t be used during take-offs and landings, the ministry said.

Hold on here is the Good stuff - The law also has been relaxed to now allow the use of electric razors, calculators and cassette players. (Give me an F-ing break here!! Cassette players, Does anybody even still own one?)

Previously, passengers were only asked by the airlines to refrain from using gaming systems with built-in wireless functions, like Nintendo’s popular DS or Sony’s PSP.

It seems the problem lies with the handhelds’ built-in wireless functions, which, Japan’s transport minister has declared, have the ability to interfere with aircraft navigation systems and well that could be bad. Passengers will still be allowed to play game devices which don’t have wireless functions, so break out your old Game Boy because that’s about all your going to get to play.

[Prasoc]

wtf laptops can aswell goddammit

[sonikku88]

Surely, it'd be okay as long as you turn off the WLAN switch, right? And the DS only uses its wireless feature during events like using Pictochat or attemping to connect to the internet. It's not like the wireless feature is on all the time. They're all bloody paranoid. >=[

[wolfpack]

yea pc laptops have wireless functions too which can **** up the planes signals anyways, so why bother?

[pibs]

Mythbusters tested this
1. Faraday Cage, standard Avionic instrumentation: Only cell phones operating in the 800-900 Mhz band or simulated with a radio frequency generator caused any problem, but just turning on the phone made the dials swing.
2. Cab from a Piper Cub on the back of a pickup truck driven around a parking lot close to an airport, same homebrew instrumentation board- dials were swinging so wildly from the motion of the truck that they couldn't figure out if the cell phones were doing anything at all.
3. Same truck, same instruments, parked- cell phones would make the dials swing, same bands as in the Faraday Cage.
4. Cell phones and frequency generator in the back of a parked and chartered Lear Jet- No interference detected at all.

Their conclusion- it would probably take a problem with the plane's wiring to cause interference- some sort of break in the shielding of the coax to the GPS or something of that sort. But far more than just the GPS went wrong with unshielded wiring- and the federal law is probably based on the "Better safe than sorry" idea that they simply can't test all of the new cell phones coming out on the market every hour of every day.

[JKKDARK]

that's retarded. I hope it doesn't happen on Europe.

[-=me=-]

On US planes you can use it as well as the swich is off.
Even so, one of my school teams had to travel cross country, and about 5 people were playing wireless GTA for hours. the psp wireless isn't strong enough to penetrate the plane, it's range isn't far.
Congress/politians aren't scientists or engineers, they don't always make laws based on science, but popular belief. It's kinda like how cell phones were illegal at gas stations for a while.

Seriously, if small wireless handhelds destroyed planes, why don't terrorists just use them on planes, instead of go throu threw the trouble of hyjacking it?

[Buddy4point0]

haha, i get online w/ my laptop, use pictochat and play mario cart with my friends, psp too like tekken. all on a plane. and have i ever had an issue, no.

[cloud_952]

x_x And I'm moving to Japan NEXT YEAR. Suckage.

Fortunately, I'm flying in on a US line, at least. ^_-

[JKKDARK]

Or you can use a DS emulator on the laptop ^_^