Japan bans wireless mice, headphones and gaming systems from flights

We may not mind having to do without our precious Nintendo DS and wireless cans for awhile if there's in-flight WiFi to keep us occupied, but until then, this new measure is sure to annoy. Reportedly, "passengers on commercial planes [in Japan] are no longer allowed to play games using wireless connections with handheld consoles," which of course would include the DS and Sony's PSP. Moreover, it was said that folks were also not allowed to use personal headphones and mice that were cordless, further cramping our ability to slip into a personal electronic heaven while cruising the friendly skies. Ah well, here's to hoping that the attendants aren't exactly strict with the new rules, eh?

[Via Joystiq]

[john @ Oct 3rd 2007 12:36AM]

What are you going to do now without your precious Hmmmm?

[Adam @ Oct 3rd 2007 12:41AM]

yay i figured out how to change my password lol

[Josh @ Oct 3rd 2007 12:53AM]

seriously? how?





I don't understand why they would ban bluetooth, rf, and wifi from planes.

[Adam @ Oct 3rd 2007 9:56AM]

just click on your name, and it takes you to your profile, and you can change everything!

[Todd @ Oct 3rd 2007 12:47AM]

This better not be for international flights!! I'm going to go crazy without my psp (with the psx version of Civ II ripped onto it) or DS on that long arse flight. Argh and I'm going back in December. I'm playing it anyway.

[James Yopp @ Oct 3rd 2007 8:00AM]

I'm pretty sure that this is a clarification of the existing "any electronic devices in a transmit mode" rule. You already weren't allowed to use items that broadcast or tune (resonate to) specific radio signals. This includes TV's, radios, and WiFi on laptops.

Until they basically turn the fuselages of specific planes into Faraday cages, them's the rules. Here's hoping that it's economical for the airlines to do so. I came back from Japan on Monday, and got hassled about having my noise-canceling headphones switched on during takeoff and landing (approx. 30 mins each), which was inconvenient. But I really wouldn't call not being able to use wireless headphones or a bluetooth mouse inconvenient.

[Sam @ Oct 3rd 2007 12:48AM]

I've had flight attendants on American scold me for using a wireless mouse on a plane.

[Ghostly @ Oct 3rd 2007 5:33AM]

WTF... sorry dunno how this happened I was sure I click on the right post...

[Ghostly @ Oct 3rd 2007 5:36AM]

God damn it... this is idiotic, I give up.

[Mike @ Oct 3rd 2007 11:28AM]

hahah...I've had idiot flight attendants yell at me for my *wired* mouse because they weren't capable of reading their own rules clearly.

[hurricane @ Oct 3rd 2007 2:53AM]

It's not like you can't play the DS or PSP without using their wireless capabilities...

[Ghostly @ Oct 3rd 2007 5:32AM]

Click your name in one of your posts.
Click "Are you ? If So, Login Here"
Click change password.

One thing I don't know is how to find my profile page without clicking on a post I make or bookmarking it -_-;;
Blogsmith sucks...

[Ghostly @ Oct 3rd 2007 5:33AM]

Click your name in one of your posts.
Click "Are you ? If So, Login Here"
Click change password.

One thing I don't know is how to find my profile page without clicking on a post I make or bookmarking it -_-;;
Blogsmith sucks...

[azayzel @ Oct 3rd 2007 1:21AM]

Meh, this is only on JAL flights, so just fly with some other company. Kinda hard for the to see you're wearing cordless phones when there are several hundred passengers on a plane and the lights are out. As to gaming with the PSP, how can they prove you have wireless on? Hardly likely they'll tell you to turn off your game system on a 9-hour flight, I'd just turn it back on once their back is turned.

Just plain dumb. If your planes are that sensitive to wireless waves, why are all the radio/TV/shortwave/microwaves floating through the atmosphere causing any problems? They're much more powerful.

[Membrane @ Oct 3rd 2007 6:12PM]

Yes just boycott them for using bad science hit them where it hurts in their profits.

[Covarr @ Oct 3rd 2007 1:22AM]

If I'm not mistaken, this simply means no wireless multiplayer. The reason for this is because the wireless communications cause trouble with the plane.

[Jakob Pless @ Oct 3rd 2007 1:36AM]

What a load of crap, no wireless and/or radio have any impact on planes. Not mobile phones or wireless equipment what so ever. If it had lots of planes would crash already! Do you think people in private planes turn of their mobiles and other stuff? No they use them!
There is no reason to ban these things it's so rediculess!

[Dauthi @ Oct 3rd 2007 1:45PM]

If you want to consider this an accurate-ish source or not, the MythBusters did prove that there is an effect. Perhaps just not an extreme threat.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MythBusters_%28season_4%29#Cell_Phones_on_a_Plane

[potato @ Oct 3rd 2007 1:33AM]

My question is... why are complex critical aircraft instruments communicating with the 2.4GHz unlicensed band?

[GameboyRMH @ Oct 3rd 2007 1:48AM]

...Except it doesn't. The real reason is they're trying to cut down the number of "potentially annoying" activities passengers can engage in. This is to reduce the chance of "air rage."

http://www.airsafe.com/issues/ped.htm

Also see:

http://www.airsafe.com/issues/rage.htm

...and in our "post 9-11 world," a person who is not sitting quietly on a flight could send some people into a screaming panic attack.

[Membrane @ Oct 3rd 2007 6:12PM]

Thats the stupidest reason I ever heard if anything it will cause more air rage as bored people are far more likely to become short tempered and behave violently also why I believe organizations like the TSA need disbanded with the up most prejudice .

[Ian @ Oct 3rd 2007 2:46AM]

if cell phones and all other wireless stuff doesnt interfear with the airplane then the only reason why they dont allow them (at lest what i think) is so people dont yap on the phones all the time, because could imagine sitting next to somebody on a 5 hr flight while they talk to someone on the phone? goddamn that would suck ass.

also i think people would start to think that some might be messing around with the plane... which some people might do if they are that messed up. thats a scary thought

[bruceS @ Oct 3rd 2007 1:30PM]

I hear ya. I hope they NEVER allow cell phones to be operated during flight.

[hoeun kim @ Oct 3rd 2007 3:54AM]

altho cell phones pose to threat, i can understand the ban, it is a space that is shared by hundreds of people in a very cramped manner, fine no annoyance. but no gaming systems?? wtf. especially jal, you would think the airline of the company that makes the psp and ds, you would think they would allow it out of anybody.

[mroach @ Oct 3rd 2007 4:37AM]

I'm quite sure that what they mean is you can't play games with other passengers wirelessly. I flew with JAL last week and in their announcements about electronics they said you can't use devices with wireless connections unless you can turn the wireless feature off. It's off by default on DS and doesn't even come on unless you try to use it. I used my DS heavily throughout all 40 hours of my flights with them and nobody ever said a word about it.

JAL flight attendants are watchful creatures though. Differing from policies of other airlines a bit, they forbid using your phone the second you step on the plane. When I got to my seat I whipped out my phone to bust out a last minute "I'm on the plane, I'll call you in 13 hours when I land" and I figured in a 747's load of people I'd go unnoticed. I was caught in about 5 seconds. Still got the SMS out though ;)

[William @ Oct 3rd 2007 5:20AM]

.

What about BLUETOOTH ?

I have seen a number of remote-control toys that use your phone's BlueTooth to run them.

Are they going to start confiscating PHONES now ?

[kev @ Oct 3rd 2007 8:26AM]

All Nippon Airways. Next!

[Standingfast @ Oct 3rd 2007 9:10AM]

Hmm...I wonder how many crashes there have been where an RF transmitting device in the cabin was at fault.

[andi @ Oct 3rd 2007 10:38AM]

this is soooo stupid.. I've been using a phone while piloting, and I also know for sure that the only commonly found frequency that could influence anything in a plane is the US 850 MHz frequency. And that, only when strong... 20-30 phones aren't enough to do any harm

a strong signal in that band can put the ILS (landing guidance system) localizer off track, tho'

[Dr Buzz0 @ Oct 3rd 2007 11:45AM]

Aircraft use dedicated bands for communications. As mentioned above, the only device which could even possibly potentially maybe influence a plane would be in the 800mhz area. If it were hella-powerful it might flood some of the comm links. But that's pretty far fetched.

Aircraft take off and land around high power radar transmitters. They fly over areas with cell phone towers and megawatt-level TV broadcasts. They also have to deal with the possibility of an inadvertent cell phone in passenger luggage. And as such, all systems are tested and retested for reliability.

Even if it did somehow mess with something (which it would NOT) Modern aircraft have very good backup systems. Communications are on VHF, UHF, Satellite and have multiple transceivers. Navigation has inertial navigation systems, radar altimeters, optical altimeters, barometric altimeters, radar-based collision avoidance, GPS, and backup systems.

I've never heard of an aircraft being imperiled by a low-power consumer device. There's a remote possibility that if it were a crazy-powerful device, then maybe it could cause problems. But this is ridiculous.

[Membrane @ Oct 3rd 2007 6:24PM]

Yes maybe if you took a ham radio and a 1000watt linear amp plus a deep cycle battery to power it you might be able to cause some malfunctions.
Though on myth busters not even this crazy setup could do it.
As for coms airlines don't used 2.45GHz for coms and none of the second order harmonics come close
some of the old amps band phones were able to interfere with coms slightly and some very old and now very out of date navigational equipment that hasn't been used on commercial airlines since the early 70s but was still used on some civil aviation aircraft until recently i think up until the mid 90s.

[Jimrin @ Oct 3rd 2007 12:53PM]

I don't know what everyone is complaining about. It has been a rule for a long time that wireless devices are not allowed on flight (unless the wireless part can be turned off). They also have had the rule that "electronic devices" (anything with on/off) must be turned off during take off and landing.

[topspinserve @ Oct 3rd 2007 5:33PM]

Can't you just turn the wireless off on the PSP and DS?

[Membrane @ Oct 3rd 2007 6:12PM]

802.11 used in games should not effect a plane that has a safe electrical system why because everything is shielded ,the protocols used on the data busses are error correcting and everything is triple redundant.
Some very ancient US equipment was effected by 850MHz but this stuff isn't used much anymore being displaced by GPS and modern laser gyros.
If an aircraft is found effected by the milliwatt level RF from a game system then that aircraft is unsafe and should be grounded until the issue is fixed.
Why for two reasons on the ground at the airport there is a radar thats an source several million times more powerful then your average wireless device also when jets fly at 35,000 feet they also develop a static charges so if the wiring and avionics are so badly grounded that a tiny amount of RFI can make them malfunction then the static build up could make them fail out right.
I say this is likely the result of some very sloppy testing as some gov tech likely didn't ground his/her test equipment or didn't reattach the connectors properly etc and found interference which is going to happen RFI or no RFI because you have no ground and or a noisy connection.

[James @ Oct 4th 2007 8:51PM]

Nobody needs to make an argument about why electronics should/should not affect flight systems. It doesn't matter. Why not? I'll make an airtight argument in 5 lines or less:

(A) If electronics don't have an effect on flight systems, you should be able to use them. (B) If they *do*, they should ground the plane *immediately* and fix the problem, because there's nothing keeping malicious people from bringing them on the plane. Once the problem is fixed, see part A.

So there you go. No matter what, they should let you use electronics on the plane. This does not need to be complicated.