Singapore Airlines first with in-flight IPTV

Singapore Airlines launched the very first in-flight IPTV service this past weekend, using Boeing's Connexion in-flight WiFi technology to offer passengers four channels of programming over the plane's wireless network. Before you get too excited (assuming you even get excited about the prospect of in-flight IPTV), note that you do need to use your own WiFi-enabled laptop to access the service (plans to integrate the service into seatback displays are in the works), and it's not clear whether they're pulling programming live over a satellite connection or just streaming content that's stored (or perhaps cached) on a media server on the plane (like the video on demand system Microsoft developed earlier this year). Either way we ain't gonna knock it, anything that gives us an alternative to paging through the SkyMall catalog for the 100th time is fine by us.