travel

There are some things that were never meant to be: British summers without nearly constant rain, politicians that speak the truth and BeOS triumphing over Windows. We all have technology we love that was a casualty of a nasty format war, but what if there was some way to save the tech that should have won and give it a helping hand?

Luckily for us, there is one man who can put things right, fight injustice and fix history for the better. His name is Captain Tech. Our intrepid superhero has the ability to travel through time and give events … Read more

Vienna, VA.-based Space Adventures said Wednesday that it's booked two added passenger seats for orbital flights on the Russian Soyuz rocket in the coming years, upping its commitment in the tourist spaceflight market. The company, which was the first to send a private citizen into space on the Soyuz, said that because of consumer demand, it has reserved two commercial seats on flights in fall 2008 and spring 2009, under contract with the Federal Space Agency of the Russian Federation. And Space Adventures is negotiating terms for flights in 2010 and beyond. (Previously, it has sent one tourist … Read more

If Spider-Man were to head into outer space, he'd probably want a BioSuit.

The prototype space suit is under development at MIT, under the direction of Dava Newman, a professor of aeronautics and astronautics and engineering systems. It's a long-term project--the unitardlike outfit has been under development for seven years, and Newman figures the BioSuit crew has another decade to go, as NASA inches forward with its plans to send people to Mars.

Traditional orbital outerwear, like the Extravehicular Mobility Unit worn by astronauts when they venture outside the space station, gets its bulk in part from gas … Read more

Trippert is a new travel site for bloggers who feel like sharing their travel tips, tricks, and personal experiences with others. Users can write it all out in a blog entry, complete with pictures, tags, and links in a simple WYSIWYG authoring tool. You can pick up to five places mentioned in the entry, which will help it show up in searches or article listings by city and country. The hope is that people will be able to find what you've written in a number of ways.

The service is taking an interesting approach to social blogging, by giving … Read more

It's always those little things spotted in a foreign country that I wish I'd grabbed more of to bring back home, like $2 cartoon-print chopsticks from Tokyo, a $3 sack of paprika from Budapest, or $1 bottles of local lavender oil from Zagreb. I may not revisit those places, but I could ask for someone going there to snag some stuff for me. If you're my friend, however, that could interfere with your carefree vacation. Why not ask a stranger instead?

Bringsome is built just for that. Travelers on the site offer to bring back goodies from … Read more

Travel search provider SideStep is acquiring TripUp, a travel-focused social network and community site that is akin to a Facebook for the backpack set. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

This is SideStep's second acquisition of a start up that deals with user generated content and a second move targeted at the young adult set. Last year, SideStep acquired TravelPost, a site for user reviews of hotels. And SideStep recently built an application that lets Facebook users plan trips together within that site.

While SideStep has typically catered to the 35-to-50 age range, TripUp targets people aged 25 … Read more

Want to take a vacation? Several popular travel sites make it possible to look for great airfares online. But with this little iPhone app, you'll be able to search for hotels, flights, rental cars, and cruises right from your phone. A tabbed interface makes it easy to quickly get the information you want.

iPhone link: http://hotelwidgets.com/iphonetravel/

Web site link: http://hotelwidgets.com/

Carbon footprint, energy use, green tech: some phrases that won't be going away. From gasoline prices to global warming, we're likely to become more aware of what energy we burn up, just as most of us now have some sense of whether we're eating wisely (or not).

Just today the Live Earth concert folks e-mailed me a link to their carbon calculator. This one walks you through several pages of simple questions about how you live, and especially how you travel. This calculator was built by Earthlab.org. They want to know the size of your dwelling, … Read more

Good news, galactic explorers: You no longer have to pay a million bucks for the privilege to be one of the only civilians to fly in outer space--just somewhere between $200,000 and $300,000.

Europe's EADS Astrium is developing a space jet to take off in 2012 that's one of a new generation of "airplane-to rocket" vehicles, according to BornRich: It looks like a conventional aircraft but is powered by rocket engines. The "Astrium Space Jet" can even take off from regular airports, though we somehow doubt that it will go through the … Read more