Jonathan, writing for Air France447.com:

Jean-Paul Troadec, the head of the the Investigation and Analysis Bureau, said that the search for the Air France flight 447 data recorders will resume in February 2010.

As we all know, the Airbus A330 crashed into the Atlantic Ocean on June 1 on a flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris. About 1,000 pieces of the plane were recovered and only 51 bodies out of the 228 who were on board. What we don’t know for a fact is why the plane went down. The only way that this question with absolute certainty is if the data recorders are recovered and analyzed.

The search area for this new search will be about 30 miles long.compared to the 90 previous search area. The new search will cost about 10 million euros ($14.2 million) and will be paid by both Air France and Airbus.

Why don’t they just strap us naked to the floor?

The Times reported airlines based in the United States said the TSA sent a memorandum today outlining new security measures due to the recent in-flight activities of two Nigerians en route to Detroit.

International travelers were also told that they could not leave their seats for the last hour of a flight, during which time they also could not use a pillow or blanket. They were also limited to one piece of carry-on baggage, including a purse or briefcase, and that piece had to be stowed in an overhead compartment for the last hour of a flight.

Airlines were ordered to turn off in-flight entertainment systems with maps showing a plane’s location, and pilots and flight crews were told not to make comments about cities or landmarks below the flight path.

Alan Taylor on The Big Picture comes through again this time featuring the decade in news photography. It’s hard to capture 10 years in 50 images but the ones here do the job: this decade was really shitty.

Call it what you will, “the noughties”, “the two-thousands” or something else, the first decade of the 21st century (2000-2009) is now over. Looking back on the past ten years through news photographs, it becomes clear that it was a dramatic, often brutal decade. Natural disasters, terrorist attacks and wars were by far the most dominant theme. Ten years ago, Bill Clinton was ending his final term in office, very few had ever heard of Osama bin Laden, the Taliban ruled Afghanistan and Saddam Hussein still ruled Iraq – all that and much more has changed in the intervening time. It’s really an impossible task to sum up ten years in a handful of photographs, but below is my best attempt at a look back at the last decade – feel free to let me know what I missed in the comments below. (50 photos total)

I was in the basement today organizing and sorting through stacks of books and papers. We decided to move some bookcases, and I found a few things trapped between two travel guides that took me by surprise.

• $240,000 Zimbabwean dollars
• $100 Rand
• £83 Pounds
• Owners manual for my Tilley
• A South Carolina detailed coastal expeditions map
• Well-worn street maps of San Francisco and Paris with hand-written notes
• A ferry schedule for the Aran Flyer in northwest Scotland
• Used ticket for Saimsa at the Claddagh in Galway

Fun stuff.

I never minded turbulence, but this is fascinating technology. Boeing’s new 787:

One of the more innovative passenger comfort systems on the 787 is the computer-controlled turbulence-reduction system.

Boeing claims the Smoother Ride Technology will provide an eight-fold reduction in the number of people experiencing motion sickness. Sensors throughout the airplane detect subtle changes in air pressure indicative of turbulence and direct the fly-by-wire flight controls to move flaperons on the wings to counter the vertical motion. It won’t eliminate all the bumps, but Boeing says it will work especially well on the moderate turbulence that causes most airsickness.