Known as MondoWindow, the service aims to let anyone onboard a Wi-Fi-enabled plane get real-time information about the places they're flying over. And as the service gets more sophisticated, it will likely add all kinds of additional features like audio programming, videos, and games, all related specifically to the places you can see five miles below you.
MondoWindow comes from Greg Dicum, the author of a hit series of books called "Window Seat," which has static information on a lot of the locations on popular plane routes. But with the new service, Dicum and his co-founder, Tyler Sterkle, are hoping to mash this general concept up with the power of the Internet and geo-tagged content.
And with a third of U.S. flights now offering passengers Wi-Fi--and growing quickly--MondoWindow would seem to have a very large potential audience.
For now, all the content that's available through the site is tied to specific geo-tagged locations. But in an interview with CNET, Dicum explained that soon, the service will also offer "regional" content, more in-depth information about, say, the high plains, or the state of Texas, or anything along those lines.
In some ways, the general regional content promises to be more interesting than the geo-tagged information because it will have more context and more depth, while the location-based content will likely tend to have a heavier emphasis on people's personal photos and the like. The two combined, however, would seem to offer a wealth of information about what's on the ground below.
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In its early stages, MondoWindow will be available to anyone in the continental United States. Not long after, Dicum said, it should be rolled out on flights to and from European, and then the company will try to tackle the rest of the flying world.
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