A Guide To Traveling With Technology — Exclusive On TechDrive

on March 30, 2015 at 10:27 am

Where did you go last summer? Where will you go on this summer? With these latest technologies, this summer travel is so promising to all of us.

To choose a flight with WiFi and power outlets

Most airlines don’t give you details about WiFi and power outlets on theirs flights, but Google Flight does. The company has announced a new partnership with flight-rating service Routehappy that will bring those details and others to Google Flights search results. In the new search results you will be able to indicate whether or not suggested flights have WiFi, in-seat power outlets, and other amenities, making your comparison to choose the right airline way easier. This feature covers flights to all geographies — offering you the best flights to wherever you fly to.

Enjoy a Flyover Tour of major cities in Maps

Nothing can stop us from traveling the world, even if our budget is tight. And if you have an iPhone or iPad, there is a chance for you to “travel” everyday.

The Flyover Tour feature of Apple’s Maps app gives you a gorgeous 3D view of various major cities around the world (click here to access the list of cities). How awesome viewing the city’s landmarks from the height of hundreds of feet above! Statue of Liberty, Brooklyn Bridge, Empire State Building, Central Park, and more.

To view a Flyover Tour, simply boot up Apple’s Maps app and do a search on the city name. If there’s a tour available, the top of the screen will say 3D Flyover Tour of New York (or whatever city you’ve searched for). Tap on that, and the tour will begin.

Space Travel with Opaque Multimedia

Using the technologies of Oculus Rift and Microsoft Kinect 2, the Australia-based company created a new platform called Earthlight — a realistic Virtual Reality simulation of a spacewalk that allows players to explore in first-person around the outside of the ISS as it orbits the Earth right in their living room.

Designed to get as close to space’s work as possible, the technologies on Earthlight can track the players’ hands to a high-level of fidelity, giving a smooth, immersive experience of climbing from handhold to handhold on the outside of the ISS, about 250 miles above the Earth. Move your hands out in front of you, and you’ll see in your headset a space-gloved hand exactly where you want it to be. Similarly, reach out to a handle or bit of scaffolding and give it a tug and your virtual self will begin to float forwards. And yet, within a few minutes of using this system, you’ll feel like you’ve left the Earth and have become an astronaut.

Earthlight was introduced at the 2015 Game Developers Conference and is available now on Opaque’s website.

Book bus and train tickets right on your iPhone

Wanderu is a Kayak-like tool that allows you to quickly find, price out, and then book bus or train tickets to your preferred destination, optionally saving your personal information along the way as well as saving select routes as “favorite”. The tool is expanding quickly across the U.S., Canada and Mexico.

The feature that I like most on Wanderu is the “Advice” — letting you know whether the price is likely going up or down, so that you can decide to wait a few days or to book your tickets right away.