Gadgets Galore, and More

ike toddlers, today's harried business travelers want what they want when they want it-and when they want it is now. They don't want to wait in line, they don't want to miss an important message. They've just gotta have the electronic, and increasingly wireless, umbilical cord that keeps them in the know at all times.

There's no turning back: In 1999, 50 percent of business travelers used the Internet while on the road, says Frequent Flyer magazine, a publication of OAG. Electronic airline tickets jumped from 22 percent of those issued in 1998 to 40 percent in 1999. Mobile computing devices are serving up the latest flight info. Cell phones are going global: Travelers are renting phones with unlimited range before they leave their home cities-or their countries. Everything new is handheld and wireless and has Web access.

Not just for technogeeks anymore, these gadgets may be a part of your next trip. And if you don't use them next week, you probably will use something similar but newer next year, because technology marches on. Here's just a sampling of what's out there now and what will be soon.

Don't Leave Home Without It

How did you ever travel without a plastic cylindrical tie caddy? OK, you may get by with slightly wrinkled neckwear, but you can find hundreds, if not thousands, of products for frequent and business travelers at eTravelerGear-all without getting up from your desk.

The cyberstore is divided into categories: electronic gear, luggage and packing gear, personal care supplies, road gear, safety and security items, appliances, travel comfort gear and more. You may actually find something you don't know how you left home without.

Go to www.eTravelerGear.com or call (401) 467-1506.

Two Web sites, www.igo.com and www.teleadaptusa.com, specialize in electronic travel gizmos-like adapters, modem accessories, laptop batteries-and tips on solving connectivity glitches.

Other places for cool travel stuff:

• Christine Columbus
  www.christinecolumbus.com
  (800) 280-4775

• Distant Lands
  www.distantlands.com
  (626) 449-3220

• Magellans
  www.magellans.com
  (800) 962-4943

• Travelsupplies.com
  www.travelsupplies.com
  (877) 878-5787

In the Palm of Your Hand

Information on taxis, pharmacies, area codes, business services, dining and much more is available to Palm Pilot users at the touch of a button. NeoHand's Weissmann City Profiles cover 55 cities, including top federal destinations such as Denver, San Antonio, San Diego and Washington. Also available: guides for key overseas metropolises, including Frankfurt, London and Moscow. Beats carrying around travel guidebooks, especially if you're going to more than one city.

The guides, which you download from your desktop, work on any Palm Pilot or compatible machine running PalmOS2.0 or higher with 100KB to 150KB available space. Price: $59.95 for all 25 U.S. cities, $199 for the world or $12.95 per city.

Go to: www.aramis-inc.com.

Check-In: Check It Out!

Besides the cramped seating, long lines are probably fliers' top complaint. Airlines are listening and using technology to speed things up for their disgruntled travelers. Here are a few high-speed devices to look out for:

• Back at the office. Those who fly Northwest will reap the rewards of the airline's many strategies to "bust those lines," says Vice President for Ground Services Dirk McMahon. Passengers in test cities can check in before they leave their homes or offices by logging on to the company's Web site. There you can confirm your seat assignment and print out a boarding pass. At the airport you can bypass all check-in lines and go directly to the boarding agent.

The agent will check your identification
and scan the bar code on the boarding pass; then you just hop on board. The system should be in place at all U.S. airports by early next year, says McMahon.

• Straight to the gate. Delta, American and United passengers in some cities can take their boarding passes to an electronic reader at the gate that recognizes the bar code. Since it's automated, the reader helps flights get off on time and ensures more accurate matching of customers and their baggage.

• Everybody's got kiosks. If you fly Delta or Northwest, for example, you can go to an ATM-like machine at the airport and print out a boarding pass (and change or confirm seat assignments and more), bypassing lines at the gate. At the machines next to ticket counters, you can even check your luggage. Northwest, which calls them E-Service Centers, has 240 of them in 35 airports nationwide.

Continental is experimenting with installing kiosks in the offices of its biggest corporate clients. Can large government agencies be far behind?

• To the rescue. When flights are canceled or connections missed, Northwest will roll out the "Rebook Hotline." The units, says spokeswoman Mary Beth Shubert, look like ice-cream carts and hold six phone lines that have priority at the airline's reservation center. Carts are now in place in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minn., and Memphis, Tenn.; their numbers should grow.

• Line busters. Northwest also has introduced PAWs, or "portable agent workstations." When lines are getting long, agents will roam the airport with these handheld devices, checking in travelers and issuing boarding passes. The program operates in Minneapolis, St. Paul and Detroit and will be expanded in the coming year.

United has roaming "chariots" sent out to speed things along during a backup. You can also cancel, book or rebook flights at the battery-powered carts, which are connected to the network via antenna, says spokesman Kurt Ebenhoch. They're up and running in Chicago, Denver, Washington (Dulles), Los Angeles and San Francisco.

American has mobile counters that work outside as well as in. The airline is encouraging passengers to check in at curbside when they give their luggage to a skycap. The OneStop Express Check-in is up and running in 35 cities, and the airline is aiming for 86 by year's end.

• Call anytime. Taking off on United, or meeting someone's flight? You can have the airline page you on your PC, cell phone, personal digital assistant or pager when flight information changes. To set it up, go to www.united.com and tell the airline what types of changes you wish to know about.

• On the horizon. Look for e-mail and Internet access capability in the air to become available sometime in the next year or so.

Faster Than a Speeding Bullet

Amtrak's long-delayed, high-speed Acela line, which serves the Washington-New York-Boston corridor, is speeding up its ticketing processes, too. The new brand, with refurbished trains and all-electric tracks, has already taken the place of Metroliner service. When the express service debuts (projected for this year), conductors will be able to process sales and issue tickets on board with a handheld unit.

Scotty, Are You There?

Rental car firms are poised to put hands-free cellular and Internet access in their fleets. For safety's sake, the technology will rely entirely on voice-recognition software. Although it will be available only in luxury cars at first, the technology will most likely become standard in the next few years.

Just Call Out My Name

We've grown so dependent on cell phones that some travelers go through withdrawal when they're away from home. Being out of the phone's service area, prohibitive roaming fees, forgetting to bring the charger-all can interfere with a regular cell phone habit.

Relief is on the way. Hotels are providing phones to make sure you never go without. Some allow guests to make calls only to and from the hotel, but others work anywhere. Some charge steep fees. You'll pay a daily rental fee, a fee per call, or both.

You can call with abandon at the Wingate Inn's 85 hotels around the country. The chain, which is designed for business travelers, keeps cell phones at the front desk, and guests can check them out for use anywhere on the property. You just give contacts your room number, and if you're at breakfast or lying by the pool, you won't miss that crucial call. Wingate has guest-friendly phone charges: For the cell phones, like the in-room phones, you pay only long-distance call charges. Local calls and long-distance access calls are free.