Planes, Trains And Automobiles: The Power Of Real-Time Mobile
  The era of mobile computing is going far beyond smart phones and tablets. Just ahead: always-on planes, trains and automobiles. This brave new world of smart, connected systems has implications as profound as the changes driven by land networks and mobile smart phones.  Each of these value propositions drives entire industries in land-based networks. They are equally compelling for mobile systems.  Air traffic control (ATC) is really an asset management problem. Today’s ATC systems use radars to follow planes, radios to connect pilots to human controllers and strict protocols to ensure that pilots follow the resulting commands. This system works, but is screaming for improvement. Stressed-out ATCs struggle to handle all the traffic. The only way they can cope is to force planes to follow carefully planned traffic patterns. Air spaces are congested, route planning and re-planning is rampant, and any weather or other blip causes massive delays. The system is safe, but it’s hardly efficient.