4 Gimmicks That Will Soon Make Flying More of a Living Hell

While this setup sounds suspiciously similar to what some people would consider Hell, Thomson maintains that the restaurant-like atmosphere will be ideal for families, because parents will be able to sit across from their children, allowing them to pull ears and waggle fingers directly, instead of reaching over the poor woman who's on her fourth connection of the day who just wants to read her Clive Cussler novel in peace. This restaurant arrangement has some basis in practice because, as we all know, children never misbehave in restaurants.

Thomson Airways
"I swear this is totally not the face of someone that just flushed our passports
when he went to the bathroom. Promise."

As for travelers who don't have children, it will likely mean a lot of awkward eye-contact and forced small-talk, increased ticket prices since they won't be able to fit as many people in the cabin, and for the unlucky bastards who get stuck facing backwards, extra motion sickness, since everything will be moving in the opposite direction that your brain is expecting. Whether or not the standby list will be replaced with those little vibrating alarms, however, remains unclear.

The little plastic dome slips right over your head like you're an octogenarian at the hair salon, but instead of frying your scalp, it contains headphones, a little heads-up display screen, and, in what may be the most ominous description of all, a "means for diffusing at least an odorous substance." So, it's a fart filtration system.

Aribus
Just please don't take that as a challenge.

Even so, two out of three ain't bad, and being able to watch a movie without trying to peer around the person's head in front of you might just be worth looking like a 1950s diver. Of course, the claustrophobia and inevitable concussions you'll suffer in even the mildest turbulence are probably not worth it, but we're confident they'll have it figured out before it's released to the public.

Quicket is qui ... fast to point out that it's an opt-in feature and will include only users who deliberately choose to participate when the app asks if they're sure that they don't not not want to enable the social feature.

AzmanJaka/iStock/Getty Images
"Just unclick to redisenable."

Ostensibly, travelers can use this information to help with conversation-starters, but the more obvious use is to estimate the girth and attractiveness of your seatmate and make seat changes accordingly at check-in. The upshot of all this airborne Tinder creepiness is that if you plaster your Facebook with your collection of Mr. Bean erotica, you might find yourself in a suddenly empty row, with all the armrest you could ever want.

A company in Britain, that bastion of air-travel innovations that nobody asked for, says fuck that: they want to remove windows entirely and replace them with curved LED panels. On these screens, passengers can see a full-length feed of the outside sky, identify landmarks by tapping on them, and surf the Internet on screens embedded into the seatbacks. Absolutely no chance for brain-bending panic attacks here!

Tomasz Wyszo/mirski/ww.dabarti/CPI
WAAAAAAAARRRRRGGGGH

Naturally, this brilliant piece of technology will only last for exactly as many flights as it takes for someone to hack the screens and replace them with your Mr. Bean erotica, but even so, there's something special about being able to witness every moment of your own near-supersonic death coming toward you in crystal-clear 1080p.

When he's not enthusiastically talking about balms on airplanes, Chris writes for his website and tweets.

While we're on the topic, check out 5 Myths About Flying Everybody Believes Thanks to Movies.