Holographic travel agents?

Flight-comparison website, Skyscanner has teamed up with a number of editors, researchers and futurists to create The Future of Travel report.  The report paints the picture of a very sci-fi future with suggestions of 3-D immersive experiences replacing traditional photo albums, holographic travel agents and travel apps which can be viewed through contact lenses all expected to be available by 2024. In the report, CEO of Skyscanner, Gareth Williams predicts that rather than holiday-goers planning ‘souvenir photos’, technology will exist where users can record their entire holiday and instruct which images can be pulled as still photos. Gone are the days of basic home-videos, we can see that reliving holidays will be our favourite pastime of the future.

Boarding passes could soon be history, as Air Berlin claims an aviation first, with the launch of boarding via smartwatch. The airline’s new venture means that passengers can download a boarding barcode using the Air Berlin iPhone app and send it to their Pebble or Pebble Steel smartwatch. The new technology allows the wearer to just shake the watch to display the boarding pass and barcode. The watch will also be able to display passenger boarding information too, including boarding gate, departure time and seat number.

According to a TripAdvisor survey released this week, almost a third (31%) of Americans say that are using their mobile phones while on holiday to check their business emails. The survey also revealed that a huge nine out of 10 have said that they use their mobile phones while away. It seems that, more and more, we are all relying on the features of our smartphones to get up-to-date information on things to do while we are travelling – places to see, restaurants to book and just generally finding our way around. Could the days of the hard copy guide book be numbered?

Facebook recently announced a new location sharing IRL feature ‘Nearby Friends’, which is built into the Facebook mobile app. The feature allows users to share their exact location and see which friends are close by. Having been able to ‘check in’ on Facebook for a long time, this new feature allows users to broadcast a general location to select friends without posting to all. ‘The mission of Facebook is to connect people’ says product manager of the new feature, Andrea Vaccari. With the introduction of ‘Nearby Friends’, Facebook is entering the offline world helping users keep in contact with loved ones at all times.