Flying long-haul is a test of patience, especially in cattle class.
Today’s invention is a way to make use of existing in-seat technology to help relieve an extra few minutes of boredom in between restless twitching, movies and sporadic naps.
Each seat back display could show the basic booking details of the seatholder, as selected via the same interface used to choose between ‘AirCrash III’ and ‘Alien Apocalypse’.
This information could be optionally augmented, in a form of aerial graffiti, with extra details about their reason for flying, what they thought of the chicken and their ultimate destination.
Overtime, a history of seat occupancy would build up -adding interest and value to each position. People would perhaps pay a premium to sit in the 51b steerage seat used by George Clooney when he was 21, for example (he hated the chicken).
For security purposes, the system might ask questions in unexpected ways. The extra details entered could be used to check, in flight, whether the individual had a story which checked out.
This idea reminds me a bit of this project -an attempt to add value to objects by linking to their stories: http://talesofthings.com/