Many airlines offer in-flight wi-fi and though you might not choose flights based on download speeds, it helps to know what to expect from each carrier. With your help, we conducted our first Mile-High Wi-Fi Test. Delta Airlines won.

The Idea

We've tested 3G data speeds in the past, so as in-flight wi-fi became more widely offered we decided that its performance needed to be rated as well.

Our staff can only rack up so many frequent flier miles before we get a stern talking to from our fearless leader, so we thought of asking Gizmodo readers for help. Over the holidays, many people joined Gizmodo's Mile-High Club, and the results came pouring in. (Of course it didn't hurt that we shared some coupon codes for free in-flight wi-fi.)

The Methodology

We asked readers to use Speedtest.net when they traveled—checking upload and download bandwidth along with ping latency, reporting the numbers back to us along with a goofy self-portrait, a la Brian Lam. We logged the speed test results along with the airline and the flight route. Our first round of testing accounts for December 2009 and January 2010.

The Results

Don, our resident number cruncher, processed all the data from the first round of testing. We did throw out a few data points which were deemed incomplete or inaccurate, and had to exclude one airline—United—for the time being because we did not have enough data for a meaningful average. All of these numbers are preliminary, but we were surprised that one airline in particular was able to rise up past the others. Here's how our tally looks right now:

American Airlines:
Download: .88 Mbps
Upload: .23 Mbps
Ping: 231.87 ms

Virgin America:
Download: .57 Mbps
Upload: .25 Mbps
Ping: 276.44 ms

Delta:
Download: .93 Mbps
Upload: .29 Mbps
Ping: 177.91 ms

AirTran:
Download: .86 Mbps
Upload: .30 Mbps
Ping: 192.24 ms

If you prefer graphs, today is your lucky day:

Now, based on these averages, things boil down to this:
Fastest Download: Delta (.93 Mbps)
Fastest Upload: AirTran (.3 Mbps) *
Lowest Latency: Delta (177.91ms)
*Note that Delta's average was very close, at .29 Mbps

So, overall Delta Airlines handily outperformed the rest, but again, this is just round 1. Besides, it seems worth noting that despite differences in broadband speeds, all four of those airlines use GoGo in-flight Internet to provide the wi-fi service.

This Is Just the Beginning

We call this the first round because we're far from done. We want to keep collecting data on in-flight wi-fi and keep getting better and better results. The more data points we have, the better reporting we can deliver on the state of in-air wi-fi.

To help us in this effort, you can simply head to SpeedTest.net the next time you fly and run the test. Send an email to me or to Gizmodo tips with "Mile-High Wi-Fi" in the subject line. Here's what to include:
• Speedtest.net results, including download and upload speed in Mbps, and ping latency in ms
• Name of Airline
• Departing and destination airports, and type of plane
• A (totally optional) goofy picture of yourself

Not only does additional data help us make more accurate subsequent reports, it'll help you because airlines will see clearly how the competition is doing. And if there are variables we don't see yet, such as variations in performance based on route or plane type, we'll be able to get a better sense of that as well, as we get more data points from you...

The Esteemed Members of Gizmodo's Mile-High Club

We encourage you to continue taking 2 minutes to check bandwidth, and fire us an email, whenever you connect up in the air. In the meantime, we want to thank each of the boys and gals who participated in this first round of Mile High Wi-Fi testing, the charter members of the Giz Mile-High Club. Here are some of the prettiest from the charter membership rolls:

Original Delta Airlines photo used under CC license from The Rocketeer/Flickr

Want to know what freshly developed apps for the iPad are going to feel like? Looking through Apple's iPad User Experience Guidelines is surprisingly revealing.

Some of the key points Apple's pushing on app developers for the iPad, and how Apple thinks their apps should behave:

• They want apps to work no matter how you hold the iPad: "Your application should encourage people to interact with iPad from any side by providing a great experience in all orientations."

• They don't want applications to just be bigger: "The best iPad applications give people innovative ways to interact with content while they perform a clearly defined, finite task. Resist the temptation to fill the large screen with features that are not directly related to the main task. In particular, you should not view the large iPad screen as an invitation to bring back all the functionality you pruned from your iPhone application." That's some straight talk.

• They're super into the sharing thing: "Think of ways people might want to use your application with others. Expand your thinking to include both the physical sharing of a single device and the virtual sharing of data."

• The oddly "realistic" bookshelf in iBooks isn't a fluke: "Consider a more real-world vision of your application. For example, on iPhone, Contacts is a streamlined list, but on iPad, Contacts is an address book with a beautifully tangible look and feel."

• Multi-finger gestures will abound: "The large iPad screen provides great scope for multifinger gestures, including gestures made by more than one person."

• It shouldn't feel like a computer, even if the iPad lets you do computer-y things with files now: "Although iPad applications can allow people to create and manipulate files and share them with a computer (when the device is docked), this does not mean that people should have a sense of the file system on iPad."

Starting to get a sense of things, and how apps are going to feel vs. their iPhone counterparts? There's more guidelines, like on how to use popovers, over at UX Mag. [Apple, UXMag]

Sure, the TSA's nudey body scanners work great at detecting underwear bombs. But what about smuggling contraband in your penis? I think you can see where this is going. [Landline.tv]

Credit cards numbers? Please. Medical records? Booooring. The modern hacker knows that the real money's in carbon emission trade credits. No, seriously: a recent phishing expedition reaped over $4 million from carbon-emitting companies in Europe, Japan, and New Zealand.

The hackers sent emails to 2,000 companies in Germany alone, claiming to be from the German Emissions Trading Authority, which keeps track of carbon credits and transactions. The email requested that the companies re-register their accounts, and the information the duped employees provided was then used—you guessed it—to access the companies' GETA accounts and and clean them out.

It's unclear who the thieves sold the credits to, but the buyers are assumed to have thought they were making a legal transaction. And it's also possible to see how it would have taken some time to see that something was amiss: four million bucks is a lot of money, but it's a drop in the bucket of $130 billion of CO2 emissions that were traded in Europe last year.

So remember, kids: lock up your gasses. People will steal just about anything these days. [Der Spiegel via Wired]

Going for a spectacular sunset shot, a man ventured onto the ice of the North Sea. But he quickly became lost on the monochromatic landscape. Ironically, two cameras would rescue him from the very danger a camera put him in.

The man started firing off the flash of his camera, hoping to grab someone's attention who could beckon him back to the coast. And someone spotted him—from hundreds of miles away at her computer—as she watched this webcam feed of St. Peter-Ording, the tourist spot where the man disappeared.

She contacted authorities who guided him back to shore safely. [Physorg and BBC]

Eamex, a Japanese company, claims to have figured out how to greatly increase the lifespan of the high-capacity lithium-ion batteries that run hybrids and electric vehicles.

The new batteries can supposedly survive 10,000 charge cycles and 20 years, which is quite a bit better than what we've got now. How do they work?

The main idea is to stabilize the electrodes and prevent the deterioration of tin, making the batteries withstand repeated charges. The batteries have a negative electrode that incorporates a tin-coated resin and accumulates lithium ions coming from the positive electrode. The positive electrode is made of silicon and tin and swells while generating the ions.

As a result, the repeated charging and discharging causes the binding between particles in the tin to weaken, but Eamex's technology helps to effectively maintain the bonding among those particles.

Neat! If the tech lives up to the claims, we should see these guys in electric vehicles within a few years. [CrunchGear]