Somewhere above Greenland, on my 14-hour flight home from Dubai, came the moment I'd been waiting for. My laptop's battery finally went dead. Time for some guilt-free relaxation. I opened my novel and did a quick glance around the plane. My open book and I were a minority of one. Everyone else was doing some sort of screen time—working or gaming on their laptops or staring at their in-seat display. That's because on Emirates, the airline I was flying, you can recharge your laptop while in flight. Say sayonara to getting a break from work; being 35,000 feet in the air is no longer an excuse for not being able to stay in touch.

In America, the move to in-flight communication systems that include everything from charging your laptop to answering email and surfing the web has been a slow haul. Last year Boeing Connexion, one of the major players in the U.S., pulled the plug on its in-air Internet service after many financial battles while trying to launch it.

Overseas carriers are moving faster. My Emirates (Airbus 340) flight was my first exposure to ICE (Information, Communications, and Education). The system lets you choose from dozens of first run movies, video games, news, TV, podcasts, music, audio books, and more.

In first and business classes, every seat has its own built-in laptop charger. In coach, there's a communal charger in the plane's galley. You give your computer to the flight attendant for an hour or so and then retrieve it recharged.

As for email, you have three options. (Note to editor: None of the options worked for me.) The sexiest option, according to the plane's programming guide, is Wi-Fi available through an in-flight email service called Tenzing. Using it you can use your own laptop and receive emails ($10 for four hours), but cannot browse the web or access a VPN. Unfortunately, when I tried it the wireless connection never appeared on my list of available networks. And flight attendants make terrible help desk support. There's also an Ethernet connection in the offing, but it hasn't been introduced yet.

Those without computers can create and receive emails using their back-of-seat display screens. Your input device is an on-screen touch keypad. I found it tough to get my fingers to register properly on the back of another guy's seat, and the service only works with POP3 mail like Yahoo! and Hotmail. Coolest part of the Emirate inflight system? Digital cameras aimed out from the cockpit and down at the ground provide a grand view of your trip on your display screen in real time. Talk about looking at clouds from both sides now!

Overseas carriers are moving quickly to get their systems in place. Most of these in-air systems are based on a satellite system that allows for text messaging and email. Tenzing is working with Cathy Pacific. AirCell, a new provider, plans to launch by 2008. Singapore Air already has a system for recharging laptops and gear with Wi-Fi. And JetBlue is planning to use a slightly different technology that uses an air-to-ground cellular communication. According to the Wall Street Journal, we'll start seeing carriers in this country using these systems towards summer's end.

As a consumer, the biggest problem is figuring out what service your airline currently supports and being prepared for your flight with the proper adapters. Visit your airline's website and read about the communications options. Then visit the Definitive Guide to Airline Wi-Fi and Internet Access for a listing of the airlines and their up-to-the-minute policies.

But remember, just because you can work for 14 hours straight now, doesn't mean you must. Have you connected at 35,000 feet?  Let's compare notes.