Ross Dawson, chairman of media industry analysts Future Exploration Network, predicts that newspapers in the United Kingdom will be "extinct" by 2019, as the job newspapers do will be transitioned to other channels, The Drum reported today. According to Dawson, print editions of papers will cease to exist by the end of the decade in some countries but will survive past 2040 in others.

Of course, Dawson isn't the first to predict the demise of print. And, as MediaGuardian's Roy Greenslade pointed out: "Anyone who has dared to put a date to the disappearance of newsprint has, naturally enough, suffered from much scorn."

Image via RossDawson.com

Dawson's Newspaper Extinction Timeline suggests that in the United States, print will die out by 2017. In the UK and Iceland, print may live up to 2019. Newspapers in their "current form" might become "irrelevant" in Canada and Norway in 2020. A significant part of Europe may see the demise of newsprint by 2030, he states.

Russian airline Aeroflot penned a deal with network provider Megafon that would allow base stations to be installed on board, hence permitting passengers to use their mobile phones and to access the Web, Vesti.ru reported today.

The agreement outlined that in 2010 four airline models would have the service, the first of which is Airbus A-320. Later on, Airbus A-330, which fits 302 passengers, would also provide the service.

Future ventures include on-board Wi-fi connections, dailycomm.ru said. Megafon subscribers will be told the pricing for the service by summer, when it is predicted to be officially launched.