Sept. 29, 2009, DALLAS - Air travelers counting down the days to the end of rules restricting carry-on liquids - the ones that force you to carry everything in little bottles - will need to keep counting for a while.

Although airline safety officials had hoped to relieve passengers of the onus of putting their liquids in little bottles this year, it looks like it will be a while longer.

Last October, the chief of the Transportation Security Administration cheerfully predicted that "within a year" the agency would have installed new technology in scanning machines that would allow it to drop the 3-year-old rules. And TSA spokesman Christopher White was widely quoted last fall as saying, "We're confident it's going to happen in 2009."

Well, it's been a year, and the TSA has backed away from former administrator Kip Hawley's statement. The TSA now has no timeline set for when the rules will go away, said spokeswoman Andrea McCauley.

The problem is the complex algorithm that the enhanced machines will use to look at liquids. The plan was to have the machines set to be able to distinguish explosives from normal liquids and gels.

The agency continues to tweak the computers to be able to make the process work. But it's slow going to get everything right so it can be rolled out around the system, McCauley said.

If the TSA gets the system working, passengers would be allowed to bring liquids of any size through security checkpoints, though initially passengers still would be required to remove the liquids from their bags to be scanned separately from other items.