C'mon. There is absolutely no way that someone missed a handoff for more than an hour due to screwing around with a laptop. Even on lonely flights across the blackest reaches of the upper midwest in the dead of winter, after fifteen minutes or so without hearing a call, everyone starts checking charts or twiddling with the FMS to ensure that the frequency in the box matches.
As a VFR pilot, when in uncontrolled airspace, I routinely monitored the local control frequency(s). One time, I noticed it went quiet, and realized the battery died (new battery, not properly wired.) I landed at an uncontrolled airport near my home airport, made a phone call to say I'd arrive at a specified time sans radio, then after a prop start from the local veteran pilots, flew in at the designated time without being able to say a word to the tower. One of the spookiest landings I ever made.
It did not take thirty minutes or more to notice radio silence.
The local news does not praise these pilots for getting absorbed in their computers. You can get arrested around here for using a cell phone or text messaging while driving a car, so sympathy runs thin.