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A Night in the Hotel of the Future
Roland Piquepaille writes "Michael S. Lasky was lucky enough to test the amenities of the "Room of the Future", Room 267 of the Hilton Garden Inn in El Segundo, California. Among other things, the room provides a wall-mounted, 42-inch flat-screen HDTV Panasonic plasma television, a biometric room safe, free broadband, accessible via laptop or the TV, or a Panasonic massage chair. Needless to say, Lasky didn't have enough time to test everything during his one-night stay, but was quite pleased. Check this column for a summary and a picture of the "Room of the Future.""
Big Deal. Hotel rooms should basically have a nice bed and nice bath. Personally, if I am going on vacation, I want to spend as much time OUT of the hotel room as possible but when I come back I want to get a good nights sleep and get clean the next morning. This type of stuff is designed to attract the people who bought those old Acer computers just because they had a black case.
Ah, Smell Segundo, I remember it well. Bordered by a huge sewage treatment plant to the west, with it's lovely aromas, LAX to the north, with it's wonderful sound effects AT MAXIMUM VOLUME, and, to the south, the second oil refinery built on the West Coast (hence, the city name), with it's wonderful plumes of burning gases.
Home to more engineering firms & Friday night Happy Hours than I can remember.
I found this to be most interesting:
a compressor-less mini-refrigerator that is completely silent
I want more and more quiet appliances, including computers. Everything is so freakin' noisy now! I wish more industrial design took this into account. Yay future!
I hate to say it, but I'm a little tired of things that pawn themselves off as "of the future," when they're just showcases for the most expensive, newest stuff that's already floating around.
Maybe it's because the real "hotels of the future" won't be any more exciting than they are now. If they're motels, they'll be cheap - if they're five star hotels, they'll simply emulate what's in the best houses, plus a feature or two (whooo, biometric safe).
What's so futuristic about a room that uses technology available for the household for at least 10 years (broadband not withstanding). OK the tv is plasma, but it's still just a big tv. Anybody could offer a room like this if they could get away with charging the extra amount it would cost to pay for it.
Now when you can get a room like this at Motel6 for $39.95 at night, then wake me up.
This isn't the hotel room of the future... it's the hotel room of today, if you're rich enough.
~Berj
Give me a nice beach just outside my sliding-glass door, and you can keep all this other crap...
Exactly! I've been in a lot of rather expensive hotels with guilded lobbies, liveried doorman, etc., but had rooms that were not soundproofed from road noise, the elevator, or the ice machine around the corner. Several times, I've unplugged the ice machine in the hallway in the middle of the night just to get some sleep. Unfortatenly, unplugging the elevator is a bit more difficult. Ding!
As O'Brien passed the telescreen a thought seemed to strike him. He stopped, turned aside and pressed a switch on the wall. There was a sharp snap. The voice had stopped.
Julia uttered a tiny sound, a sort of squeak of surprise. Even in the midst of his panic, Winston was too much taken aback to be able to hold his tongue.
'You can turn it off!' he said.
'Yes,' said O'Brien, 'we can turn it off. We have that privilege.'
These "things" of the future (homes, rooms, toilets) are always the same thing: They are not the Whatever of the Future, but simply the Whatever of the Very Rich.
I firmly believe that our futures hold simplicity, non-intrusiveness, and ease of use where technology is concerned. If television still exists in 100 years, it will be a nearly invisible unit, projecting onto a wall or an image floating in midair. Technology will dissolve into the very fabric of our lives as such that we will appear to be living in the 17th Century, when in fact we have lots of technology at our disposal.
I also do not believe that the capitalist system will disappear anytime soon. There will always be the rich, the middle class, and the poor. Most people cannot access high technology until it drops to commodity prices.
If you want to see what the future holds for technology, study the markets for the types of components that make up that technology. That which becomes cheap becomes widespread and ubiquitous.
# Erik
free broadband, accessible via laptop or the TV
I think he means: "Included in the price of the room", not "free".
eMelody Web Directory add your site today!
I'm getting a little annoyed at refering to references that refer to referenes that refer to a source article.
The content on Roland Piquepaille blog is always worthless. This is at least the third story he submitted (and was approved) that links you to his site, where they quotes from the article, and then says a very obvious sentance about that quote.
This all started back in Nov of 2002 see: for his articles
I don't get it. If you find something intresting, and you want to submit it to slash dot, then do so. Why make a blog, so you can submit, so you can refer to your blog.
I'm not getting into conspiracies about money or ads or anything. Near as I can tell none of that is involved here.
I just get annoyed going to his blogs to find he just quots the article, and has no real insight or other information.
-Malakai
-Malakai
A Dragon Lives in my Garage
It seems obvious that you don't travel on business much. When you are a tourist, the idea is to take in the sights, hit the nightclubs, &c. When you are a business traveller, you want one of two things: to not have to leave the hotel room (because you won't be in there very long), or to continue working.
I like to work in the evenings when on business trips, because the more I work, the sooner I get done, and the sooner I can go home.
It should have been plain that this hotel room in El Segundo was not meant for tourists... a tourist with that kind of dough wouldn't stay at the fucking Hilton Garden Inn El Segundo, he'd stay at Le Meridien or the W or something, in a place with some nightlife and some interesting things to see. (El Segundo's a nice enough place but it's not exactly a tourist mecca.)
Zaphod B
When duplication is outlawed, only outlaws will have
This is pretty dumb. These are just the latest toys. And many of them are not new at all.
t m is the "amazing" silent refrigerator.
-a second, smaller flat-screen LCD monitor next to the Jacuzzi bathtub;
--Not new -- just getting cheaper
-motion-detection lights that activate when guests enter the room;
--I had this when I was 12. (1990 or so) Bought something at radioshack to do it.
-a biometric room safe that uses a thumbprint as the lock and key;
--Not new -- just getting cheaper
free broadband, accessible via laptop or the TV;
--Not free (paid a premium for hotel room)
a Panja touch-panel remote control that manages lighting levels and room climate; opens and closes the drapes; controls the TV, radio, and DVD player;
--Can set this up using devices from http://www.smarthome.com
and even repositions the head and foot of the king-size bed;
-http://www.craftmatic.com/ Craftmatic has been around forever.
a compressor-less mini-refrigerator that is completely silent;
-- and here http://www.ajmadison.com/cgi-bin/ajmadison/BB52.h
a Panasonic massage chair, a heated toilet seat/bidet, a computerized five-nozzle shower, and a defogging bathroom mirror.
ahh nevermind
i guess it is kinda cool.
But it seems a bit much to get THIS excited over.
blah, blah, blah. im tired of typing
I Encrypt My IM's
to room of the rich...
nothing is "the future" in there. every bit of it is off the shelf available to the obscenely rich.
Show me self opening doors, lights that work when i say "illuminate" and the ability for me to issue a search command verbally to an avatar to search for information to display on that TV... then it's the room of the future.
hell give me the hotel room abiliteis that are in Johhny Mnenomic.. let me dial from, check messages, net,etc from the tv and it's remote.
Just dont try and pass off a bunch of high-priced things as "the future"
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
One of the most popular features is very simple - two hooks on the inside of the bathroom door.
Hilton is doing this because they made an expensive mistake. They tried a smart card system in New York, using the same card to unlock rooms, pay for meals, and make phone calls. People hated it. So now they use their rather boring location in El Segundo (next to LAX) to debug.
Hotels have a terrible problem with guest-visible technology - all their users are new. They don't want to hand a manual to each guest, or get calls for tech support. So it has to be subtle. This is good; too many products come with far too many controls for things the system should be managing itself. It's a nice design exercise to design technology for hotels.
With all of our jobs being outsourced to sweatshops overseas,
the "Room of the Future" is that cardboard box that the massage
chair came in, and digging for scraps in the dumpster, out behind the Hilton.