Smart Hotel Rooms in New York City

hc1379 writes "Back in the 90's, Mark Weiser a Xerox PARC scientist envisioned future computing will weave themselves into the background of our everyday life. People will use computing as natural as they use writing instruments. He called it ubiquitous computing (aka pervasive computing). UbiComp was a good research idea, but did not really find its way into the commercial market, at least not in the life time of Mark Weiser, who died in 1999. One of Harry's blog reports that the Mandarin Oriental in Manhattan has smart hotel rooms that can keep track of guests' preferences and change the room conditions automatically (e.g., adjusting room temperature and lighting conditions based on the guest's preference, and alerting maids when the minibar is running low on soda)."

Comments

Re:Computers are great

[gkuz]

Instead of just making a toaster, why not make a toaster that learns how different people like their toast?

My toaster has a dial on the front, that adjusts from "lighter" to "darker". It's actually very easy to use, and I don't have to log in before toasting my bagel. It's really pretty well "simplified" already. How much simpler do you propose to make it?

Re:Computers are great

[xs650]

Let me know when the toaster is smart enough to know how I want the toast this time instead of how I had it last time.

Turning a dial is lot simpler than trying to outwit some appliance that thinks it knows what I want.