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Smart Hotel Rooms in New York City

Posted by samzenpus on from the it-knows-I-like-to-sleep-in-a-bed dept.

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)."

34 of 131 comments (clear)

  1. Computers are great by PunkOfLinux · · Score: 5, Funny

    I try a lot to build computers into whatever I can. Making technology useful for anything and everything, thus simplifying life, is really what technology is all about.

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

    Or, instead of making a set of speakers, why not make a set of speakers that can automatically adjust to prevent distortion, no matter the volume level?

    --
    Show this to your friends and family that don't know what a real hacker is
    1. Re:Computers are great by gkuz · · Score: 4, Insightful
      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?

    2. Re:Computers are great by aktzin · · Score: 2, Funny
      Right on. Technology shouldn't be complicated just because it can be. To illustrate this point let's turn to the classic story recounted in a previous /. story:

      http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=15874 7&cid=13299054

      --
      Quantum mechanics: the dreams that stuff is made of.
    3. Re:Computers are great by xs650 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

    4. Re:Computers are great by Frogbert · · Score: 2, Funny

      This much simpler!

    5. Re:Computers are great by Elvis+Impersonator · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Simple example of technology gone awry: Your phone: You are talking on the phone and someone else calls. It interrupts your conversation with beeping. You interrupt the person you are talking to in order to look at caller ID to see who is talking. You click over to tell them you are talking on the phone and will call them back. End result - ball's in your court. My phone: Automated response system known as busy signal. Ball is firmly in caller's court.

    6. Re:Computers are great by mmontour · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Your "smart" toaster sounds like something that Microsoft would come up with. I'd rather have the talking one from Red Dwarf.

      "refuse to toast until you set it up"? Why not just fall back to the traditional manual control? If I want "smart" mode, I'll push a button for it.

      As for remembering the setting I used last time, that's no good unless it also knows that I'm toasting the same kind of bread as last time. It doesn't allow for the possibility that I might want my toast darker than I did yesterday. Do I have to create a new account for that? Can I even can do that, given that it's using biometrics?

      If you're adding electronics to a toaster, give it something that improves the fundamental process. Measure the change in surface reflectivity to detect done-ness, instead of just a time or temperature control. Control humidity by turning on a small fan. Apply different amounts of heat to the top and bottom surfaces of a bagel. Detect when the crumb tray is about to catch on fire and shut off the power. Etc.

    7. Re:Computers are great by Jerk+City+Troll · · Score: 5, Funny

      Source: http://philip.greenspun.com/humor/eecs-difference- explained

      Once upon a time, in a kingdom not far from here, a king summoned two of his advisors for a test. He showed them both a shiny metal box with two slots in the top, a control knob, and a lever. &ldquolWhat do you think this is?”

      One advisor, an engineer, answered first. “It is a toaster,” he said. The king asked, “How would you design an embedded computer for it?” The engineer replied, “Using a four-bit microcontroller, I would write a simple program that reads the darkness knob and quantizes its position to one of 16 shades of darkness, from snow white to coal black. The program would use that darkness level as the index to a 16-element table of initial timer values. Then it would turn on the heating elements and start the timer with the initial value selected from the table. At the end of the time delay, it would turn off the heat and pop up the toast. Come back next week, and I'll show you a working prototype.”

      The second advisor, a computer scientist, immediately recognized the danger of such short-sighted thinking. He said, “Toasters don't just turn bread into toast, they are also used to warm frozen waffles. What you see before you is really a breakfast food cooker. As the subjects of your kingdom become more sophisticated, they will demand more capabilities. They will need a breakfast food cooker that can also cook sausage, fry bacon, and make scrambled eggs. A toaster that only makes toast will soon be obsolete. If we don't look to the future, we will have to completely redesign the toaster in just a few years.”

      “With this in mind, we can formulate a more intelligent solution to the problem. First, create a class of breakfast foods. Specialize this class into subclasses: grains, pork, and poultry. The specialization process should be repeated with grains divided into toast, muffins, pancakes, and waffles; pork divided into sausage, links, and bacon; and poultry divided into scrambled eggs, hard- boiled eggs, poached eggs, fried eggs, and various omelet classes.”

      “The ham and cheese omelet class is worth special attention because it must inherit characteristics from the pork, dairy, and poultry classes. Thus, we see that the problem cannot be properly solved without multiple inheritance. At run time, the program must create the proper object and send a message to the object that says, 'Cook yourself.' The semantics of this message depend, of course, on the kind of object, so they have a different meaning to a piece of toast than to scrambled eggs.”

      “Reviewing the process so far, we see that the analysis phase has revealed that the primary requirement is to cook any kind of breakfast food. In the design phase, we have discovered some derived requirements. Specifically, we need an object-oriented language with multiple inheritance. Of course, users don't want the eggs to get cold while the bacon is frying, so concurrent processing is required, too.”

      “We must not forget the user interface. The lever that lowers the food lacks versatility, and the darkness knob is confusing. Users won't buy the product unless it has a user-friendly, graphical interface. When the breakfast cooker is plugged in, users should see a cowboy boot on the screen. Users click on it, and the message ‘Booting UNIX v.8.3’ appears on the screen. (UNIX 8.3 should be out by the time the product gets to the market.) Users can pull down a menu and click on the foods they want to cook.”

      “Having made the wise decision of specifying the software first in the design phase, all that remains is to pick an adequate hardware platform for the implementation phase. An Intel 80386 with 8MB of memory, a 30MB hard disk, and a VGA monitor should be sufficient. If you select a multitasking, object oriented language that

      --
      Join Tor today!
    8. Re:Computers are great by jacksonj04 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Our shower is computer controlled with user profiles, it's a pain in the ass. Yes, it has shower, rain shower, steam generator, body jets and foot massager features (Sometimes all at once) but all I want is a bloody shower.

      The profiles are useful for getting a starting point (Such as turning off the bits I don't want), but from there on it's manual control.

      On the plus side, the computer control keeps the water pressure and temperature constant at whatever you set it to (On a nice LCD, so you can see the temperature) even when people flush the toilet. *That's* what computer control should be for, none of this profile nonsense.

      --
      How many people can read hex if only you and dead people can read hex?
    9. Re:Computers are great by Foobar+of+Borg · · Score: 2

      Especially if Microsoft designs the software for it. I mean, with Word for example, when I am writing a paper and use "et al." it automatically changes to the French dictionary, even though this is a common term for English language papers when you are referencing a document with multiple authors. I guess if they designed the toaster, it would assume you want it black because you turned in a particular direction one morning. Then, every morning after it assumes you want your toast black.

      --
      Similar to the upcoming US election results
  2. Heh heh heh... by lewp · · Score: 5, Funny

    Oh, the minibar was never in danger of running low on soda...

    --
    Game... blouses.
  3. Jane, stop this crazy thing! by Senes · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Would be amusing to see what one good hacker or software glitch could do with a room like that. As if being able to scan people's important info out of a key card wasn't enough.

  4. My preferences, eh? by imboboage0 · · Score: 4, Funny

    When they figure out that I would prefer not to pay and adjust accordingly, then we're talkin.

    --
    Honesty may be the best policy, but by process of elimination, dishonesty is the second best policy.
  5. I can just hear it now by AutopsyReport · · Score: 3, Funny

    "This is Seth from the Mandarin front desk. The following DVDs have been automatically charged to your account: Drunken Hussies, Backdoor Patrol, and Mona Lisa Smile. Thank you."

    --

    For he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother.

    1. Re:I can just hear it now by gardyloo · · Score: 2, Funny

      That's not pervasive computer. That's perversive computing.

    2. Re:I can just hear it now by multiplexo · · Score: 2, Funny
      "This is Seth from the Mandarin front desk. The following DVDs have been automatically charged to your account: Drunken Hussies, Backdoor Patrol, and Mona Lisa Smile. Thank you."

      Hey! I didn't rent Mona Lisa Smile. It was Mona Lisa's Pearl Necklace.

      --
      cheap labor conservatives - they want to keep you hungry enough to be thankful for minimum wage.
  6. wish there was more detail by lashi · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I would love to know what products the hotel is using. I would like to automate my home.

  7. Smart hotel by aktzin · · Score: 5, Interesting
    A good example of advanced computer intelligence in a hotel (not just the rooms) is in the detective/science fiction novel "Altered Carbon" by Richard K. Morgan:

    http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-fo rm/102-8961702-9548145

    It's set mostly in San Francisco in the 25th century, and there's a "Hendrix hotel" that's actually controlled by a self-aware AI inspired by its famous namesake. There's a very violent scene where some thugs attempt to commit a crime in the lobby. Let's just say the hotel had really good security.
    --
    Quantum mechanics: the dreams that stuff is made of.
  8. Not Cheap by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Check out the room rates:
    http://www.mandarinoriental.com/hotel/532000009.as p

  9. I've seen various things like this done by grahamsz · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I had a hotel in italy where the room lights were activated by your room key. This allowed them to know exactly when you left your room. One day we took a nap in the middle of the day, wandered round the town for an hour or so and returned to find that the bed had been remade.

    The offered otherwise excellent service (Hotel Panorama, Venice btw) but using technology for a few extra touches makes all the difference.

    The Mirage in las vegas had a minibar that was monitored by computer in my suite. I'm not sure if they'd have come and restocked it, but it stops you replacing that $4 bottle of aquafina you took with an inferior quality one from safeway.

    My point is that these smart features wont make a craptastic hotel better, but they can make a nice one nicer.

  10. mini bar... so thats new ? by fizze · · Score: 3, Informative

    I spent a few days in a hotel in London, around march. The mini-bar in the room was RFID-equipped and would automatically charge your account if an item was removed.
    So I guess thats not really new, then.

    --
    Powerful is he who overpowers his temptations.
  11. Re:great by Trip+Ericson · · Score: 3, Funny

    Plenty of OTHER systems open Windows for you, I don't think we need another. *ducks*

  12. The world revolves around you by Nerdposeur · · Score: 3, Insightful

    This kind of stuff makes me a little uneasy. On a practical level, the more complicated something is, the more ways it can mess up. Think about how often you have to fix your computer versus your refrigerator.

    It also makes me think about how we can use products and gadgets to define ourselves. Your room will "match your lifestyle," it says. How much thought do we really need to perfecting our environments and making everything around us customized for our tastes? Everything from the color of your iPod to the way you drink your coffee is supposed to express your personality, and the world is supposed to be exactly the way you like it.

    I mean, this is neat in theory, but you're going to pay a lot for the service, I'm sure. (I don't know which rooms have it, but the first reservations their site showed me were between $600 and $700 a night.) The question is, are you paying for the convenience, or how important it makes you feel?

    1. Re:The world revolves around you by mzwaterski · · Score: 2, Interesting

      As a brief reply, I don't think that the repair argument holds. How often do you repair your clock radio, how often do you repair your television? Not really that often. Just because it is electronic doesn't mean it will break. This is especially true when people aren't allowed to tinker with the software of the device. If the software behind these devices is handled well, I don't think you will have to worry about reinstalling the OS on your thermostat.

  13. Nice if *I* had the information by Filthysock · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Like a 'hotel prefs' wireless usb key ring that worked across all the hotel chains, the room would read and write to it while I were there and but wouldn't store it.

    1. Re:Nice if *I* had the information by Gondola · · Score: 2, Interesting

      That's exactly what I envisioned when I first thought about it.

      It would be very easy to have a tiny filesystem readable via Bluetooth or whatever, with something like

      HOTEL_PREFS.CFG
      TV_PREFS.CFG
      DESKTOP_PREFS.CFG
      LAPTOP_PREFS.CFG
      BEVERAGE_PREFS.CFG
      DINNER_PREFS.CFG
      MEDICALERT.CFG
      PUBLIC_KEY.CFG

      Imagine your waiter coming up to you at a restaurant you've never been to and saying, "Welcome sir and madame. Your usual?"

      Imagine they don't have to ask if you want sour cream or butter or cheese, or how you want your steak done, or if you want lemon in your tea. It's all recorded on their belt PC along with your order. With just a few strokes of a pen or voice recognition, the chefs in the restaurant see an order pop up on the screen, without the waiter having to return to the kitchen. Their belt PC tells them when the food is ready.

      You approach a guest desktop PC in your hotel room and it automatically sets your preferred resolution, color scheme, and most commonly used apps, along with the latest news in the categories you prefer. With no effort involved.

      Your television automatically displays a welcome message and displays upcoming shows that fit your viewing preferences, or suggests movies you can order.

      Just the tip of the iceberg, really. Once computing and networking is truly ubiquitous, our lives really will change.

  14. why hotels? by drewxhawaii · · Score: 2, Insightful

    it seems this type of technology is better suited for homes.

    the vast majority of people are not repeat visitors to the same hotel...

    1. Re:why hotels? by Red+Flayer · · Score: 2, Interesting

      "the vast majority of people are not repeat visitors to the same hotel..."

      No, but the vast number of frequent travelers are. Business travelers, jetsetters, etc... Not only that but for people who rarely travel to the same destination a lot still tend to stay at a particular chain. Incentive programs have made a big difference with this.

      Even those of us who only stay at hotels 5x a year tend to stay in the same ones, if we go to the same city every year. Find one you like, stick to it.

      --
      "Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
  15. Re:Anonymous movies by zippthorne · · Score: 2, Funny

    Well the obvious solution is to buy 6 films.

    --
    Can you be Even More Awesome?!
  16. Stayed in one in Philly Two years ago by puto · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I stayed one in Rittenhouse in Philly, well almost three years ago.

    They had a console by the bed where you could control lights, tv, temp etc.

    The best featue is you could set the temp of the shower and it would turn itself on when it got to the promper temp it would notify you.

    It also had movies on demand. So my girlfriend and I decided to watch a video on demand. The movie Barcelona. She had never seen it. I told her about it. I got in the shower after the movie started, or was supposed to start.

    I come out of the shower and she is seated on the bed with a funny look. And this is a girl who spent ten years working in Turkey and various other countries. Unshakeable.

    The automated system had decided to lock on some weird shemale porn flick that was in a loop.

    She figured it was glitched, and it wasn't me.

    True story...

    I thought the automated room would be romantic.

    The next day they fixed it and gave us a free night.

    True story. Nothing like shem porn to be a mood killer.

    Puto

    --
    The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
  17. Re:Anonymous movies by xoip · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The Westin that I worked at in University, used Lucky #7 as the porn code...btw North American customers usually watched for 15 min.....Asian business men....left the movies on all day

  18. Editors Wanted by stevens · · Score: 2, Funny

    Let's get our /. submission ready:

    • Lots of buzzwords. Check
    • Tenuous tie-in to famous geek. Check
    • Link to my own blog to try and make some AdSense money. Check
    • Speaking of my own blog in the 3rd person to sound like a disinterested party. Check

    Now you too can pass yourself off as Roland Piquepaille!

  19. RFID for Prostitutes by loserface · · Score: 4, Funny

    It would be a lot cooler if it could match the room settings to which hooker you have with you that night.

  20. Philip K. Dick - Ubiq by gnetwerker · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Mark was a friend and is missed. One of his favorite books on the subject was P.K. Dick's Ubiq. Hence the name of the site. Check it out. -- gnet