The Most Technologically Advanced Hotels in the World

In a world full of technological advances and innovation, it’s no surprise that this level of hi-tech mastery would find great use in the wonderful world of customer service. Paying a premium these days really does find you great value in the amenities on offer; the following gadgets are all found in hotels around the world, and truly are some of the most unique, bizarre, craziest, yet brilliant, inventions created in a world obsessed with digital.

The Yobot Yotel

Situated in New York City, the most innovative new customer service assistant around is actively working around the clock, entertaining and aiding customers of the New York City ‘Yotel’. A large mechanic arm attached to the wall, the Yobot allows customers to safely store their baggage in the compartments located in the lobby for a timid price of $2. The best thing about this glorified bellhop? No tips…ever (well, $2, I suppose – hardly a dent).

Designed as the most courteous and efficient way of handling your baggage, the Yobot is designed with a high-tech system that encourages the user to input their own personal pin code and card device, impressively allowing the robot to identify each separate piece of baggage corresponding to the specific customer. In a world making social interaction secondary to technological innovation, this certainly ranks high up at the top, and is no doubt an impressive feat.

The ‘Grace’ App

A saving grace, indeed; this nifty little app is basically a feature that you can download to your iPhone and watch as it creates your packing list for you. Let’s face it, when it comes to going on holiday, the packing is the bit you fear most, and for good reason. Last minute decisions can cause excessive and unnecessary panicking, but with the saving Grace app, you need not worry. Not only does it act as a generic checklist (including information on where to change your money, and reminding you to get travel insurance), it also packs in different scenarios.

Say you’re going skiing, what exactly do you need to pack? Say you’re going to Barbados for a week – well what then? The technology caters for different holidays based on the user’s preference and is incredibly interactive, allowing you to personalise it to your liking, deleting the appropriate topics and even adding your own if you don’t see it there; a must-have for any globe-setting fanatic.

iPads and Apple Macs

What better way to stay in luxury than to bring along your iPad or your laptop computer? Well, no need; certain hotels situated around the world actually provide their own iPad service in your room. Some, such as The Weinmesiter in Berlin, even include an Apple Mac for guests. Not only are you allowed to peruse the Internet from the comfort of your hotel room, rather than band about for a small, dingy Internet café, but it also gives you the option of checking flights, ordering room service, and finding the best places to dine out in town.

theWit, Chicago

Resembling something found in any old sci-fi film from the ’90s, theWit hotel in Chicago is one of the most forward-thinking hotel services on the globe.

The hotel is wired in every aspect with an IP Network that spans the entire building, from room to elevator, making it technologically complete. Every little aspect can be controlled, interacted with, and fitted to the customers’ needs. All lines are connected to the front help desk, and there is a remarkable little function that calculates body heat within a hotel room, based on pre-installed heat sensors, and changes the temperature accordingly to suit the customer.

In addition to all this, the rooms come complete with NEC VoIP phones, which act in a similar fashion to the iPads already discussed, and allow the user to take advantage of the hotel’s many services, as well as checking updated flight times and adjust their wake-up calls.

Do Not Disturb

One of the biggest problems customers have whilst staying in a hotel is the room service; it’s not that it’s particularly bad, but no one wants to have the maid abruptly walk in on them at 10.30AM whilst they’re having a well-deserved lie-in. In certain hotels, this problem has been rectified in a plethora of different and unique ways.

With the press of a button, you are able to illuminate a Do Not Disturb sign that is situated outside the door, doing away with those old cardboard pieces, and saying hello to a bright new future. In contrast, if you wish to ensure your room is cleaned by the time you return, you can choose the ‘Make Up Room’ option and encourage the maid to enter.

Elsewhere in the world, hotels have started to use infra-red sensors, which actually scan the room for the maid or clerk, to check if anyone is still in the room. If nothing is detected, the maids are given the all clear and are allowed to enter. Pretty sweet, right…?

Paving the way for a complete reboot of how we view customer service, these innovations have stunned and awed the masses, leaving one question fixed firmly in their minds – whatever next?

N9 Apps #4: My Moves

When Nokia removed the home button and implemented the swipe gesture to control the N9 (and outsimplified the iPhone in the process) it was only a matter of time before the community developed things that also used gestures. One of the most intriguing thus far has been the ability to open the gallery without actually touching the device, instead it uses the proximity sensor to register the gesture. But something else also hit the Nokia Store, called My Moves.

This app utilises the N9’s ability to register gestures as commands to do various things. For example, you can set it so that swiping up, down, left, right, zig-zag or diagonally does certain things. You can swipe down to compose a new message without opening the messaging app, or make a phone call, launch other apps and so on, from wherever you are in the phone without having to scroll through the homescreen to find the app you’re looking for. It’s a simple idea with flawless execution, and gives the inkling that this is the future of interactions with our mobile devices.

Is Apple Developing a Smaller iPad?

Cult of Mac is reporting news of more Apple rumours. Speculation is always rife around Apple, and it quite often turns out to be wrong – from the iPhone 5 announcement speculated to be last year to rumours that it would have a 4″ screen. Nonetheless, the speculations are worth exploring and they sometimes turn out to be true.

One of the arguments is that a smaller iPad will be used to rival the Samsung Note, which is apparently competition because it comes equipped with a stylus. The obvious response to this is that many phones came with a stylus just a few years ago, but the move to capacitive screens – which Apple spearheaded – forced the move away from styluses. The suggestion that the Note will have an impact is to suggest that we should have just stuck with PDAs. As for the Samsung Note being a competitor, it should be mentioned that with the iPad being nothing more than a bigger iPhone, Apple already have an iPad with a smaller stature.

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AT&T’s 24 Hours with the Nokia Lumia 900

Nokia’s Operation Rolling Thunder has now started before the launch of the Lumia 900, which will be AT&T’s “hero” device. According to the network, the advertising campaign will be bigger than anything ever before with it, bigger than even their iPhone launches. The first phase appears to be this new video by AT&T, 24 hours with the Nokia Lumia 900.

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