Laptop Magazine has a list of hotels in North America which offer high tech amenities. Amongst them is the Baltimore Marriott Waterfront which is testing out an HDTV system that plays music from your MP3 player via the guestroom’s television’s 30-watt speaker. You can also use the television’s 32-inch flat panel screen to connect to your laptop for a multimedia presentation. Plus, the HDTV screen also splits so that you can check your e-mail while watching TV. The Nine Zero Hotel in Boston has WebTV’s and High-speed Internet access throughout the hotel. It’s also the first hotel in the world to install LG’s iris identification technology, which allows guests to access the hotel’s Cloud Nine penthouse suite. The technology uses a digital camera to take a picture of the guest’s eye, and as a result the on-site cameras can identify guests and grant or deny them entry to the suite.
Hotel Icon in Houston has T1 access and free wi-fi that can be accessed in the lobby, restaurant, second floor meeting spaces, and ballroom. In-room amenities included 27-inch flat screen televisions, oversized personal safes to fit laptops, cordless phones, Web TV, fax machines and copiers available upon request, and CD players with an extensive catalog of music.
Aside from having high-speed internet, the Fairmont at Vancouver Airport is the first Canadian hotel to install an integrated technology system by INNCOM international, Inc. so that for example when a light bulb burns out in any guestroom, a message is immediately sent by computer to the Maintenance Department to let them know which room number and in which specific location did the light burn out. Also, guests staying in an Entree Gold level room can open and close drapes from a touch screen button located on a bedside table.
For the scoop on some other High-Tech hotels, check out Laptop Magazine’s November 2005 issue.
