landspeednyc

Give your blackberry a vacation

Reuters (via Tripso):

BlackBerry addict? - Hotel offers detox

BlackBerry addicts have a crack at freedom when they check into one Chicago hotel: the manager will put the communications devices and others like them under lock and key for guests who want a break.

Rick Ueno, general manager of the Sheraton Chicago Hotel, said the program which began on Wednesday grew out of his own personal BlackBerry addiction. His one-step recovery was switching to a regular cell phone.

Wireless battle at Boston Logan- updated

I've been 1/2 following the wifi at logan debate- in a nutshell, it seems as though Massport wants to be the exclusive provider of wireless at BOS- citing security, not profit, concerns, of course. The Boston Globe reports that the lines are drawn:

Sides chosen in Logan WiFi battle
Wireless and airport lobbies join dispute
By Peter Howe, Globe Staff  |  January 2, 2006

Logan International Airport officials' ongoing quest to ban airline lounges from offering passengers free WiFi Internet services is angering a growing array of powerful Capitol Hill lobbying groups, who say Logan could set a dangerous nationwide precedent for squelching wireless services.

Already under fire from the biggest airline lobby, the Air Transport Association, and the manufacturer-backed Consumer Electronics Association, Logan officials are also coming under new criticism from the top US wireless lobby, CTIA-The Wireless Association. All three groups are siding with Continental Airlines Inc., which has asked the Federal Communications Commission to overturn a Logan order last year shutting off Continental's WiFi service in its Presidents Club lounge in Logan's Terminal C.

Soon after activating its own $8-a-day WiFi service in the summer of 2004, the Massachusetts Port Authority, which runs Logan, ordered Continental and American Airlines to shut down WiFi services in their Logan lounges. Massport also ordered Delta Air Lines Inc. not to turn on a planned WiFi service in its new $500 million Terminal A that opened last March.

...At Logan, subscribers get some free content, including flight and weather information, but have to pay $8 for a 24-hour access to the full Internet.

Read the article for more. Also from the Globe- Logan may get non-stops to China:

Boston travelers would be able to fly directly to China by the end of this year under a deal worked out between China-based Hainan Airlines and Massport, city and state officials said yesterday.

Hi-tech beermat- never have to say "same again" again

From the BBC:

Hi-tech beermats for 21st Century
An intelligent beermat that alerts the bartender that your glass is empty could feature in pubs of the future.

Like an ordinary mat, it absorbs drips; but the gadget also has hidden sensors.

The device will detect the weight of the drink above it, working out how much is left before sending a signal to the bar for a refill.

The cool hunt for teens moves online

We've talked about cool hunting/trend spotting before. The NY Times reports on how online marketers are appealing to teens:

What's Cool Online? Teenagers Render Verdict
... So as part of Advertising Week 2005, interactive advertising agencies tried to answer the question last Tuesday of what teenagers want. The Interactive Advertising Bureau gathered 10 teenagers onstage at the Millennium Broadway Hotel to informally evaluate the creativity and effectiveness of three teenager-oriented interactive marketing campaigns, all before an audience of hundreds of industry executives.

So what do teenagers want? As one might expect, they want to have some fun. They want to customize products, they want to play games and they want to socialize. The online campaigns, created by three marketing agencies promoting Nike, Coca-Cola and the video game Halo 2, focused on the selling points for teenagers.

In other youth marketing news, Clickz reports:

Old Spice Races to Reach the Young Male

Proctor & Gamble's Old Spice wants to get, well... young. In an effort to attract youthful customers, the brand's agency, EVB, has launched four microsites featuring content for NASCAR, music and nightlife enthusiasts.

 

 

DDB london planning director- "...blogging, they thought I meant dogging"

Ah, the old in-house trend study. A recent one (via Yahoo News/Reuters) brings us:

Did you say dogging or blogging? Brits confused

LONDON (Reuters) - Proponents of the latest Web trends were warned on Tuesday that the rest of the world may not have a clue what they are talking about.

A survey of British taxi drivers, pub landlords and hairdressers -- often seen as barometers of popular trends -- found that nearly 90 percent had no idea what a podcast is and more than 70 percent had never heard of blogging.

"When I asked the panel whether people were talking about blogging, they thought I meant dogging," said Sarah Carter, the planning director at ad firm DDB London.

Dogging is the phenomenon of watching couples have sex in semi-secluded places such as out-of-town car parks. News of such events are often spread on Web sites or by using mobile phone text messages.
...
"We spend too much time talking to ourselves in this industry, rather than getting out there and finding out what's really going on in the world," DDB's chief strategy officer David Hackworthy said.

See the BBC's take on it, with a handy vacab chart, here.

A new addition to travel guides- GPS location info

It seems like only yesterday when including web page URLs in travel guides was really high-tech. Remember when Lonely Planet was pushing Ekno in its books? Of course, a lot of web sites were out of commission by the time the guides hit the stands. I assume that GPS information, as included in the Purple Guide to Rome (and reported by the Times), isn't as likely to change.

Edit- I see Gridskipper posted on this today- see what they have to say here.

NYT- if parks offer free internet, why can't costly hotels?

    Given that I was in Bryant Park this morning, Joe Sharkey asks a timely question in the NYT- a question I've asked a million times, even though I know the an$wer:

I'M no cheapskate, but I watch costs carefully even when I'm traveling on the company dime. And I'm here to tell you, I am getting fed up with being charged $9.95 or more in an expensive hotel for broadband Internet service. Lots of business travelers tell me they feel the same.

Recently, my wife and I stayed at the Loews Hotel in Annapolis, Md., while spending a weekend visiting a favorite nephew who's in his senior year at the Naval Academy. There was nothing especially wrong with the place, mind you, but it was just a run-of-the-mill four-star hotel that struck me as pretty overpriced at $310.60 a night - plus that annoying extra $9.95 charged each day for the high-speed Internet hookup.

I was still brooding about that recently as I sat retrieving e-mail messages from my laptop in Bryant Park in Midtown Manhattan on a glorious late-summer afternoon. Free! In a city park! In Bryant Park and in many other public and commercial places nationally, Wi-Fi Internet service is provided without charge to anyone who wants it.

Space-age toy collection goes on sale

While we're on the topic of robots, this from the Guardian:

Robby the robot, who shuffled stiffly on tinplate legs out of a Japanese factory almost as soon as the cult science fiction movie Forbidden Planet hit the screens in 1956, is the star of an extraordinary collection of robot and space-themed toys soon to be broken up at a Christie's auction in London

Gastrobot- Papero robot gets a sense of "taste"

While the "new" version of NEC's Papero Robot has been reported on before (e.g. by Gizmodo in March), Japan Today reports that it has added a sense of taste (it seems to have grown arms, as well!). From Japan today:

Gastrobot

NEC's Papero is a very happy little robot because, you see, he's just been endowed with the ability to taste human food, and he's really going to town. First on the menu was a juicy red apple, followed by yakitori, pizza-man and, finally, a blob of natto.

The midget 'bot has also been proving himself useful by educating the crowds at the Aichi Expo about the fat and sugar content of the various items to cross his electronic palate. Apparently, he's even able to tell the difference between cup ramen and the real thing. Tell that to the crusty yatai guy outside the local station.

NEC Press Release here.