I check into my hotel room, am handed a card with a microchip, and take the elevator to the 19th-floor penthouse. When I wave the card in front of the doors to my room, they pop open and the hall light comes on. An automated Cyber Susie welcomes me. This is no ordinary hotel room: it's the Cyber Suite at the Century Plaza Hotel and Tower.
When the Century Plaza opened in 1966, it was considered state of the art, partly because it was the first hotel to offer color television in guest rooms. Thirty years down the line, the hotel, like any Los Angeles matron, has gone under the scalpel to revive its sagging fortunes. Cyber Suite, perhaps the most high tech hotel room in the United States, is tricked out with more than US$75,000 worth of electronic gear, many of it prototypes not yet available to the public.
Once inside, I tell Alexander, the Butler-in-a-Box, to set the room's ambience. Ambient settings Party Time, Romance, or Good Night come with their own variations in lighting and music. Voice recognition has a ways to go, though: several times when I request Party Time, Alexander gives me Good Night. How like life. (If I'd stayed longer, the hotel staff could have programmed Alexander to better recognize my voice.)
When the system works, music plays through the futuristic Bang & Olufsen Beo Sound 9000. A plasmavision flat-screen television hooks up to a laserdisc player. In the bedroom, NetTV, a high-definition 37-inch color TV set, offers speedy Internet access via a Pentium 166-based computer, an ISDN line, and a 56,000-baud connection. It's dialed in to receive video via VDOphone, so I use my wireless keypad to look around to see who's online and place a call. I get a static shot of somebody's bed, then get disconnected.
From the master bedroom, pretty much everything - from flushing the toilet or drawing a bath to changing channels on the television - can be controlled, all via an egg-shaped Gyration wireless radio mouse. I slip on the VFX1 VR headset to immerse myself in a match of Dark Forces. Racing up and down halls, fighting with guns and my bare hands, I become completely nauseated and make my way to the bed. The mouse allows me to effortlessly close the shades, dim the lights, and turn off the music. I also flush the toilet - just because I can - and lie back for a low tech nap.
Cyber Suite: US$2,000 per night. Century Plaza Hotel: +1 (310) 277 2000.
STREET CRED
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