This is the end of the lap pool at the Holiday Inn Shanghai Pudong Kangqiao in China. It perches over the side of the building 24-stories up, and has a glass bottom so guests can pretend like they’re swim-flying or something. I don’t f***ing know, I’m not a penguin.
This gives guests a delirious sense of swimming in the sky — they can see the street clearly down below while passers-by on Xiuyan Lu can see the swimmers way up above.
“I felt as if I was flying in the sky — I could also enjoy the beautiful scenery of Pudong from here … it’s so cool and wonderful,” a swimmer told CCTV.
Exactly 30 meters long (about 98 feet), six meters wide (20 feet) and 1.5 meters deep (5 feet), the swimming pool is the first of its kind in China.
Admittedly, that is pretty cool, I just don’t know if I could brave it. The truth is, I’m scared of heights. And drowning. And, since we’re on the subject, ghosts. Also, things that are unusually compartmentalized on the inside like honeycombs and pomegranates. No word how often they have to close the pool for cleaning because somebody shat in it.
Hit the jump for a shot of the pool from the inside of the hotel.
SpaceX and Bigelow Aerospace are teaming up to cross-promote their private aerospace tech. The duo are kicking off a tour in Asia to drum up governmental and business support for the Falcon 9 rocket and BA’s BA 330 floating habitat. The latter has 330 cubic meters of space and can support a crew of six for scientific experimentation, or ensuring no-one can ever out-do your bachelor party. More details about the tie up are expected just as soon as Elon Musk’s company can get that DragonX to escape the atmosphere.
Continue reading SpaceX and Bigelow Aerospace drum up support for the space hotel of the future
SpaceX and Bigelow Aerospace drum up support for the space hotel of the future originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 11 May 2012 11:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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This is the Discus Hotel, a hotel slated for construction in Dubai that will feature 21 underwater suites 30-meters (~100-feet) beneath the ocean’s surface. It was designed for people who’ve always dreamed of having sex while sea turtles watch.
Water Discus Hotels comprise two discs – an underwater and above-water one. The two parts of the structure will be connected by three legs and a vertical shaft containing a lift and stairway.
Guests will be able to operate miniature vehicles from inside their rooms that will take blown-up photographs of the surrounding sea creatures.
I do like the idea of getting to control a little camera-submarine from my room. I would pilot that thing straight into a mermaid’s dressing room faster than you could say OMG URSULA PUT A F***ING TOP ON.
Hit the jump for a bunch more pics including the view from a suite which doesn’t have any curtains and will inevitably attract the attention of numerous camera-subs whenever you’re naked/doing it.
Rehab at the Hard Rock Hotel is the hottest, sexiest, wildest pool part in Las Vegas. Detox has never been more stimulating. Players Network’s gorgeous host Debra Scott parties with the most provocative bikini-clad women and the bare-chested studs. Video Rating: 4 / 5
Related Posts:After a long Thanksgiving weekend spent with family, the idea of booking a hotel for a Christmas and/or a New Year’s Eve getaway may sound better than ever.
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For the past few weeks, I’ve been testing two digital tools that use distinct criteria for booking hotel rooms: HotelTonight and Room 77. HotelTonight aims to get people into rooms no matter how late they book, and Room 77 wants to get people into the specific room they want.
HotelTonight is a free app that works strictly for same-day hotel bookings. Once installed on an iPhone or Android smartphone, it will display about three steeply discounted hotel rooms per city after noon local time each day, when hotel representatives know what will be available that night.
Right now, the app can find hotels in some 28 cities, as well as several nearby getaway destinations (like Cape Cod for Boston). HotelTonight plans to add more cities like Tampa, Fla., and Palm Springs, Calif., and will expand in existing cities. An iPad app is planned for early next year.
HotelTonight’s deals for San Francisco hotels.
HotelTonight seems more serious about getting guests in beds than big-name rival sites. Many competitors, including Travelocity and Hotwire, offer same-day hotel bookings, but they don’t reveal the name of the hotel or its location until you book it. HotelTonight shows all information about a hotel. Another difference is HotelTonight lets people snag rooms until 2 a.m., instead of the usual cutoff time of 11 p.m.
But HotelTonight users can’t specify the type of room or bed they want. All rooms are just guaranteed to sleep two adults.
Using the HotelTonight app on an Android device and an iPhone, I found good hotel deals in my home city of Washington, D.C., as well as other cities like Boston. A categorization system labels each hotel as basic, hip, classic, boutique, elegant, luxe or solid.
Among the deals were the Washington Court (classic), very close to D.C.’s Union Station for $ 99 instead of $ 147; Chicago’s Wyndham Blake Hotel (solid) for $ 379 rather than $ 455; and the Langham (luxe) in Boston’s financial district for $ 199 rather than $ 275.
One getaway near Washington, D.C., was the famed Inn at Perry Cabin in St. Michaels, Md. The deal offered rooms for $ 195 a night rather than $ 215, and guests could stay up to five nights starting on a Monday.
Room 77 is a free website and an app for iPhone and Android that gives guests the inside scoop on hotels and rooms before they book. It looks at some 750,000 rooms and offers details like size, views and which floors are the quietest.
The website’s “Heard in the Lobby” offers tips from the concierge and hotel staff. Having stayed at the Garden Court Hotel in Palo Alto many times, I agreed with one tip for that hotel that said, “Light sleepers should request a room facing the Borders’ parking lot or Cowper Street to avoid any noise that might float up from the courtyard.”
Room 77 shows detailed information on hotels, including sample views, such as those from rooms in a hotel in Hawaii.
What I found most useful on Room 77 was that some hotels include floor maps that let you see more clearly how the hotel is laid out. By selecting a room on the floor map, you can see Google Earth images of the views from that room.
You can narrow room choices to floor (high or low), view (important or not important), elevator (near or far) and connecting room (yes or don’t care). A data sorter on the left of the screen lets you narrow hotels to those with free Wi-Fi, free parking (a big plus in cities), free breakfast or free hotel shuttles.
I used Room 77 to investigate the Hilton Riverside in New Orleans, where I’ll be staying for a wedding in March. I narrowed my search to rooms on high floors that had views of the Mississippi River and were far from the elevator.
Unfortunately, the wedding-party discount couldn’t apply on Room 77, so I couldn’t actually book through the site.
(While Room 77 doesn’t offer steep discounts on rooms, it displays beside each hotel prices offered at big-name sites like Travelocity, Expedia, Orbitz, Hotels.com, Booking.com and others.)
If you do use Room 77 to book, a feature called Room Concierge asks you to fill in your room preferences, including specific room numbers (if applicable). The largely automated service informs hotels of your request and follows up until a room that best matches your preferences is found, all the while sending you updates on the status of your request.
Room 77 is exploring ways people who book hotels elsewhere can use its room-finding service.
Email Katie at katie.boehret@wsj.com.
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So we’ve already heard about Intergalactic Suites, the space hotel that’s supposed to open NEXT YEAR, but here comes another one. This time from Russia. With love? Probably not, but hopefully with escape pod.
Called the CSS (Commercial Space Station) it will be built 217 miles above the earth and accessed via Russian Soyuz rockets.
While the price may not seem too astronomical, with initial claims suggesting the a five-day stay may cost around £100,000 (~$ 164K), it’s going to cost a cool £250,000 (~$ 411K) to get there.
With room for seven guests in four cabins, visitors to the 706 cubic feet pod will be able to see the wonders of space through huge windows.
‘The hotel will be aimed at wealthy individuals and people working for private companies who want to do research in space.’
The hotel is supposed to be open for business by 2016, but in space-construction time that means like 2025. Also: $ 600K for a five-day stay? That’s…pretty steep. Especially since I’ll get claustrophobic in the first hour and end up jumping out an airlock. “You don’t jump out an airlock dummy, you get sucked out — space is a vacuum.” Is it? Then why hasn’t it picked up earth? Haha, stop hitting me!
Hit the jump for bunch more pics of the damn rich people.
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How do you solve a consumer education problem like the Chromebook? You put it into the idle hands of urbanite travelers — that’s how. The fast-booting neither laptop, nor netbook entity with negligible storage and not-yet-defined purpose will find a temporary summer home at select Virgin America gates and New York’s Ace Hotel starting Friday. Jet-setters flying between San Francisco and either Chicago O’Hare, Dallas / Fort Worth, or Boston Logan can get an on-the-fly, marketing-fortified crash course in Chrome OS computing by visiting special ‘Chrome zones’ located near departure gates. Virgin’s also thrown in some free in-flight WiFi to ensure you test drive Google’s Cloud-dependent lap-dweller . And if you’re one of the millions of tourists planning on seeing the Big Apple in all its humid splendor, the Ace Hotel’s got an on-the-house stash that lobby lizards can use, but only guests can take out. But the promotional push doesn’t just stop there: all partners involved have bundled specialized travel-planning apps into the experience — sure to be ripe with cooler-than-thou recommendations. It’s a noble attempt by our search giant overlord to make a name for its portable computing entrant, and a helpful distraction from that armrest hog next to you.
Continue reading Chromebook boards Virgin America, checks-in at Ace Hotel for summer vacation
Chromebook boards Virgin America, checks-in at Ace Hotel for summer vacation originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 30 Jun 2011 18:10:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Rockwell Joya studio rental in Makati across the street from Powerplant Mall for more photos please visit picasaweb.google.com currently taking reservations click calendar link for available dates www.my.calendars.net please email rockwellrental@yahoo.com for more info or to make reservation arrangements contact: Mark US number:..(714)927-7419 yahoo messenger/skype: rockwellrental call or txt smart cell: 0 929 554 9924 Rates: Note these are consecutive daily rates not nightly rates so that way there are no check in or check out schedule conflicts or restrictions by structuring it this way your accomodations will be ready and waiting for you no matter how early or late you arrive believe me it takes more than 4 hours to get a condo cleaned and ready the right way /day for 1 month stay /day for 3 week stay /day for 2 week stay /day for 1 week stay /day for less than 7 days /day for less than 4 days A 0 reservation fee is required to confirm your stay Until reservation fee is received, available dates are subject to change without notice You can use visa mastercard or debit card via safe and secure transaction with western union by using this link www.westernunion.com or call Western Union..(800) 752-6077 or..(877)984-0469 It is better to call that way you can confirm what their fees are before you make transaction which last time I checked is at ()please email me the 10 digit money transfer control number (MTCN) provided by western union with sender … Video Rating: 4 / 5
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For many travelers, stealing hotel towels or bathrobes is more pastime than petty crime. Hotels, on the other hand, apparently take it more seriously. So seriously, in fact, that some have begun embedding specially crafted RFID tags within their linens, just to help us avoid “accidentally” stuffing them in our suitcases before heading to the check-out desk. The chips, designed by Miami-based Linen Technology Tracking, can be sewn directly into towels, bathrobes or bed sheets, and can reportedly withstand up to 300 wash cycles. If a tagged item ever leaves a hotel’s premises, the RFID chip will trip an alarm that will instantly alert the staff, and comprehensively humiliate the guilty party. The system has already paid dividends for one Honolulu hotel, which claims to have saved about $ 15,000 worth of linens since adopting the system last summer. But small-time crooks needn’t get too paranoid. In addition to the hotel in Hawaii, only two other establishments have begun tagging their towels — one in Manhattan, and one in Miami. All three, however, have chosen to remain anonymous, so swipe at your own (minimal) risk.
That hotel towel you’re stealing might have an RFID chip in it originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 20 Apr 2011 07:44:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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I went through an anime phase in college, discovering all the cool stuff from the 80s and 90s that I’d missed, and among the few I remember fondly is Neon Genesis Evangelion. Its legacy continues in new re-imaginings, toy lines, and now, hotel rooms. Are you one of these guys who can’t get enough of the passive, blue-haired Rei? Well now you can sleep in an entry plug and be woken by her charmingly reluctant voice.
Yes, it’s pretty weird. But when you think about it, it’s no weirder than, like, Disneyland. Or the themed hotels in Paris. I guess they don’t all have life-sized Rei figurines, though, or a full-sized Unit 01 head smashing through the wall nearby.
The hotel room is at the Highland Resort amusement park by Mt. Fuji, and will run you about $ 450 per night starting March 1st.
[via Comics Alliance, Anime News Network, Nerd Approved]
