Travel robot stays behind while you fly, takes care of business

by Chris Owen on

At the same time an important client was due to arrive at his office, Trevor Blackwell was stuck at an airport in Canada with an expired passport. That led Blackwell and his team to build a research robot that could be used remotely to interact with a client. They’ve continued to experiment with robotic telepresence for the past two and a half years and began shipping the robots in April.

“I really wanted to greet him and be part of the meeting in a bigger way than I could be on speakerphone,” Blackwell tells Entreprenur.

The answer, described as “Skype on a Segway only more geeked-out” was Blackwell’s “personal avatar”. The $15,000, 35-pound, two-wheeled, self-balancing travel robot has two-way audio and video so users can interact remotely with co-workers or customers.

Called “QB” (because the first model was QA), the personal avatar has a microphone, speakers, a 5-megapixel camera and a GPS-size video screen on its head, which is attached to its mobile bottom with an adjustable pole. QB connects to the Internet through Wi-Fi.All users need is a web browser to log in to the bot on Anybots.com and they’re able to control the robot’s movements with the arrow buttons on the keyboard. Thanks to the simplicity of the system, QB can be used from anywhere, even a laptop at an airport.

“Be part of the action at work from home or anywhere” says Anybots on its website. “All you need is a web browser to interact with the whole office, lab, factory, or warehouse. QB glides around smoothly and quietly, giving you total access and presence.”

Test drives are available Monday through Friday from 5 AM to 6 PM Pacific.


Flickr photo by peyri

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The Ritz-Carlton Checks In To Foursquare

by McLean Robbins on

As global hotel companies go, we’re always pleasantly surprised by luxury brand Ritz-Carlton‘s rapid acceptance of and moves towards innovation in the social media space. At the corporate level, they’ve been quick to adapt to and utilize sites like Twitter (@RitzCarlton), and, at the property level, often engaged on social media sites in a way that their luxury competitors are not.
Now, the brand has launched a new initiative with Foursquare, the location-based social networking service that allows users to “check in” at locations around the globe.

Dubbed the World Concierge, Ritz-Carlton’s entree into the Foursquare market is the first time a luxury hotel brand has extended their exclusive services to a mobile public audience. Tips will be populated regularly by concierges from all 75 Ritz-Carlton hotels around the world contributing, with the knowledge-base growing and evolving every week.

There is not a mention to be found about the soup of the day at a particular hotel; instead, the ladies and gentlemen of The Ritz-Carlton have taken their knowledge and expertise beyond the four walls of the hotels in which they reside, providing insight into cities such as Toronto, Miami, Berlin and Dubai to name a few.

The result: hundreds of tips and insights about local destinations and landmarks all over the world.

“Guests of The Ritz-Carlton have always enjoyed the expertise of concierges who are the best in the business. Their local knowledge, VIP access and incomparable contacts make them an invaluable resource for travelers”, said Chris Gabaldon, chief sales and marketing officer for The Ritz-Carlton Company.

Foursquare users are able to find local information by visiting the profile of The Ritz-Carlton or by checking in to numerous locations of interest around the world. To receive tips as they go live you can follow The Ritz-Carlton on Foursquare. If you’re not already following the brand, you may see the tips as part of of other area recommendations.

They’re not the first brand to partner with the location-based service. Starwood is also engaged in the FourSquare space, offering loyalty points to users who “follow” the brand and “check in” virtually when they literally “check in” to the hotel with a confirmed registration. Hyatt has had similar success at the concierge level with their proven @HyattConcierge Twitter handle, which supplements the property-level concierge staff by serving as a social media funnel for guest requests across all brand properties.

We’re curious to see if other brands follow suit, emulating one of the established players, or, like Four Seasons, continue to develop individual property personas across channels like Twitter or Facebook.

Expedia a step closer to ditching TripAdvisor

by Tom Johansmeyer on

Travel industry … welcome to high finance! By the end of the year, online travel agency Expedia is expected to spin off its TripAdvisor unit in an initial public offering, according to MarketWatch. And, the deal could be worth as much as $4 billion.

Think about it: all those hotel reviews you’ve written, photos you’ve posted and advice you’ve sought could be worth as much as Facebook generates in advertising revenue this year. Clearly, you’ve been working hard to churn out all that free content for your fellow travelers.

So, here’s the cosmic justice in all this. Expedia, the largest online travel agency in terms of revenue (which is what really matters), is set to benefit in a big way. But, you don’t post to TripAdvisor for fame and fortune. You do it to help your fellow travelers. Well, imagine how much traveling the folks cashing in on this IPO will be able to do. Maybe they’ll take your reviews to heart!

Look for the IPO filing in a few weeks … and celebration by a handful of people around the Christmas holiday.

[photo by jollyUK via Flickr]

Star in your own TV travel show, together

by Chris Owen on

Getting Away Together is a new PBS TV series that highlights the popular and growing trend of sharing a vacation with friends and family. As a new series, the producers are looking for families or reunion groups willing to share their story on national television.

“Unlike other travel shows, Getting Away Together brings the concept of “togethering” to television” says their website. “It’s the first reality travel series to focus on this trend. Each episode features a new group of travelers as they unwind with meaningful travel experiences in fun locales, with vacation rentals as their home base.”

Imagine; you star in a TV travel show and film crews will document your experience playing, dining, doing all kinds of activities in a luxury vacation rental home at some undisclosed fabulous destination.The producers are quick to point out, Getting Away Together is no “tawdry reality TV show” and the show will run on family-friendly PBS member stations only.

So what are they looking for?

“A few groups of 4-10 people who want to get away together and whom America will want to watch! You should have lively personalities and a great story viewers will care about” they say.

Groups must be available for filming on the dates when the vacation rental home is open. You’ll need to provide your own transportation to get there and back, but all accommodations, dining and activities during the shoot will be provided by the producers. That’s a pretty good deal too, we checked and the same house used in the first episode rents for up to $3500 per week.

Sponsored by TripAdvisor and CSA Travel Protection, Getting Away Together debuts on PBS member stations nationwide in October 2011.

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Flickr photo by Discount Vacation Rentals Online

Traxo launches “Travel Score,” a points-based rewards system for travelers

by McLean Robbins on

You’re the ‘mayor’ of both your gym and local coffee shop, your credit and Klout scores are off the charts and you’re a platinum member of your preferred airline. Now, in addition to regularly racking up miles and points, you can also tout your new Traxo Travel Score.

Traxo, a useful web-based company that tracks all of your travel loyalty programs in one place and uses social sharing options to let you share trips across your social media friend base, today has launched their newest feature, the Traxo Travel ScoreTM, billed as “the official measure of one’s overall travel experience.”

How does it work? The company says that the score is based on a patent-pending algorithm that awards travelers a score between 1 and 100 by taking into account over a dozen travel variables that includes the number of unique states and countries visited, the total miles traveled, the total days traveled, and the total status achieved across all the various travel loyalty and mileage programs and whether the trip was confirmed by Traxo. Travelers with the highest scores will enjoy the best travel perks.”With the Traxo Travel Score, we help you display and unlock the benefits of your travel experiences beyond the perks you are already getting from individual loyalty programs.” said Andres Fabris, CEO of Traxo. “A high Traxo Travel Score rewards travelers with both bragging rights and tangible travel perks, while identifying the most valuable consumers for our corporate partners.”

In order to test the program, we set up a Traxo account and linked up our current rewards programs. While the process took a bit of time, we liked that we now only have one hub for finding our rewards activity – although it doesn’t help us when we’re entering frequent flier data on new or existing reservations. Instead, the program just tracks our existing and upcoming trips and rewards activity. Still, the program was simple and easy to use, and over 100 travel partners ensure that most all rewards programs are already in the system (we noticed Kimpton was missing, but that was it).

The travel score also promises to retroactively pull up past location from over a dozen travel and check-in services. For travel providers not yet connected with Traxo, members can manually input their trip details that are then incorporated into their scores. Going forward, Traxo does all the work, automatically weighing all travel booked into each members’ score.

But of course, no new web program is complete without some sort of reward – travelers who achieve a Traxo Travel Score of 90 and above will be eligible to win a Traxo Travel Perk like a round trip ticket on South African Airways or adventure luggage from Briggs and Riley. Travelers who achieve a score of 80 and above will earn the Traxo Travel Perk of their choice, such as free Avis or Budget car rental voucher, a free one-year subscription to Condé Nast Traveler magazine, free travel insurance from World Nomads, and free access to the Virgin America club lounge. Traxo is currently working with top travel brands to add even more travel perks.

We’re excited to see where this goes – the concept of Klout for travelers, particularly travel writers like us, would be very fun.