6 ms·

Google is replacing conference room paper schedules with solar-powered LCD's, updated via 802.15

37 points by andreyf 18y ago

quoderat 18y ago
The age of ubiquitous computing is finally arriving, though we no longer call most of them "computers" anymore -- at least, not most people. Like with AI, we keep defining down what is a "computer" and what's not as we cease to notice their advance. And, heck, maybe one day the paperless office will come to pass. In 2500 or so.
ChristianK 18y ago
Umm ... why do you need conference room schedules on the conference rooms? I've never worked anywhere that needed that. How a "zero impact" policy of "look it up on your computer/phone"? (Neat device though; there are other electronic sign age applications that I can imagine it being useful for).
- ROFISH 18y ago
  Whenever I worked in a corporate setting and wanted some alone time to do work, and not in a bad way, people always came to my cubicle for chit-chat, it was always nice to take my laptop and find an unscheduled conference room by looking at the paper schedules printed on each one. Yes I could've used the scheduling software, but it's far easier just to get up and go.
  - thorax 18y ago
    I just walk into an empty one ~10 minutes after the hour-- which a large percentage of the time at my company means it's free for at least 50 more minutes. If not, I leave when people come by.
- litewulf 18y ago
  Meeting rooms can change, but if you have a regularly scheduled meeting you will go there out of habit. Another thing is I've had my meetings bumped to a different room (particularly if I reserve a large room but have few attendees) (Not all engineers carry their laptops to all meetings.)
  - sobriquet 18y ago
    Didn't they give everyone Android phones last year? Shouldn't that interface with Google Calendar pretty well?
    - litewulf 18y ago
      Yes. My phone is associated with my personal account and not my company one though. Besides, the system predates the phones.
  - psranga 18y ago
    Maybe I'm dense, but if you go to the wrong room you'll only know you're at the wrong room. How do you know what the correct room is?
- run4yourlives 18y ago
  It looks like Google's boardrooms are closer to a hotel/conference centre boardroom in terms of use to the boardroom down the hall halfway between your office and the john. That being the case, it makes sense.
- sown 18y ago
  I remember taking a wireless sensor course and how they were talking about a situation at Intel headquarters trying to synchronize conference rooms. It ended up being similar to travel scheduling which is as it turns out, a hard problem.
andreyf 18y ago
I noticed that this is almost a year old - does anyone have any updates?
- litewulf 18y ago
  ...it works...? (I believe the system is not being expanded due to time/money/whatever constraints though.)
  - cdibona 18y ago
    A previous poster got it right, we all have androids, and the calender program works fine, as does the email alerts. As a side note, the radishes (that's what they were called) we're tied into google calender and worked really well.
    - 1010011010 18y ago
      Not all of us have paired our androids with our google.com accounts, and some folks simply refused their gift phone. I wish we had radishes in my offices. Too bad they're not available anymore.
anirudh 18y ago
Microsoft already has that and they are much better, it syncs with Exchange and so on.
- warfangle 18y ago
  Yeah, but uh.. Google doesn't use exchange ;)
proee 18y ago
I made a pretty sweet graphing weather monitor using this screen. Plots the indoor and outdoor temperature and of course doesn't use any batteries when it's idle. I packaged it up in a 1" thick display and have it hanging on my wall. Data is also stored onto an SD card in CSV for archiving.
- thorax 18y ago
  You have any more details on how you put it all together?
  - proee 18y ago
    I should take the time to put it on the web. My degree is in electrical engineering and so I went all out and designed the pcb and all the goodies from scratch. It also has an integrated capacitive touch screen that I integrated into the PCB so that I can change modes by simply pressing on part of the screen. I think it would make for a pretty sweet open source project since the display could be pretty universal and the wireless sensor could monitor lots of things beside temperature. It would make for a wicked seismograph project....
misterbwong 18y ago
Aaron thought to himself, "If only there was a inexpensive device that could display the room reservations, we'll save all that paper ...." seems like an interesting side project but i can't shake the feeling that, at least in this context, the solution is being over-engineered. i mean...isn't this what whiteboards are for?
- andreyf 18y ago
  The video points out that there are 2200 conference rooms, so while using white boards will save paper, but doesn't address the manpower needed to keep them up-to-date, nor the expenditure on dry-erase markers (not to mention the PR this kind of project gets you in all the right places).
budwin 18y ago
they had paper schedules?
- 1010011010 18y ago
  Admins would print out the google calendar for the room and tape it up, to be helpful. It's not like the schedule was kept on paper, just printed on it.
jhawk28 18y ago
Where can I get one? Need to get my company to do the same thing.
ph0rque 18y ago
We investigated cholesteric LCD screens when I was with i-conserve. Their energy use wasn't as low as e-inks, if I recall correctly, but you could buy a dev kit, as well as the actual screens, for a much more reasonable price.
ghshephard 18y ago
Say what you will about how lame Microsoft Exchange is - the one advantage to it is that pretty much every Mobile Device in the world (that wants to have a market) - can bring up the Calendar in it - and give you a reminder as to what room you need to be in. I don't see how the paper solution ever worked anyways - I can't tell you the number of times I've reserved a conference room 10-15 minutes before, hoping someone wasn't at the same time as me. I think this is as much a commentary on Google Calendar, and how negatively MicrosoftExchange has impacted standards around calendaring, as it is on the cool 802.15 hack.
- 1010011010 18y ago
  "pretty much every Mobile Device in the world"? I don't think that's true.
jodrellblank 18y ago
Drop the solar panel; meeting rooms are full of hot air - there must be enough temperature differential across the door to power a Sterling Engine or a small computer...
jeremyw 18y ago
Hmm, isn't Ruby an unapproved language inside Google? (i.e. not one of C/C++, Python, Java or Javascript.)
megaduck 18y ago
It's great to see 802.15 getting a little bit of press. It's fantastically low power, got pretty good range, and the throughput isn't bad. Far better than 802.11 for these kinds of devices. For anyone who wants to play with 802.15, I strongly recommend getting your hands on some Sun SPOTs. I've been playing with one of the dev kits, and they're an amazingly hackable platform.

37 points by andreyf 18y ago

The age of ubiquitous computing is finally arriving, though we no longer call most of them "computers" anymore -- at least, not most people. Like with AI, we keep defining down what is a "computer" and what's not as we cease to notice their advance. And, heck, maybe one day the paperless office will come to pass. In 2500 or so.

ChristianK 18y ago

Umm ... why do you need conference room schedules on the conference rooms? I've never worked anywhere that needed that. How a "zero impact" policy of "look it up on your computer/phone"? (Neat device though; there are other electronic sign age applications that I can imagine it being useful for).

ROFISH 18y ago
Whenever I worked in a corporate setting and wanted some alone time to do work, and not in a bad way, people always came to my cubicle for chit-chat, it was always nice to take my laptop and find an unscheduled conference room by looking at the paper schedules printed on each one. Yes I could've used the scheduling software, but it's far easier just to get up and go.
- thorax 18y ago
  I just walk into an empty one ~10 minutes after the hour-- which a large percentage of the time at my company means it's free for at least 50 more minutes. If not, I leave when people come by.
litewulf 18y ago
Meeting rooms can change, but if you have a regularly scheduled meeting you will go there out of habit. Another thing is I've had my meetings bumped to a different room (particularly if I reserve a large room but have few attendees) (Not all engineers carry their laptops to all meetings.)
- sobriquet 18y ago
  Didn't they give everyone Android phones last year? Shouldn't that interface with Google Calendar pretty well?
  - litewulf 18y ago
    Yes. My phone is associated with my personal account and not my company one though. Besides, the system predates the phones.
- psranga 18y ago
  Maybe I'm dense, but if you go to the wrong room you'll only know you're at the wrong room. How do you know what the correct room is?
run4yourlives 18y ago
It looks like Google's boardrooms are closer to a hotel/conference centre boardroom in terms of use to the boardroom down the hall halfway between your office and the john. That being the case, it makes sense.
sown 18y ago
I remember taking a wireless sensor course and how they were talking about a situation at Intel headquarters trying to synchronize conference rooms. It ended up being similar to travel scheduling which is as it turns out, a hard problem.

andreyf 18y ago

I noticed that this is almost a year old - does anyone have any updates?

litewulf 18y ago
...it works...? (I believe the system is not being expanded due to time/money/whatever constraints though.)
- cdibona 18y ago
  A previous poster got it right, we all have androids, and the calender program works fine, as does the email alerts. As a side note, the radishes (that's what they were called) we're tied into google calender and worked really well.
  - 1010011010 18y ago
    Not all of us have paired our androids with our google.com accounts, and some folks simply refused their gift phone. I wish we had radishes in my offices. Too bad they're not available anymore.

anirudh 18y ago

Microsoft already has that and they are much better, it syncs with Exchange and so on.

warfangle 18y ago
Yeah, but uh.. Google doesn't use exchange ;)

proee 18y ago

I made a pretty sweet graphing weather monitor using this screen. Plots the indoor and outdoor temperature and of course doesn't use any batteries when it's idle. I packaged it up in a 1" thick display and have it hanging on my wall. Data is also stored onto an SD card in CSV for archiving.

thorax 18y ago
You have any more details on how you put it all together?
- proee 18y ago
  I should take the time to put it on the web. My degree is in electrical engineering and so I went all out and designed the pcb and all the goodies from scratch. It also has an integrated capacitive touch screen that I integrated into the PCB so that I can change modes by simply pressing on part of the screen. I think it would make for a pretty sweet open source project since the display could be pretty universal and the wireless sensor could monitor lots of things beside temperature. It would make for a wicked seismograph project....

misterbwong 18y ago

Aaron thought to himself, "If only there was a inexpensive device that could display the room reservations, we'll save all that paper ...." seems like an interesting side project but i can't shake the feeling that, at least in this context, the solution is being over-engineered. i mean...isn't this what whiteboards are for?

andreyf 18y ago
The video points out that there are 2200 conference rooms, so while using white boards will save paper, but doesn't address the manpower needed to keep them up-to-date, nor the expenditure on dry-erase markers (not to mention the PR this kind of project gets you in all the right places).

budwin 18y ago

they had paper schedules?

1010011010 18y ago
Admins would print out the google calendar for the room and tape it up, to be helpful. It's not like the schedule was kept on paper, just printed on it.

jhawk28 18y ago

Where can I get one? Need to get my company to do the same thing.

ph0rque 18y ago

We investigated cholesteric LCD screens when I was with i-conserve. Their energy use wasn't as low as e-inks, if I recall correctly, but you could buy a dev kit, as well as the actual screens, for a much more reasonable price.

ghshephard 18y ago

Say what you will about how lame Microsoft Exchange is - the one advantage to it is that pretty much every Mobile Device in the world (that wants to have a market) - can bring up the Calendar in it - and give you a reminder as to what room you need to be in. I don't see how the paper solution ever worked anyways - I can't tell you the number of times I've reserved a conference room 10-15 minutes before, hoping someone wasn't at the same time as me. I think this is as much a commentary on Google Calendar, and how negatively MicrosoftExchange has impacted standards around calendaring, as it is on the cool 802.15 hack.

1010011010 18y ago
"pretty much every Mobile Device in the world"? I don't think that's true.

jodrellblank 18y ago

Drop the solar panel; meeting rooms are full of hot air - there must be enough temperature differential across the door to power a Sterling Engine or a small computer...

jeremyw 18y ago

Hmm, isn't Ruby an unapproved language inside Google? (i.e. not one of C/C++, Python, Java or Javascript.)

megaduck 18y ago

It's great to see 802.15 getting a little bit of press. It's fantastically low power, got pretty good range, and the throughput isn't bad. Far better than 802.11 for these kinds of devices. For anyone who wants to play with 802.15, I strongly recommend getting your hands on some Sun SPOTs. I've been playing with one of the dev kits, and they're an amazingly hackable platform.