so when royal caribbean reached out asking to sponsor a piece on the
technology they're building into their cruise liners my initial reaction was
like what am i going to say about navigation
systems then i looked at the list of high-tech
ship features that they were going to be showing off hydrogen fuel cell power
systems facial recognition embarkation vr dessert bar wait what
and then i promptly boarded a plane for new york
okay so some of the tech they covered in the keynote did actually end up being
ship stuff like how they're using augmented reality to overlay navigation
information during adverse weather conditions and how by using computer
modeling to change the hull shape they were able to reduce drag through the
water by about five percent improving the ship's fuel economy and reducing its
environmental impact then they moved into the open source platform
that royal caribbean is contributing to that's designed for much faster
innovation in the industry as a whole
now on the surface this future app
that's part of it has the ability to see
and book cruises view a map of the ship and book
excursions and activities which is pretty standard hey we've got an app
fair but if you dig a little deeper you unearth some incredible functionality a
digital concierge will understand and answer common questions guest to guest
shipwide messaging is built in so you can avoid incurring sms roaming charges
and to help coordinate meetups and scheduling
ship wide multi-deck location tracking
makes it simple to see like where the kids are hanging out or if the reason
that you can't find each other is that you're actually at the same end of the
ship but on different decks and then comes the really next level stuff royal
caribbean will be using machine learning to look at factors like your past
preferences demographics your travel companions and your schedule to
recommend activities during time slots when you're available so
if you're dining with the in-laws it might suggest a nice red wine pairing
rather than a vodka soda and the central component of this more
open ecosystem is the bring your own device concept so
no more clunky nfc bracelets just install the app snap a selfie
scan your luggage when you embark and you walk on board the facial recognition
cameras will authenticate you based on the picture that you just took
which brings us to the deck of the ship complete with
clouds that actually ended up looking more like
giant sheep suspended from wires but uh a plus for effort you guys and where we
get to the real reason that i would be willing to allow an app to know where i
am on the ship at all times now they're still evaluating different technologies
for how to do it most reliably but the demo that they did tonight here allowed
me to just fire up the app click a drink monitor the real time
status like what then about a minute later someone shows
up hands me the drink and takes off if that is not the future of pampering
i don't know what is and augmented reality was another big talking point
here as i mentioned before it's already in use for navigation but it's also got
some more entertaining uses so guests
waiting to embark can play augmented reality games and on the deck you'll
actually be able to point your phone at these kinds of picture frames and
they'll give you an x-ray vision-like experience into the real-time inner
workings of the ship with live views available of places like the galley
where the food's being prepared the bridge the engine room and more now not
everything they demoed here necessarily has a firm roll out time but there were
some other really cool concept level things with virtual dining as the
standout for me using htc vives with
front-facing cameras for hand presence they had us try three different food
morsels in front of us that were also being tracked by the cameras
so the vr dining experience would actually know
what you're eating and then adjust the visuals to match now
obviously it's pretty first gen right now but i can imagine that as vr
headsets get lighter and less clunky taking a bite of ice cream for instance
and watching snow begin to fall or biting into something spicy and being
transported to a scorching desert would be pretty cool
obviously i wouldn't eat three meals a day like that but as an experience it
was utterly unique and everyone walking out thought it was a ton of fun next we
rode the automated shuttle so cool this
was actually my first time in a fully driverless vehicle and headed into the
future stateroom showcase so rooms like
this will be rolling out over the next year as you walk in the room welcomes
you opening the curtains and setting the mood with some lights even displaying a
message on screen if you're let's say celebrating a special occasion with your
cruise and then everything in here including the air conditioning can be
controlled via the built-in touch controls through your phone from anywhere on the
ship or good night in the case of certain functions like scene lighting with your
voice a standout feature for me was the
support though for both chromecast and apple tv because i'm exactly the kind of
person who would want to bring my own content with me on a trip that's
fantastic the stateroom concept room took mood
lighting one step further with displays
built into or projected onto the ceiling
and the floor allowing you to go to sleep to the sights and sounds of a
clear starry sky or a tropical storm if
that suits your fancy although we don't have an eta for those to be rolled out
after that we rode the shuttle one more time arriving at the hydrogen fuel cell
power unit from ballard that it turns out was actually using the 150 kilogram
hydrogen storage trailer in the parking lot to run many of the demos we saw
today including the robo screens and the
immersion tunnel so the box on top here is about
one-third fuel cell stack along with some accompanying components like the
safety mechanism and fuel delivery system and a humidifier that actually
recirculates some of the waste moisture
to keep the whole unit operating at an optimal humidity level then down below
we get a filtered air intake a compressor that's actually an automotive
supercharger that's been modified by the manufacturer for peak reliability the
cooling system which captures the heat from the exothermic fuel cell reaction
and would normally use sea water in this heat exchanger to dissipate it along
with a waste reservoir that ends up collecting pure water that on a ship
then could be added to the drinking water supply saving energy for the
high-powered desalination units that cruise ships normally rely on entirely
so thanks to royal caribbean for bringing us out to new york to cover this cool event and thanks to you guys
for watching this video sucked you know what to do but if it was awesome get
subscribed hit the like button check out the link that we'll have to royal
caribbean in the video description and while you're down there maybe check out
our merch store which has cool shirts like this one as well as our community
forum