WASHROOM
now provides an alternative in the form of companies such as the Seat of Luxury, When Nature Calls and VIPee’s. For a fee these firms provide stadium visitors with unlimited access to clean, hygienic toilets, some offering extras such as mirrors, hairdryers and straighteners.
Wristband passes for these facilities tend to be restricted in availability and usually need to be bought online before the festival. So again, the internet is playing a pivotal role in providing people with access to better standards of toilet.
Meanwhile, other websites such as the Great British Public Toilet Map will helpfully direct you to the nearest toilet, providing information on whether a fee will be levied; if there is an attendant on-site and what the opening hours are. And the Toilet Finder smartphone app has an even wider scope, allowing users to locate more than 120,000 public toilets around the world. The app can also be used via the Apple Watch.
There are various other ways in which washrooms are becoming smarter and more internet-linked, using smartphones and Bluetooth connectivity to manage supplies of consumables and thereby providing a more seamless service. In fact we at SCA will be revealing some new high-tech solutions for the away- from-home washroom market at the ISSA-Interclean exhibition in Amsterdam in May.
Japan is always at the forefront of toilet technology and some of its loos incorporate medical sensors that measure sugar in the urine and take the visitor’s pulse, blood pressure and body fat content readings. Toilet developers are now looking to take this further and use a built-in internet-capable cellular telephone to send this data automatically to a doctor.
Of course as we know, the internet can be a force for evil as well as good. Many Japanese toilets have automatic flushing and bidet functions as
standard and It was recently reported that hackers had managed to bypass the password of one of these high- tech models.
This meant that the hackers would have been able to operate the toilet remotely, flushing it at random or activating the bidet function unexpectedly. Whether the hacker would have also been able to access the washroom user’s medical records as well, is anybody’s guess.
But in general, the internet has had a hugely positive impact on the away-from-home washroom. It has galvanised the public to speak out about terrible toilets and to praise outstanding ones, giving washroom providers a real incentive to raise their game.
We all have a right to clean, hygienic and well-stocked washrooms wherever we happen to be. And the internet is helping to make this happen.
www.tork.co.uk
www.tomorrowsfm.com
TOMORROW’S FM | 29
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70