Back in the early 1950's, advances in technology produced the first commercial jet, a development that changed the face of travel. Half a century later, another revolution is causing a stir, but this time it's a silent one. It is happening in our hotels.

Hotels have long been at the cutting edge of technology. They where the first to install gas lamps, then the first to replace them with electric lights. Hotels brought in black-and-white televisions, then ditched them for color sets. And now, in a bid to woo guests, hotels are again at the forefront of technological innovation.

In the next few years, as the war to get wired heats up, we can expect to see a raft of new and exciting features whenever we check in. Already some luxury chains have installed 42-inch plasma TV screens and high-speed internet connections, or invested in computerized minibars and next-generation key cards. And this is only the tip of the iceberg.

ELECTRIC DREAMS You may not have requested a bedside light that flickers like a candle, or a phone that muffles out the sound of running bath water, but you certainly might appreciate these little extras when you check in. And nowhere has technology been better adapted to deliver a highly personalized than at the 75-year-old Peninsula Hotel in Hong Kong. There, a new control room capable of managing 5.1 billion electronic tasks per second monitors everything from light fixtures to telephones. Should a malfunction occur, someone is onto it immediately. Nowadays all the rooms have panels that show the outdoor weather conditions, and at the flick of a switch the ambient lighting can be adjusted. Room lamps also alter in brightness depending on the time of day or setting of the air conditioning.

In the Peninsula's in-house laboratory, chief IT officer Fraser Hickox - affectionately known as "Q" - develops and tests new wired concepts that, he hopes, guests will appreciate. "True 'high technology' is transparent in its delivery; it should be present when required but not demanding, and it should definitely not test the guest's technical ability," says Hickox. "Much of our time is spent dumbing down the user interface, yet maintaining its utility."

From Tokyo to Auckland, from Singapore to Seoul, new hotel technology entertains and relaxes us - but don't expect a NASA cockpit when you open the door. The consensus among experts is that the latest technology should be inconspicuous, but easy to find when you need it. Engineers are working hard to buy wires in antique chair lags and hide consoles behind wooden panels, all the while thinking up novel ways to make our stays a little better. "This is not about gadgets and gizmos. It's about the services you offer," says Nick Price, Mandarin Oriental Group's director of technology. "I don't think people will ask for technology, but it should be there when they need it."

Some hotels in the region have installed smart databases that inform staff about guests' various likes and dislikes. "This enables us to capture specific information about our frequent guests, such as their preferred wine, menu choices, and table requirements," says Sally de Souza of the Mandarin Oriental in Hong Kong. In Singapore, both Swissôtel The Stamford and Raffles The Plaza have armed housekeepers, concierges, and waiters with PDAs, laptops, and tablet PCs, giving them mobile access to guest data. Staff can also send text messages (SMS) to alert colleagues as to your whereabouts and whether you need assistance. Elsewhere in the city-state, properties including Resort Downtown East and the Sentosa now inform guests of their room number by SMS two days before checking in.

Smart databases are still the exception, however. "Many hotels haven't got sophisticated systems and their use of customer data is also fairly poor, so most of this technology is wasted," says John Stonham of asia-hotels.com, a Hong Kong-based hotel reservations website.

WIRED WONDERS At the Peninsula in Hong Kong, they learned long ago that what an engineer defines as useful is not necessarily something a guest will use. "Well before the Internet we enabled our guests to monitor any stock exchange index in the world. We thought this would hold great appeal," says Hickox. "But there was no interest. In hindsight, had we offered the latest football results, we probably would have scored a winning goal."

Today the hotel goes beyond the regular cable offerings by treating European visitors to TV broadcasts in their own language, a service that has proved much more popular. Another success story has been the 24-hour "Tech Jeeves" at the Ritz-Carlton Kuala Lumpur, where executives can call on a butler-cum-engineer to help solve printer problems, adjust modems, or restore crashed software.

If it is infotainment you want, however, there is nowhere better than the Regent in the same city. Its I-console allows guests to browse the Net, check bills, order room service, or even play networked TV games with friends staying in different rooms.

Wired wonders are also helping to provide our daily dose of news. The Shilla in Seoul has Internet television, allowing you to scan personalized news pages. The Hilton in Auckland has gone one step further: it has a PC in the lobby where you can print out A3-size versions of any of 120 international dailies, at US$5 a pop, using a credit card. If your timing is right, you might even be reading the newspaper before it hits the streets in its city of origin.

These days you can find advanced technology in the most unusual places, such as in the ballroom of the Sheraton in Bangkok, where a new 16-million-color lighting system allows event coordinators to illuminate the space in corporate colors, should they be so inclined. And in Japan, where hotel tech already includes computerized minibars that automatically update your bill when an item is removed, the restaurants at Hilton Tokyo and Hilton Otaru have begun sending e-promotions to diners on the basis of their known preferences; people pick them up on their cell phones and then book a table.

Technology is also being employed to enhance our time spent outside the hotel. On the web site of InterContinental Hotels, an interactive city guide (www.insider.intercontinental.com) features maps that allow you to make a beeline to select restaurants and attractions in the vicinity of the group's worldwide properties.

FUTURE SHOCK But is all this technology taking us away from the golden days of travel? Will staff in smiling suits be replaced by screens and self-service? In the scramble to cut costs, machines instead of people might soon be greeting us. "I did stay in an auto-hotel recently in Berlin," says Stonham. "I arrived, swiped my credit card, and the key dropped out. No staff, no costs, and no character, but cheap."

The word among hotel engineers, however, is that the latest technology will, if anything, enhance rather than diminish our time away from home. "Very soon I can imagine a business traveler working on his laptop while watching his kids on the TV as they do their homework halfway around the world," says Price. "We can now connect home, work, and travel - hotels can build that bridge."

Perhaps. And yet, with so much information being collected about us, should we fear an Orwellian Big Brother? Raffles International soon plans to roll out a "management cockpit" to all its hotels so that the top staff can access real-time information on what everyone is up to, from guests to staff, from concierge to pool attendants. In the future this could provoke a whole new set of privacy issues. Who owns all this information on our likes and dislikes, and do hotels have the right to sell it, or to use it to advertise to us?

Regional travelers can relax, however: aside from the top luxury chains, new tech has yet to really take off in Asia. "Apart from high-speed Internet, hotels here are well behind those in the U.S. and Europe in terms of technological innovation," says Stonham. Yet its potential is only limited by the imagination of the hoteliers, the budgets they have, and what guests are willing to pay for.

SLEEPING SECURE Of course all this new technology means better security and a safer night's sleep, right? Many hotels across the region already have electronic cards and keypads for staff and guests to access lobbies, rooms, and back areas. But now they are insisting on a more sophisticated approach to security, although much of the technology remains confidential.

Some properties are installing cameras outside each room so that guests can see, on any TV in the room or on a door-side monitor, who is knocking at the door. Biometric identification is also the upsurge. Japan's Omron Corporation recently launched face-recognition software targeted at hotels that want to keep tabs on specific individuals, be they VIPs or known criminals.

In other hotels, security personnel now receive on their PDAs direct feeds from security cameras, and can verify guests' identities by checking names against room numbers remotely, while on patrol.

Hotel security is even more advanced outside Asia. At a cutting-edge hotel in Brighton, England, fingerprints will soon act as keys to elevators, doors, safes, and minibars. Hilton's room of the future in El Segundo, California, comes with a biometric safe that opens with the touch of a thumb. The hotel group even hopes to install biometric locks that use wireless technology to detail who has been in your room. Ultimately, this kind of technology will allow guests' unique biological characteristics - including fingerprints and voice, as well as iris and face scans - to be used for hotel access and payments.

Still, "No matter how much a hotel can do they can only minimize security risks - they cannot eliminate them," says Mark Hall of Air Security International.