The FogScreen is an extraordinary display option that offers a seamless projection area made, as the name suggests, of dry fog. Using ordinary water, a flat thin layer of mist is created, onto which you can make high-quality projections - that you can walk through. The fog feels cool and dry to touch and, by varying the density of the fog, different effects can be created to suit the venue and your purpose.  The screen is created by using a suspended fog generating device with no frame around, and works with video projectors. The fog they use is dry, so it doesn't make you wet even if you stay under the Fog Screen device for a long time.  The fog is made of ordinary water with no chemicals what so ever. With two projectors, you can project different images on both sides of the screen. It is a display device which is the application of computer graphics. With Fogscreen, planners are able to make better visual effect and encourage more participation and engagement of attendees. However, Fogscreen hasn't been widely used in terms of high prices. 

It's clear that part of POS system innovation is technology innovation-iPad & iPhone scanning; self-check in and out function, etc. However, the author clarified what customers want and look forward are not only technology but service. Even though the service doesn't seem to be provided by staffs, the new technology meets needs of new generation of customers, who are independent and looking for more personal service. So the purpose of a successful POS system is to make restaurant management more efficient, prevent theft and create great experience for customers. 

VingCard Elsafe, the global leader in hospitality security and part of the ASSA ABLOY Group, announces that it has phased out the use of brass metal plating and painting in the manufacture of its locking systems, opting instead to use a more eco-friendly process to color stainless steel. VingCard Elsafe has adopted a new method of metal coloration called physical vapor deposition, or PVD, an environmentally friendly process that involves vaporizing an alloy onto stainless steel within a heated vacuum. PVD requires no chemicals and produces no waste or hazardous materials of any kind, resulting in no environmental impact whatsoever. The PVD process has other added benefits, as well. PVD-treated surfaces have high wear resistance for discoloration, and the stainless steel adds enhanced anti-corrosion properties. Besides eliminating the negative environmental effects of the brass plating process, the move by VingCard Elsafe to simplify its lock manufacturing process has had other related green benefits. By doing away with the need for secondary surface treatments of the locks, new product components are now supplied directly from metal stamping to the point of use in the assembly line. This means less shipping and transportation is required for product manufacture, resulting in a diminished carbon footprint.

The event today is not only between planner and organization; it's more like the communication and interaction among attendees. The technology assists the needs and expectation of attendees, which allows them to engage more during meetings and events. Besides, App or other online software facilitates attendees to get full knowledge of location, content and activity in one event. In addition, Audio-Video equipment mentioned in article also emphasized that lighting plays an important role to make one event stand out. In another words, creating great experience is definitely what technology is for.

Technology absolutely plays important role to facilitate meetings and conference running smoothly. The Audience-response systems (ARS) ease the communication between attendees and speaker, which encourages the engagement from participants. As one big goal of meeting and convention is to bring people together and let them know each other, technology like ARS is essential for a successful meeting. According to most planners' experience, it's really annoying to pass around the microphone when somebody wants to ask question. The new microphone function is also added into ARS so that attendees can ask question without waiting for passing the microphone. In addition, ARS can track attendance for crediting purpose. As long as WiFi is available, surveys can be sent by laptops, iPads and iPod touches.

According to the article, different customers, business models and selling strategies require different sizes of CRM system. Over the years, vendors only added more and more features to original CRM systems. They've focused more on functionality at the system level, taking an everything-that-everyone-needs approach that rarely took into consideration the user's interaction with the CRM system. So businesses are demanding a much more flexible, much more nuanced interaction with the information in (and around) a CRM system, an interaction focused on the needs of the individual accessing the information and the needs of the customer engagement taking place. So clearly one size of CRM cannot fit all. Such as how iPhone changes the appearance & function of keyboards and screens. As CRM system focuses more on personal view, "smart" and "flexibility" may be what CRM should achieve in the future.

Most future trends for Customer Relationship Management are predicted to be online marketing and competition. However, companies realized they are losing touch with customers, which brings up attention on customer service. So more and more companies are trying to mix technology with customer service. For example, mobility is still coming on strong and a long way to go with Microsoft announcing strong mobile options in the last month. The customization of IT and the "Bring my own device" movement add new pressure to mobilize CRM. Social CRM is a long way to go here with increased investment in linking Social analysis into CRM via customer sentiment as well as networking and key decision matrices through connectors to LinkedIn becoming popular. However, all the apps or software designed for CRM solely emphasizes from management perspective, such as marketing, pricing and reading reviews, which lost reaction with consumers. Instead of only reading customer reviews, we should arrange more agents to respond to build two-way communication.

To know who your guests are and what they like is definitely a competitive strategy for hotels. From this article, there're tons of Apps working to assist and improve Customer Relationship Management system. According to what I searched, infusionsoft is very time consuming and team initiative to customize properly. It's hard to make each application perfect but the purpose behind them is clear: to communicate with customers as more as we can. Those Apps make teams spread across large distances (and businesses set in one location) to collaborate on leads, contacts, discussions and other items and make this extremely simple to do. So being able to collaborate on more aspects of your daily operations is much more beneficial to overall sales and customer experiences. Some applications bring collaboration to a few narrow aspects of CRM, some bring collaboration to the center of the app, and regardless if you're managing other aspects of your business through software you will need to find ways to collaborate on that as well. Many companies accomplish this by using a variety of applications, but it absolutely brings integration issues and high monthly bills. So a lot of helpful solutions are center collaboration with a feature-consolidating environment across a variety of aspects of business management software. WORKetc is a business management app that combines CRM, PM, Finances (expenses, invoicing, etc) and help desk software into one - and brings collaboration to all of these aspects. Thus, it's essential to collaborate them wisely instead of combining as more as possible.

Hotels compete with others by providing excellent service which has been defined as giving outstanding technology. It means technology innovation has become one of the most important strategies to attract customers. WiFi has become one critical success factor in hospitality industry. Besides, people tend to interact and shop more through social media. Research shows that Facebook usage is up 40% since last year. 2.5 billion photos are uploaded to @Facebook each month. It's estimated that there will be 76.9 billion apps to download in 2014. And customers are predicted to spend $35 billion on apps in 2014. According to high demand of iPhone and iPad, some hotels set up iPad in concierge to assist guest with further information and iPad in rooms to help guests to control room temperature, light and TV. As going green has shaping a big trend for hotels, LED light and PlugOut Gym attract hotelier's attention to catch up with. Thus, technology is not only a way to give convenience to guests but also a way to ease management team.