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You've got socks
By DAVE GUSSOW The dirty laundry is piled high in the dorm room. What's a college student to do? Head to the Internet, of course. In a technological spin that threatens the time-honored ritual of kids bringing home loads of laundry to mom, students in four states will be able to check online to see whether campus washing machines are available. They also can click on their computers to have detergent and fabric softener added remotely. They can be paged or e-mailed when the wash is done. And they can pay for it using an ID card, billed to their university account, instead of scrambling for quarters. "It's quirky, there's no question," said Dean Douglas, vice president of telecommunications industry for IBM Global Services, whose technology is being used in the laundry system. The eSuds system, produced by IBM and USA Technologies of Wayne, Pa., will start out with about 9,000 Web-enabled washing machines and dryers on college campuses in Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan and Ohio. USA Technologies is talking to the major operators of laundry services on campuses across the country, according to Wendy Jenkins, vice president of marketing. While that includes those that run operations on Florida campuses, she could not give details about when or where the system might be available in the state. IBM and other tech companies see the networked laundry room as part of a first wave of systems for wireless payments and cashless transactions. The system also offers advantages for the vending industry, from tracking inventory to checking machine maintenance to reducing vandalism. "This is probably the broadest use of wireless payments that's being deployed in the U.S. today," IBM's Douglas said. "And there's going to be a lot of learning that comes from how people use these devices and these technologies." The machines have to be retrofitted for the Web and the automatic detergent and softeners, but Jenkins could not say how much that cost per machine. She did say it's unlikely to drive up the price of doing laundry for students. "This system is relatively inexpensive," Jenkins said. "We built the business model so they wouldn't necessarily affect the price, but would give the operators additional margin" through sales of detergent and softener. Today's college students are a natural market for such devices because computers and the Internet are so much a part of their everyday lives. Colleges also were chosen because most already have campus-wide systems to handle student accounts, allowing them to bill items such as meals with a swipe of their ID cards. That eliminates the substantial cost of processing small transactions that amount to less than a dollar, according to Douglas of IBM. The laundry system has been tested for a year at Boston College. Officials there were not available for comment Thursday, but Douglas said the test went well. "It changes the whole dynamic of doing laundry," Douglas said. "Students loved it. The adoption rate and acceptance rate was very, very high. They liked going to the Web site, liked being paged. And, to a certain degree, they had a lot more flexibility during the day" because they could do other things when machines weren't available. Although the University of Florida doesn't yet have the eSuds system, it does have an automated phone system that allows students to check on washer-dryer availability in their dorms and get called when machines are ready. They also can pay with their ID cards. Still, UF students seemed to like the idea of using the Web. "Having the Internet help with laundry would be great, eliminating the need for bottomless buckets of quarters and wasted time spent babysitting the laundry," said Megan Ryan, a junior from Greensboro, N.C. But it doesn't eliminate all problems. "You would still have to get your laundry to the laundry room to be washed," said Kim Denta, a freshman from Seminole. As for coming between children, their laundry and their parents, Douglas laughed. "I would hope that the relations between mother and daughter or son and mother would be enhanced because they're not coming home and dumping a whole load of laundry on the floor." -- Dave Gussow can be reached at gussow@sptimes.com or (727) 445-4228.
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