A couple weeks back we were at the movies at the Olathe Studio 30 AMC and Alli came out of the bathroom and said, “Have you seen the new hand dryers in there?”I hadn’t, but I had to check them out. I found in the bathroom the new Dyson Airblades.I wouldn’t know what I was looking at if they didn’t have a sign over them explaining what they were and how to use them, but once I saw them, you have to admit that they were pretty cool. Then, you put your hands in them and you realize that someone just took the mundane task of drying your hands after washing them to a whole new level.Look, I realize that we’re talking about bathroom hand dryers here, but you have to understand how cool these are. At a time when energy prices are at an all-time high, Dyson is making an effort to reduce energy costs through innovations like the Airblade, which does so through 3 key ways:

• A digital motor that runs at half the wattage of antiquated hand dryers
• Infrared sensors that only turn on when your hands are inside the dryer
• A 12-second dry time

I haven’t seen them implemented anywhere else besides the Olathe theater yet. I’m assuming it is a test market for AMC before they decide to roll them out to their 350+ theaters worldwide. If the energy savings are what they claim to be, that would be huge for a company the size of AMC and their success would hopefully encourage other national chains with older types of hand dryers to switch to this newer, more energy-efficient means of drying your hands.I’m surprised that I haven’t seen more about this. Maybe I’m a little too excited about something simple like better hand dryers, but sometimes the simple things can make a world of difference.