I tried one of these recently on a visit to Baltimore, MD. I too was amazed at how the water was "pushed" off my hands. My only complaint with public bathrooms is that there should be a more sanitary way to open the door after you've dutifully cleaned your hands. Unfortunately, not everyone visits the sink after doing their business....

If you are around the Baltimore area and want to try it yourself then go down to the Inner Harbor and visit the bathrooms in the mall where the Phillips Seafood restaurant is located.

I had a go with one of these in Edinburgh's Waverley train station and even though I don't have the biggest of hands, I couldn't avoid hitting them off the insides of the machine when placing them into and out of the airflow.

With air moving that rapidly it seems like it's likely loose rings/stones might be lost. Does the dryer have a place to retrieve jewelry that falls into it?

How are these guys different from what they have all over Japan?

One caveat - the thing is loud as hell! Tried one in Chicago and it scared my kids!

I tried one at either LAX or SFO (can't remember) I have to say it's the funnest way I've ever dried my hands.

I flick my hands in the sink, which removes most of the water, then wipe them on my pants. no new gadgets required. That's what i call green!

Seriously, most of this "green" stuff is pissing me off. No one seems to really be serious about change. Just new gadgets that are a little better than the old ones. Even the ones that are REALLY better are still negative to the environment overall.

When you flick your water it spots up mirrors faster. This causes places to clean mirrors more often. More rags to launder or more paper towels get used, harsh chemicals to clean the mirror are used. You also dropped your pants to go number 2, which means that you wipe your hands on your dirty jeans. This causes more rotation of bacteria and viruses. That causes people to waste gas to go visit the doctor, and waste even more resources through medication....... I could keep going, but now I'm bored.......

The airblade is going to replace other hand dryers. Which means that people that don't give a crud about the environment, who would normally purchase and install hand dryers, are now going to install more energy efficient ones. The money hungry world doesn't focus on "Green". Almost everyone does focus on money though, and offering products that have such great savings as compared to the norm is the only way to ever hope to reduce our worldwide energy consumption.

I live in KC and the local AMC theater has these. They are pretty cool and don't worry you won't loose rings, there's no place for them to go and the sides of the machine are open.

The problem with these things is that they STINK, BAD. The air blows the water down and off your hand then collects on the bottom which allows sludge to build up. Try your hardest not to touch the sides while you're removing your hands since sludge tends to build up on those edges too. It wouldn't be such a problem if they were cleaned once in a while.

I shake my hands a few times, and rub them together quickly for a few seconds and they are dry... remind me why this method is not good enough?

They're in the Time Warner building in Columbus Circle, Manhattan too.

These kinds of driers have been used in public bathrooms in Japan for years. Nothing new here...