Slashdot Mirror
UPS to Deploy Ultra-Connected Wireless Handhelds
Lyle E. Dodge writes "According to this article at Yahoo.com Symbol Technologies announced (on Tax Day of all days) that in 2004 UPS would deploy 70,000 handheld delivery computers based on Symbol's Fourth Generation hardware. Color screens, 128 megs of RAM, and uber-connected (GPS, GPRS, CDMA, WiFi, Bluetooth, Infrared, Analog modem), and, of course, the familiar barcode scanner. The obvious /. question is: Can we run Linux on Brown? Maybe UPS can fund an OSS startup, "BrownHat"? We'll see..."
What good is a slashdot article without a picture?
Hmmmm, and I thaught the question was can we run tetris on this?
__
cheap web site hosting
Can we port MAME to it?
Anyway it shows for me.
__
cheap web site hosting
So next time something like this happens, it will be possible to see who or what is responsible, right?
A few months ago, I developed a package tracking application for Mac OS X. Since I had just done this in my free time, and I didn't really feel like selling it, I decided to make this application open source. My original plug-ins communicated to the package trackers via HTML, but it soon became apparent that the websites changed quickly enough to make this more difficult than I had first imagined.
Since this was an application, and not a package tracker, I couldn't use a regular e-commerce account. I emailed FedEx and they gave me the proper key and information necessary to use their XML service. UPS, however, was not so nice. I got an email that stated:
So, UPS is certainly not a fan of open source. My current UPS plug-in breaks rather often, but there's not much I can do about it, given UPS's stance on this issue.
"Can we run Linux on Brown? Maybe UPS can fund an OSS startup, "BrownHat"? "
New slogans: "When it absolutely positively has to blow chunks." or "BrownHat: when neither your time nor package is worth anything"
Is this any different from the black and white touch pads they had before? It may have all the gizmos and gadgets, but is it needed? Are they going to be more productive now?
Last week the Fed-ex guy showed up with one of these things.
Which is it?
I want a new world. I think this one is broken.
"Yes, I'd like you to pick up a package at these GPS coordinates, and ship it to me. I have no idea what it will be."
On the other hand, it would be kind of neat to have UPS deliver something to the location output from your GPS. Driving down the highway, the UPS truck honks at you, you pull over, and the driver gives you the books you bought online...
looks good. The only con (to me) about it is that the keyboard isn't qwerty. I'm sure getting used to the layout wouldn't take much time but for people that are really used to qwerty may have a tough time with it.
Have a look @ TI's WANDA platform for a cool reference design similar to this. I played with the platform at the CTIA show last month, and the company that put it together for TI, Accellent, had working prototypes in cases ready to go.
The best part about WANDA: it's $130 for the integrated board. Add a battery, display and a few controls, and you could have whatever kind of PDA you wanted.
Additionally, Metrowerks has been working to get their OpenPDA Linux distribution (formerly Lineo's) working on WANDA.
Symbol has a less than stellar track record of opening up their devices to alternative technologies, and their licensing relationship with Microsoft all but guarantees that you'll never see them shipping a Linux or Symbian device from them.
Palm just announced that the next gen would support 128Meg Symbol currently has 5 palm based handhelds.
From the Article Link: The incorporation of three different types of radio communication links in each unit will ensure that package delivery information is available to customers almost instantaneously...
FedEx has done this sort of real-time updates on packages since the early 1980's when we started using the DADS radio network. Thats right, back when I was using an Apple IIe, and many slashdoter's weren't even in Kindergarten, FedEx had near-time tracking updates on packages. Let's not act like it's rocket science.
As for running Linux on the device, that's not really important, except for a coolness factor. I do know that FedEx has many projects headed towards Linux and OpenSource.
Funding an Open Source startup seems silly too. Why not just hire experienced Open Source talent. That's what we've been doing @ FedEx. Seems to work pretty well provided the hacker-types can live in the business-type environment. 200k person companies aren't for everybody.
Anyways.. I digress. Cool hand-held custom built. Neat. They still call themselves "brown" and that speaks for itself. ;-)
I would think the more logical name would be "BrownShorts"... well, it's not as bad as some distro names out there.
sic transit gloria mundi
Future CNN reports about dozens of UPS delivery people are getting mugged by redbull-toting geeks who want to nab these puppies and create beowulf clusters of them...
Does this mean that I can get a package delivered to my house without taking a week off from work?
We'll be there between 8:30AM and Thursday
The other day, they stopped delivering packages without signature (they'd never had me sign anything before... just left it on the back porch). Then all of a sudden, then started playing by the rules and I realized how inconvenient it is to try to get a shipment.
Now, I have to call and tell my credit card company that I am shipping to my work address every time that I need something delivered.
Sigh...
Life is the leading cause of death in America.
"Our current license agreement does not support open source, and we are only able to authorize the use of the tools if the product cannot be altered in any way by subsequent users, including resellers."
So does that mean that the "authorized" versions have to be rewritten alot? Doesn't look like a picnic for the closed-source guys either.
I'm striken by the things that usually strikes me as I look at gizmos that has a 'keyboard-look-a-like-input-thingy' - why do so many people designing such gizoms where text entry is important insist of laying out the 'keyboard' like "A B C D E etc"? I mean, come on people, Psion has shown us that is is easy to put in a QWERTY-layout keyboard (or DOVRAK, if you prefer) on a handheld device. For me, and I have tried a handfull of small formfactor keyboards, you can't get better in a small package than the Series5mx. Even the old Series3 looks to have a better keyboard than this new gizmo the UPS will start using.
I know, I'm ranting a bit, but it is something I feel is important; but then, I prefer using the keyboard over the mouse most days to move about on the computer.
Everything in the world is controlled by a small, evil group to which, unfortunately, no one you know belongs.
Does anyone know how fast someone begins to type on this thinger, once they have used it for a while?
....)
:D )
is easier (or maybe harder?) to start typing at a reasonable rate since its layout is fimilar (A B C
I suppose anyone who programmed on their calculator during math class can answer this too. ( I always had the serial cable
"when life gets complicated, I like to take a nap in a tree and wait for dinner" - Hobbes.
I've had nothing but problems receiving UPS packages. I've had packages that were never delivered, packages damaged in transit, and I had to go meet a delivery man on a corner one time because he said he couldn't find my address. My apartment was in a town with a numbered grid of streets ... so I'm not sure where the confusion was. I'm all for Brown getting some new toys so long as it means I get my packages faster.
Then see how you feel about them.
Random and weird software I've written.
In may, these systems will be replaced with a system with better wireless performance. And the eye piece will be wireless too, so we can wear the computer on our hip.
For what it's worth, this new model looks a whole lot better than the original. For starters, it's a lot smaller, not to mention all the wireless capabilities. You used to have to "dock" the DIADs in big metal racks and spend a lot of time getting information on and off of them each night. That took quite a bit of time.
I don't know if they still use it, but back then, the DIAD system was run under OS/2, which is why I'm still a fan of that OS.
The only thing I'm curious about is the durability of these units. The original DIADs were pretty good, however, a significant drop or other mistreatment would either knock it out or send it into "bootloader" mode. And it was a pain to have deliveries done on paper.
Anyway, this one looks pretty good- it almost makes me want to go back so I can play with them. Then again, the current carrer track is a whole lot more profitable.
IAAL
It certainly isn't a BAD joke.
OK, it's really neat, but how do I steal one of these great toys if it has GPS in it and all those ways it can snitch on me and tell UPS where it is?
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
UPS would be a great environment to test out the latest and greatest in Wearable Computer stuff. Feedback from the employees would help the development of the technology.
It's businesswire, not some geek's cable modem-hosted site.
Q: How does one make BrownHat? :)
A: One needs to put a lot of shit into RedHat.
Leonid Mamtchenkov
Why was this post moderated down? It is not offtopic when there is an issue with unfair moderation, which is often the case on Slashdot.
Your lucky.. When i get stuff delivered by UPS they don't even bother bringing it to the house! They leave at the bottom of the driveway! Even when the package SAYS signature required, even when its insured, regardless of whats in the box. Be it junk, clothing or computer parts. Fedex leaves it by the front door, which we never use. Today we "found" a package that had been sitting there for about a week without us knowing. So, I try to get stuff delievered at work too.
"The obvious /. question is: Can we run Linux on Brown? Maybe UPS can fund an OSS startup, "BrownHat"? We'll see..."
Just to let you know: I work at UPS. Switching to Linux will never happen. UPS is a Microsoft joint. Plain and simple, and i really doubt they will ever switch. They have too many programs written for Windows and that seems to be all the developers know. And, what's really scary, too much stuff runs on Access. A company their size takes forever to roll out new equipment and software, heck, the system i work with (runs all the scanning in the hub) is still on OS/2. We are waiting for our new scanners, which will run on a Windows 2000-based system. The new scanners for hub use(loading trucks) will even be running Windows CE. No chance of tux invading this place.
Does someone know the cost of UPS's "WorldShip" application? I don't know if this is developed in-house or not, but I would guess they want everyone to use it and this is why they won't help the competition. The most likely reasons being so everyone has to pay for it or to keep it consistent. I would guess the former....
That said, I've had to deal with both installing it, and to a limited degree, using it. It feels like a poorly written VB app. Very amatuerish and unprofessional, IMO. And this is their "global" solution.
I wanted one of those things until you showed me what it looks like!
What I'd really like is a "graphing calculator keyboard" addon for my Zaurus. Maybe I could use a terminal program for my 82 or my 85; they wouldn't be much of a loss....
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
but text entry on PDAs is another matter.
The zaurus has the best keyboard I've yet seen in a palmtop. Their new model has a "laptop style" folding k/b, but with only 32 mb of ram it isn't worth buying. Anyways, text entry for single words is fine, or even short memos, but try coding on it and you see the design flaws. Many special characters require the use of the on-screen k/b, and your thumb start to hurt after extended use.
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
Take a peek at this as I would not at all trust Symbol Technolgies with anything IT related.
Check the head lines here: Symbol Technologies in the news
Take a look at this: Former Symbol Technologies Exec Pleads Guilty to Fraud. Its just the tip of the iceberg.
Symbol Severance Assailed
Critics: Delay $2M payment to ex-CEO
I had worked for their manufacturing team on Long Island, NY from 97-99 & did web development/IT stuff for them from 99-2001. The IT management is clearly incompetent & personal greed (not even greed to make the company better) is their God. Since distribution of their own personal performance related bonuses hinged on how budgets were spent (IT hardware: replacement HDs, etc; salaries; job related tools: like having pagers or cell phones for those on call) they cut the budgets like MAD.
They killed off pagers for the sysadmin team. Yet, they had to remain on call/available if necessary. They took IT staff on salary (off hourly wages) & then demanded that they work an absolute minimum of 45 hours a week. So some staff left & that meant that the work load for the existing staff went up but salaries didn't scale. "Oh, we can give you comp time." But the rub was that you have to ask permission to use your comp time. Since the work load went up, you can't use your comp time.
They killed the budget for replacement hardware. They had a good system for deploying a PC (Norton Ghost or a hardware HD copier) but they had no $$$ to buy a new HD or a new switch 'cause the old one gets smoked on Monday logins.
They ignored Java & ColdFusion as a means of developign internal systems and instead chose VB/ActiveX, MS IE, IIS, & even MS ACCESS for their three-tier system.
They have moved 95% of all their manufacturing to Renosa, Mexico. This company used to run radio ads on how it has helped Long Island & specifically the town of Brookhaven. They laid off their manufacturing workforce (both engineering & assembly) in order to cuts manufacturing costs.
TOMO RAZMILOVIC ex-CEO, This asshat ran the company into the ground & then gets a servance package. About half of the folks that were laid off received 2 months salary & then they got 6 months of New York State Unemployment. This jackass' contract gives him $2 million. WTF is up with that?!?!
Will they name it after Apple's naming convention (or the ipaq) and call it iBROWN or BROWN-i?
...is a way to access the system to find out where my driver is when he's got stuff for me. That way I could go meet him early and get it, instead of waiting for an afternoon delivery.
they are making a handheld barcode scanner that would be used for grocery shopping. as you walk along putting groceries in your cart, you scan it in to the scanner that you have.
then when you check out, instead of them scanning all of your groceries, they just take your handheld device and plug it in to see how much your bill is.
the obvious point that came up is how easily one could steal. so the store would instate a rule where they randomly scan all of someone's groceries.
I, and apparently many others at the major grocery chains that were approached with this idea, was skeptical that people would steal like crazy.
so there were a bunch of test stores that were setup with the system to see how well it works out, and apparently it worked really well - they saw less theft that way than they did the "normal" way and the main problem they actually had were people ringing the same item up multiple times (accidentally I presume).
I don't recall the numbers off the top of my head as to how much faster this made the checkout process, but it was a very impressive number.
every time I find myself standing in checkout lines and I see that they are using Symbol checkout scanning equipment (which is nearly every grocery store I've ever been in) - I always wish that they had that new personal scanner system.
I haven't followed Symbol's stock in over two years, but they used to have a pretty solid system last I looked. not sure how they are lately.
There are some odd things afoot now, in the Villa Straylight.
UPS Already owns a technology company - UPS AT. They (UPS AT) are not an "OSS" or an "OS" company, but they do have hardware and software skills to do the integration jobs and support truck tracking and also a fair amount of of avionics.
Scenario Time: anytime
.... "gasp!!???" , "ouch", (straining grunts...) , "brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr"
Location : Bathrooms all over the world
Sounds : gasping and grunts from the bathroom...
"uh", "brrrrrr...."
"sighh..........aaaaaaaaaaaaahhh"
aaahhhhh the POWER of brown
-- everyones not everybody and neither is everybody like everyone.
Disclaimer: I too, work for FedEx. My comments are mine alone and aren't necessarily endorsed by my employer. Not logging in for a reason...
I should mention that FedEx has had production devices sending data over the public radio networks for almost two years now, in addition to our private DADS radio network which has been around since the 1980s.
In the US, we're using two-way pagers in densely-populated areas (NYC being the prime example) to upload package data. The holster for the EST (Enhanced SuperTracker, our courier device) has an IR transceiver in the bottom and a switch. When the courier drops the EST in the holster on his belt - the switch triggers an app on the pager to poll the EST, and boom, off goes the package data. And since that's the first thing they usually do after doing pickups or deliveries, you can imagine how quickly the data gets posted after the event.
Also, I know that at least the Canadians are using their GPRS network to do something very similar, though I'm not sure of the specifics.
It's really a pretty slick system all around. The EST was custom developed in-house for our specific needs, and there are 70-80k of these things around the world right now (and have been for nearly eight years now - their predecessors serving for a decade before that).
Not to say we're not playing with new technology, too. Larger screens, Bluetooth, GPRS/CDMA, etc. are all in the future (and in our lab). However, I'll leave it to the suits to announce that sort of stuff.
I've never had UPS lose a package on me, and fscking FedEx did it twice. UPS customer service is also a helluvalot better and their tracking actually reflects the location of your package most of the time (unlike FedEx's). If this new gear makes even 1% of improvement they'll still be FAR ahead of any other carrier in this country.
keep taking the deliveries at home, just get a nice decorative box that doubles as a seat (maybe, that's not important) with a liftable lid. Install a hasp and leave an unlocked padlock inside the box. Screw the box to the back of the PO box down the driveway. Tell the delivery guy to drop the packages in there and lock the box.
If you don't want to build one, rubbermaid has an exterior folding lawn furniture container/box you can purchase, then it's just a matter of installing the lock. Then you don't have to worry about weather damage or having an obvious brown cardboard package sitting unattended in the front yard/down by the road whatever. I do that here but without the lock seeing as how it's so rural and there's a long private drive. If we aren't going to be home I just leave an empty rubbermaid square container like you can get at wallymart for 5$ in front of the front door, the private delivery guys all know to use that now, same with the rural post office carrier, I made a point to talk to all of them early on living here. I lost one really expensive hand signed hardback that was left hanging on the box in a bag, some fool snagged it,so I told the carrier NO WAY leave stuff down there anymore. Seems to work out OK. Shooting them a cold lemonade or a choke~a~cola on a hot day seems to work, too, heh. Honey/vinegar, binary choice there
As to the PDAs, I still think for most purposes a small notebook is better, well, if you got older eyes. I really can't even see the small screens on cell phones or pdas all that well any more. My laptops are bad enough. I guess PDAs are OK, everyone here mostly seems to love them and be enthusiastic about them, so far now though I seem to get by without one. I might get one once they got 256 ram, a nice hard drive and cost 100 clams and are e-z to keep upgraded and run all open source. That wireless jazz is a definete plus. I'll put up with the toy screens and keyboards then.
I think the real question is what happens to all the handhelds that they have now, There must be tons of them and they look like some slick embedded hardware as is.
http://chansen.tzo.com/Subjects/Humor/Multimedia/u ps.jpg
not Brown Hat
Now, if you were talking about FedEx Ground, you have to realize that FedEx Ground is a subsidiary, only somewhat tied to the parent company (it used to be called RPS). I agree that FedEx Ground is not up to the same standards as the rest of FedEx, but I've had my share of problems with UPS, too.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
Maybe you can answer a Fed Ex tracking question for me. =-) The online Fed Ex tracking info often has high latency (long time between event, and posting of event on website) until the local delivery area is reached. I've never cared much, since it's only the local delivery that involves me directly.
All the same, do you have any idea where this latency comes from? Sometimes it is more than 12 hours.
-Paul Komarek
And check it out yourself. Although both UPS and FedEx suck, UPS sucks much less. At least in Washington.
Looks pretty cool, but BROWN? Didn't they get the message that brown is SO 1970s?
Oh, wait, I get it...
... how is this a troll?
+++ATH0
Color screens?
128MB of RAM?
Errr...It's a goddamn delivery truck, guys. At most, it's going to want to recieve instructions as to where to stop, where to pick up, where to drop off, where to refuel, where to avoid bad weather, and other such routing instructions...Do you really need this kind of horsepower for such tasks? More succinctly. What the hell makes this extravagant setup more useful than, say, a radio-dispatched truck with a simple dumb terminal?
My guess is, nothing.
Was at the Dallas/Ft. Worth airport last week when I came across a "next generation ATM". Color LCD touchscreen, stereo sound, headphone hookup, the works. The only problem is, from a functionality standpoint, the fucking thing sucked. The buttons on the touch-screen provided no tactile feedback, like a normal amber-screen ATM. Now only that, but the damn screen was laggy. It would be a good 1-2 seconds after you tapped a button on the screen before the next set of menu options appeared. Even on the screen where you punch in your PIN.. The fucking thing is powerful enough to play a little advertisement MPEG while it works, but it will fail to recognize numbers you poke in on the screen if you tap it in too fast. On a normal ATM, I could complete this entire transaction within just a few seconds. On this million-dollar hunk of shit, it took upwards of a minute and a half to communicate what I wanted from it.
There, I said it. A million dollar hunk of shit. I propose we make an acronym of it. UPS is about to deploy a next-generation MDHOS system.
Anyway, how is this an improvement? Simply put, it isn't. Sure, its more flashy, but it's a downgrade from a functionality standpoint. Something tells me UPS is going to install the same MDHOS systems that Bank of America put into their ATMs..
Want to know why people are building MDHOS systems? It's real simple. Sit a room full of college kids down and play them a videotape of someone playing "Air Sea Battle" for the Atari 2600.* Then, ask them to spec out a system they would need to replicate the game. You will be absolutely fucking horrified.
See, thats how it is nowadays. The industry is filled with "Generation D" (D="duh") twinks who think they would need a goddamn Athlon XP and half a gig of RAM to replicate Air Sea Battle. It's a goddamn 4-bit machine with a 2KB cartridge, guys. You dont need an MDHOS to play Air Sea Battle.
* = Coolest 2600 cartridge EVER. Turn your subwoofer up and go nuts on the game select switch.
Cheers,
Bowie J. Poag
Any comment with "Microsoft" in it is by definition a troll on Slashdot. (That includes this one.)