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PDA Designed for the Great Outdoors
Paul Bawon writes "A company in UK called Node has developed the world's first consumer PDA designed for use specifically in outdoor environments. The device is fully waterproof to 3 meters, has a 8 hour battery life, built in DGPS receiver and 1 Gig of storage. Bluetooth and WiFi come as standard as does a touch screen and either a PocketPC or Linux operating system. I bumped into them at a tourism conference in Edinburgh where they were demo'ing the unit and I was impressed. It's smaller than a standard postcard."
from the site:
Features
Wireless networking
400mhz xscale powered computing
Colour screen 320 x 240 hi resolution
Incredible low reflection screen
Location aware technology
Ultra long battery life - up to 6 hours
Rubber easy grip design
Changeable colours - choose from 265
Easy clean screen and casing
Robust durable casing maximising protection
Changeable necklace strap, assists devise care
Auto load software
Hidden restart -button
Water proof casing
Simple charge options either dock or individual charge
Expandable memory option
Advertising and branding space on rear of devise
Light weight casing design
Lockable casing design
Landscape screen
Touch screen
Site seems to be under the influence of, well, us. Here's google's HTML version (cached) of the Node Explorer product info sheet: http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:0ycwbWxgTh8J: www.nodeexplore.com/pdfs/NodeExplorer_v2_020904.pd f+nodeexplore&hl=en
If you were separated from your hiking partners, I wouldn't rely on Bluetooth anything to stay in touch. Just not enough range to be practical at all for that kind of use.
In my senior projects class, one group designed data acquisition systems for power line techs, etc. using PDAs. Their main obstacle turned out to be screen visibility, not ruggedness. I know my laptop screen is hard to see in bright sunlight even with the brightness turned all the way up. Anybody know how to address this problem? Polarized sunglasses?
Not exactly my definition of high resolution. I think that recent handhelds have typical 320 x 320 resolution, don't they?
Doesn't the news item advertise 8 hours?
Frankly, do we need that many colours to pick from? I think not. Some marketing droid must have thought that a big number here would impress the customer.
(Note that I couldn't read the article yet, as the site is obviously /.ed.)
It's not only for the outdoors. The site explains it's also designed for indoor attractions. It's targetted for the tourism industry.
For example: You go to Yosemite National Park in the USA and you can borrow one of these when you enter and it has all sorts of information on the park and landmarks placed on the map for you to go see (including washrooms an d gift shops!)
Or you go to a large museum and you borrow one to get a map of all the attractions and maybe some accompanying text/voice info on whatever exhibit you're nearest to.
Oh and back to my point: The wireless would be to remain on the network at an indoor location or possibly in some outdoor areas.
Well, the article summary does say that it has GPS, making it clear that it's one of the main selling points.
The whole basis of the product line seems to be location-finding and all...
-N
I've nothing to say here...