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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."
It's a nice concept. It looks like it can handle being shaken up a bit on the trails and dropped without hurting much. Only things I wonder about are how sturdy it is internally and how scratch-resistant the screen is. By the way... first post.
If it's that thin, it would be easy to bend.
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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
Sounds like being an outdoors PDA, it wouldn't really need the WiFi, but I guess it would be useful when your at home. Sounds a little like they were just cranking up the price a bit on that one. But none the less, this is one sweet PDA. Think of going hiking with some buddies, and even if your seperated, if you've all got bluetooth, you can still stay in communication. Deffinitely a must have for and outdoor geek.
"It's smaller than a standard postcard."
/me sets mode +rant
/me sets mode -rant
No it's not. Two of the three dimensions are smaller than a postcard, but so are the flag pole I have in my back yard. Comparisons like that are useless.
Underholdning.info
A very nice product, although 8 hour battery life is somewhat lacking for a GPS. Garmin has a similar product: http://www.garmin.com/products/iQue3200/ but it's not as beefy. I still don't understand why you need to check your email and appointments out on the trail...
Wow. I think that is pretty cool. It is obviously a bit bigger than what you would expect from a PDA, but it might have interesting applications for forest rangers or nautical police.
... a built-in swiss army knife.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
because ruggedised PDAs have been around for ages - example is the Panasonic toughbook which they target at industrial and 'law enforcement' customers (ie, has to be rugged enough to be used to subdue violent suspects).
The industrial ones are very expensive as the customers can afford to buy them.. is this the difference between them and this new Consumer model?
A portable field charger that doesn't require external battery source (solar, hand crank, whatever) would have been nice. That, or some sort of long lasting methanol fuel cell. I mean, if you're really gonna use this thing in the great outdoors doing forestry surveys or something, I would imagine that having an alternative charging source would have been nice to have. '6 hours ain't a whole day of battery life in my book...'
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
Well, how does a geek define "outdoors" anyway? Definitely not outside his WLan range. I think it's a good idea to build portable stuff that survives a few drops and falls but it should be a standard feature by now, not a pay-extra one.
www.weberseite.at
Or do people ususally go the the great outdoors to get away from this kind of stuff.
Schedules, appointments, who cares! My favorite part of backpacking is not knowing or caring what time it is!
Ok! Whose been playing Tetris on the gps unit again?!
Some things shouldn't be combined together, especially if you have to depend on it.
Both the article summary and the company's site say "smaller than a postcard" which is obviously a ridiculous statement - two dimensions pretty much tell you nothing about the size of the device... it could be 3" x 5" x 25" and still be "the size of a postcard"
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Sorry guys, I have to go plug my PDA/GPS into my tent.
A PDA with 8 hours of battery life is useless. A GPS with 8 hours of battery life is dangerous.
Eeew.
-Peter
Slashdot in the shower! Geocaching in a lake!! PORN IN THE BATHTUB!!!
PDA designed for use specifically in outdoor environments
That's a funny way of saying outside - anyone want to turn on the babble fish translator from earlier today to read what I am actually saying.
Technically correct, I guess, since you go inside the door to go in doors; therefore you would go in to the out door to go outside (or is it out the in door). Thus you are never out of anything but inside of something be it indoors or inoutdoors.
Finally! Geeks don't have to go offline to take a shower!!! Future -cons will smell better! I'll never miss another slashdot frist prost!
Waterproof and WiFi... Geek dreams...
Yes, but is it bear-proof?
The whole product assumes that geeks even go outside, and I'm not sure that it happens. ;)
It looks like drinking in the morning might be a bigger problem. :)
I was invited to go camping with some friends of my wife's. They go several times a year to this same place. When I got there, I discovered that almost everyone in the campsite had an RV and a boat (it was near a lake). Since I grew up where camping meant chopping up a dead tree to make fire in order to boil water so it was clean, the notion that this was even called "camping" bothered me. That's not the point (which makes everyone wonder why I posted it in the first place).
The campsite advertised wireless Internet access.
To me, electronics and wilderness are almost always mutually exclusive. Other than GPS and maybe a cell phone, I can't imagine the need to be connected. It would be like taking my laptop to the Bahamas so I could read Slashdot. Sorry, but a vacation isn't a vacation if you're still doing work.
What is this "outdoors" of which you speak? Does it look like my screensaver?
This one gang kept wanting me to join cause I'm pretty good with a bo staff.
I wonder if it would be possible to cluster 3 units together using the bluetooth or WiFi, then using the GPS on each one to use the differential algorithms to triangulate the position like more expensive professional GPS products do.
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?
Guys,
The PDA has been designed as part of solution targeting tourist attractions (including the outdoors) and NOT as a product that will be sold to the public.
invaluable
adj.
Of inestimable value; priceless: invaluable paintings; invaluable help.
The military might be interested in these rugged PDA's.
Thanks to the internet, we can now all die alone together! -SomeWoman
Why is battery life so short everywhere I look? I don't get it. They ran moon orbiters on less juice than a coffee maker. Why can't we get batteries that last more than an afternoon? GRRR! I hate batteries.
Speak truth to power.
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.)
I'm an avid hiker/backpacker, and have run into 'yuppie' types who have their PDAs, GPSs, cell phones etc., with them on their trips; and consider themselves 'experienced' hikers. Problem is they couldn't navigate their way out of a paper bag with a map and compass, let alone tell me what 'mean declination' means.
After college, I worked at an independent bookstore for a bit, including the map department -- once had a hunter looking a topo map, point at the contour lines, and say 'they sure have a lot of roads there'. And to think the man owned a gun...
I do think there's some place for this kind of thing, but it's no replacement for knowledge, esp when you break it or the batteries die or you find yourself needing to think quickly without assistance.
But I'm also something of a purist, I backpack to 'get away from it all' including the digital realm, I really don't want this kind of gadget interfering with my experience. And please people be considerate of others - don't yammer on loudly for 15 min on your damn cell phone when others are trying to enjoy a little peace and enjoy what nature is offering. Thanks.
'The unexamined life is not worth living' - Socrates
Not nearly enough. I can't think of any outdoor trek that lasted only 8 hours. Maybe the intent is to only turn the device on when you actually need it, but you can bet that anything in cold weather is going to bleed that 8 hours down to something much less. Any serious outdoor-ready device needs to have several days of battery life, especially if the customer would like to use the built-in GPS to do something as novel as finding their way back to civilization after getting themselves hopelessly lost.
GreyPoopon
--
Why is it I can write insightful comments but can't come up with a clever signature?
Linux on a PDA is one of the few things that mistifies me. Having had and used a Zaurus for a very long time I am frankly shocked by how good the interface is, especially when you consider that it's taken a long time for the desktop version to aquire half as much polish.
:o)
It's vastly easier to navigate through than the PocketPC version, and more flexible than the Palm version - possibly because it was designed as one entity (in qtopia) than being a bunch of disparate parts like desktop Linux.
Anyway, it's a great choice, with the new PIM apps finally rounding out the package - mplayer, kismet, nethack... what else do you need on a pda?
(Incidently with this model you should be able to install kismet with GPS support so that it automatically logs the location of wireless networks as you war{travel} - much easier than having another unit plugged into the serial port!)
Beep beep.
... and how readable the screen is in various states of light - especially bright sunlight.
Nothing to see here folks, move along...
blakespot
-- Heisenberg may have slept here.
iPod Hacks.com
Of course, you could buy a bluetooth GPS unit ;)
Doubt it.
DGPS != GPS
DGPS stands for Differential GPS and comes in a variety of flavors, all of which use corrections from some trusted source to eliminate the inherit errors in GPS (such as ionospheric errors).
I checked the site to actually confirm that it has DGPS, but I couldn't find any evidence. Most commercial DGPS services cost in the thousands of dollars a year (OmniSTAR, StarFire) and would be totally overkill for a simple handheld PDA intended for recreational activities.
Granted, this unit might support WAAS, but that wouldn't qualify this as a DGPS unit.
Sorry to go off on what was probably just a typo!
"We need a fourth law of Robotics: Stop Fingering My Wife"
There are several Bluetooth GPS devices available....
- AlanH
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...
If that's your favorite part, you can enjoy your favorite part of backpacking by simply hiding all your clocks, gadgets, and computers and hanging out in your house. You'll save money on gear and travel time, and you won't have to hang your food in midair to prevent the animals from eating it.
It's cheaper, and those of us who backpack for reasons besides an inability to think of another way to get away from clocks will have less crowded trails to deal with.
People who backpack to "get away" baffle me-- I backpack to get somewhere I want to be, not to hide from my wristwatch. If it's dark and raining, and I'm stuck in my tent-- I'll be loving the 10-hour battery on my GBA.
Not to be too hacky, but it is trivial to add a good solar cell to most electronics, especially if they are built for a charger. This one looks like it uses a fairly standard power plug, which means it's probably 2.0 or 1.9 center positive. Anyone with a unit could tell you to required voltage, but I would guess 12v as it has an internal hdd. All that's left to do is find a good 12v solar cell, find a plug of the right size, chop off the end bits of the two and attach them together, and double-check that current is flowing in the right direction. Bing! You're done.
It's very easy. Check these values, of course, with the requirements of the actual hardware before you start plugging things in.
The ______ Agenda
It's intended to be used as an interactive tour guide at historical sites, outdoor museums and the like - popping up information about what happened 200 years ago where you're standing now and that sort of thing.
It's clearly designed to be bought by institutions.
Putting moderation advice in your
you shouldn't be out there.