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Review of Atom-Powered Toughbook Medical Tablet

Posted by timothy on from the on-my-shopping-list-for-the-apocalypse dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Intel has spent years talking up the digital health sector, and now Panasonic has come up with a product to make that category worthwhile. The Toughbook CF-H1 is a fully rugged mobile computer designed for the medical profession. Of course it can be dropped and doused in water, but it's got some other cool tricks too like a built in RFID scanner, wireless smartcard reader and a barcode scanner. It's also using the 1.86GHz Atom, which is rarely seen." I'd like this: a small, low-power tablet suitable for klutzes.

5 of 54 comments (clear)

  1. Secure? by ParanoidJanitor · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It doesn't seem like such a good idea to integrate an RFID reader into the tablet as a security device. Any hospital that can afford equipment like this will probably have tons of people walking down the hall with RFIDs that can grant access to these things. The only way that this could really add to the security is if it's part of some multiple authentication system (i.e. require two methods of authentication to log in out of three, but even that sounds like a bad idea.)

    There was also no mention of any encryption of the medical records stored on these things. I definitely wouldn't trust Windows permissions to keep the records on these safe. Don't get me wrong, I think this is a great step toward making hospitals more efficient, but they need to be secure or they'll just be a liability.

    1. Re:Secure? by QuantumRiff · · Score: 4, Informative

      Many hospitals are using RFID not as an authentication, but as an identifier. IE, this is patient X, and these are their 13 medications, without having to scan all 13 medications at the same time. Embedded in prescription labels and wristbands and such.

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  2. Cool Hacking Device by powerlord · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Okay, so let me get this straight, in one Tablet you've got a wireless smart card reader, an RFID reader, a barcode scanner, a finger print scanner, a 2Mpixel camera w/dual LED lights, can house two battery packs, 802.11 a/b/g/draft-n, Bluetooth 2.0+EDR,

    and according TFA

    You can also specify an integrated 7.2mbps HSDPA adapter, or even a GPS receiver.

    Except for the 1GB RAM, and the Atom processor, this sounds like a Security Crackers dream box (for information gathering, or anything where you won't need quick keyboard access).

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  3. See Also: Motion Computing C5 by Symphonix · · Score: 4, Informative

    http://motioncomputing.com/products/tablet_pc_c5.asp I have the Motion C5 here right now on trial, and can't help but notice the similarity.

  4. Toughbooks live up to their name... sort of. by Soulfader · · Score: 4, Informative

    We used a Panasonic Toughbook in Afghanistan in some pretty nasty places, and it held up very well. Never had any problems except for the screen, which just couldn't take the dust contamination and the scratches, and even that could have been alleviated somewhat by not using the stylus.

    We had an adapter that allowed us to charge the thing off one of our standard 5590 SINCGARS radio batteries. Even batteries too discharged for the radio would power the laptop for a few more hours; a fresh one would run the laptop for 24 hours or so.