November 18, 2008
Thoughts about ingress protection: eliminate potential points of failure
The most commonly used measure for protection against the elements is the IP rating, or Ingress Protection rating. The IP rating consists of two numbers where the first indicates protection against solids and the second protection against liquids. Solid ratings go from 1 to 6, with 6 meaning the best protection. Liquid ratings go from 1 to 8, with 8 meaning the highest protection. Essentially, the purpose of these ratings are the determination of how well a device can keep out dust and water. As far as liquids go, the purpose of the rating is not to signify waterproofing for underwater operation (though IP68 means a device is indeed waterproof) but how well a piece of equipment can keep out water during normal operation in the field. What could happen, for example, is that a device gets exposed to rain, or even strong driving rain during a storm. In a marine setting it is possible for a device to suddenly become exposed to heavy seas, and it may need to be protected against that.
All of this needs to be tested and certified, and the way it is usually done is by following standard procedures that describe a controlled lab testing setup, like document 60529 issued by the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC).
The problem is that lab tests do not always accurately predict what may happen in real life. In that respect the ratings should really be considered guidelines rather than hard data. Consider, for example, two devices that both carry an IP67 rating. One of them has no external ports other than a single surface mount connector used to provide interfacing via a port replicator or dock. The other has a variety of commonly used ports, all protected by individual rubber plugs. One machine may also have an externally accessible expansion slot and an easily replaceable battery, each nicely sealed via o-rings and other high quality seals. Which device do you think is more at risk for leaking?
I'd say the second as it has multiple areas of entry as opposed to just one. No matter how well engineered the device may be, the probability of something going wrong is higher. A protective cover may not be pushed in all the way. A seal may have shrunk or gotten broken. A door was inadvertantly left open. It can happen.
A compromised seal may not necessarily mean a leak into the inside of the device. The port itself may carry enough sealing in addition to the protection provided by its cover to ward off damage. Then again, it may not. Bottomline is that the simplest and most foolproof protection is best.
Anything mission-critical should be failsafe. Failsafe means that if a system fails, it must fail in its safe state. A relay that snaps closed when it loses power is an example. The problem with protective rubber and other seals I'd that none are fail-safe. They are all fail-fail. So the best way to proceed is to have as few potential points of failure as possible.
What that means is that, all else being equal, a device with fewer possible points of failure will almost always be a better choice as far as protection us concerned.
Posted by conradb212 at 11:12 PM | Comments (0)
November 10, 2008
Benchmarking popular mobile Intel processors
Well, we finally managed to benchmark a mobile device with an Atom processor. Like everyone else, I was wondering where Atom performance fits in. The Thermal Design Power (TDP) of the 45nm Atom processors is so ridiculously low that it's impossible to even make an educated guess. There are, of course, a number of different Atom processors out there, but one that appears to be popular in small mobile devices is the Atom N270.
The N270 is a single-core processor that runs at 1.6GHz and has a TDP of 2.5 watts -- significantly less than even an ultra-low voltage Intel Core Solo and only a small fraction of the power consumption of your average consumer notebook. There are other system parts that use power, and for now Intel doesn't offer Atom-compatible chipsets that are nearly as miserly as the processor itself. Further, a lot of the advanced features we've come to take for granted in Intel Core processors are simply not part of the Atom. Instead, Intel resorted to the hyper-threading technology from its past. It's all quite complex and it probably takes a chip design experts to tell how various Intel technologies impact performance.
What we can do is run benchmarks, and that's what we did on an Atom N270-powered Acer Aspire One netbook, an exceedingly handy little clamshell computer with an WXGA 8.9-inch display and a weight of just over two pounds. The tiny Acer came with a gigabyte of RAM, a 160GB 5400rpm disk, and ran Windows XP. Our standard benchmark suite, PassMark, did not complete and so we switched to CrystalMark 2004R2. Here are the results:
| PERFORMANCE COMPARISON | Intel A110 | Core Solo U1400 | Atom N270 | Core Duo U2500 |
| Clock speed | 800MHz | 1.2GHz | 1.6GHz | 1.2GHz |
| Test Unit | GETAC E100 | Motion F5 | Acer One | Xplore 104C4 |
| Thermal Design Power (TDP) | 3.0 watts | 5.5 watts | 2.5 watts | 10.0 watts |
| ALU | 3026 | 4565 | 5544 | 9291 |
| FPU | 3682 | 5343 | 5370 | 11124 |
| MEM | 2732 | 4989 | 4442 | 6132 |
| HDD | 3614 | 3252 | 7900 | 6381 |
| GDI | 3040 | 4239 | 3293 | 3987 |
| D2D | 2530 | 4221 | 2912 | 3899 |
| OGL | 738 | 1151 | 684 | 1187 |
| Overall CrystalMark | 19362 | 27760 | 30145 | 42001 |
These figures suggest that systems equipped with the Atom N270 are quite a bit quicker than machines with the Atom's predecessor chip, the A110, but only a bit faster than the first-gen Intel Core Solo. The 1.6GHz Atom N270 is no match for the 1.2GHz Core Duo U2500 that's used in a number of high-performance Tablet PC slates. The high clock speed of the single core N270 is therefore a bit misleading. Clock cycle for clock cycle, the unloved Core Solo is more powerful.
However, in a lean, smartly designed system with enough RAM and a speedy disk, such as the Acer One netbook, the N270 can deliver both power and economy. The Acer feels fairly quick, and it runs about 2-1/2 to three hours on a small 24 watt-hour 3-cell battery and 5-1/2 to six hours on a 49 watt-hour 6-cell battery.
Posted by conradb212 at 09:59 PM | Comments (0)
October 15, 2008
Ultra-rugged waterproof displays
In RuggedPCReview we usually cover mobile computers, i.e. systems that combine processing, storage, data input and display all in one unit. That, however, doesn't mean that all mobile systems are all-in-one type of devices. Tablets and slates, for example, are often used in conjunction with an external display and full-size keyboard when used in a stationary environment, and there really is no compelling need for vehicle and panel mount systems to be all-in-one.
I was reminded of that when I came across some very interesting display products from a company called Digital Systems Engineering, located in Scottsdale, Arizona. They have the DVE Raptor display where DVE stands for "Driver Vision Enhancement." It is a ruggedized LCD display designed to operate under the kind of extreme environmental conditions encountered in tactical wheeled and tracked vehicles. The 10.4-inch SVGA display is sunlight readable with a super-strong 1,000 nits backlight (standard notebooks have less than 200 nits), good vertical an horizontal viewing angles, and zero color shift.
What's most amazing, though, is the Raptor display's environmental specs. It carries an IP67 rating, which means it is not only totally sealed against dust, but it is also waterproof to the extent where it is submersible. Hopefully that won't happen in a tactical vehicle, but this display will continue to operate under water. It can also operate in an extremely wide temperature range of -40 to 158 degrees Fahrenheit, handle any degree of humidity, and operate at 45,000 feet of altitude. Needless to say, the milled aluminum and heavily sealed and protected display has been shock and vibration tested to MIL-STD-810F specs.
The screen, which only weighs a bit over eight pounds, is also MIL-STD-3009 compliant. MIL-STD-3009 (also referenced as DOD-STD-3009) sets requirements for aircraft display equipment for use with night vision imaging systems. For mobile computers that generally means they must not interfere with night vision equipment in a cockpit. Part of this document is the U.S. Navy MIL-HDBK-87213 Revision A (Electronically/Optically Generated Airborne Displays) that describes, among other, criteria for legibility of electro-optical display equipment and daylight readability in bright environments, which is a military requirement. This can be an issue with daylight readable displays marketed to the govenment and armed forces.
If the indestructible Raptor is overkill, Digital Systems Engineering has a line of MSM monitors where MSM stands for Mil Spec Monitor. These come in various display sizes (8, 10, 12, 15) and are lighter than the Raptor. Despite IP67 sealing, they only weigh between 3.5 (8.4-inch display) and 6.9 pounds (15 inch display). Yet, the MSMs are MIL-STD-3009, MIL-L-85762A and MIL-PRF-22885 compliant and have an incredibly bright 1,400 nit backlight in addition to anti-reflective and anti-glare surface treatment, making them viewable under any lighting conditions.
To learn more about those super-rugged monitors, check Digital Systems Engineering's website at http://www.digitalsys.com.
Posted by conradb212 at 04:18 PM | Comments (0)
September 30, 2008
Why is no one using the Marvell speedy and powerful PXA320?
When we reviewed the TDS/Trimble Nomad last year here at RuggedPCReview.com, I marveled over the machine and noted, "The 800 MHz Marvell PXA320 processor certainly had something to do with it. The difference between it and the 624MHz PXA270 is much larger than we expected."
In fact, the chip performed so well in the Nomad that I was certain other manufacturers would quickly follow suit and use the formidable PXA320 chip as well. Interestingly, that didn't happen. If I remember correctly, the only other product I've come across that uses the PXA320 is the Aceeca Meazura MEZ2000, which I think is still in the planning stage. Everyone else still seems to be using the older PXA27x, even in new designs. The PXA27x is certainly a good and time-proven processor, but it is no match for the PXA320 when it comes to performance.
Maybe something is going on that I am not aware of. Maybe Marvell isn't pushing the chip and it's such a secret that no one realizes technology has advanced. Maybe it's too expensive, or has some drawbacks I am not aware of. As is, the Nomad with its powerhouse PXA320 chip appears to continue to enjoy a significant performance edge over anyone else out there.
Posted by conradb212 at 12:36 AM | Comments (0)
September 26, 2008
The digitizer mysery
Imagine if someone had patented hard disks so iron-clad that no one else could make them. Or that an enterprising company had legally locked up LCDs such that it had a monopoly. If that were the case, we might still have giant, sluggish 20 megabyte (not gigabyte!) hard disks and computing as we know it would not be possible. And we'd all get eye strain from using smallish, barely readable antediluvian STN displays. That would be a bad situation. As is, fierce competition propels progress, and as a result we have the most wondrous products brought upon by innovation and improvement.
Except in one area.
Digitizers.
How much progress has there been since I began reviewing pen computers back in 1993? Basically none. And as far as I can tell, that sad situation sits squarely in Wacom's court. Wacom's patented digitizer technologies have resulted in Wacom having almost 96% market share in Japan, and a good 70% in the rest of the world. The Wacom digitizers I used on 1993 pen computers worked, sort of, but were hugely frustrating because it was essentially impossible to calibrate them. The Wacom digitizes I have used in vastly better and more powerful computers in 2008 worked, sort of, but were hugely frustrating because it's essentially impossible to calibrate them. I mean, there are any number of touch screens where you can calibrate 25 points or more, do edge compensation, and all sorts of other cool stuff geared towards enhancing precision and improving the user experience. A Wacom digitizer calibration? Four points, and that's it. Along the edge of the screen, the digitizer is often so badly off that it becomes frustrating to use it.
I've complained about this for pretty much as long as I can remember, and there hasn't been any change. Anything else in computing has improved dramatically. What gives? Is Wacom's technology inherently incapable of working better? Is no one else able to come up with a better alternative because of patent blocks? I don't know, but between Microsoft's marginal handling of the Tablet PC and the dismal performance of the Wacom digitizer, pen computing is where it is.
There. End of sermon. I just had to say it.
Posted by conradb212 at 01:53 AM | Comments (0)
September 02, 2008
MIL-STD-810F 509.4 and thoughts on salt water exposure
During a week of scuba diving off Roatan island in Honduras, I had first-hand experience of what salt water exposure can do to equipment. I took several underwater cameras with me for testing and used them on up to four daily dives to 85+ feet with each lasting an hour or more. I thoroughly rinsed off the equipment after each dive, but still found that salt accumulated under rubber coatings, inside screw holes, under screw heads and inside or under anything that allows water to go under or moisture to seep in. After I returned back home I soaked all equipment again in my bathtub and then cleaned each part and component. Without that, adjustment screws, hinges and joints could seize, and the equipment quickly deteriorate due to longer term corrosion.
I remember when Panasonic showed me the results of their Toughbook corrosion testing on an invitational tour of their facilities in Osaka back in 2002. 
Without special consideration of salt water and salt fog exposure, there could quickly be appalling damage as shown on the picture to the right (click on it for a larger version). Panasonic explained how they had been approached with requests for such testing, performed the salt water and salt fog tests, and were surprised to see the extent of the damage. They then systematically changed design and materials to ward off or minimize the effects of salt. This benefitted all subsequent Toughbooks, and also showed Panasonic how to develop special solutions for customers who use their products in environments where they are exposed to salt fog and water.
When you look at these pictures it becomes obvious that sealing alone is not enough when it comes to salt water exposure. Sealing standards only tell how well a product keeps dust and water out of the inside of the unit. They don't tell what salt can do to components that lay outside of the sealing barriers. What can salt do when it gets under a keyboard? Inside a hinge? Underneath protective doors? The result can be ugly. Nothing can ever ward off salt entirely when a product is used in marine environments. Users need to keep computers away from excess exposure as much as possible, and equipment needs to be cleaned meticulously after any exposure. That means that cleaning must be possible in the first place, which means that places that are potentially expose to salt water and fog must be accessible. There are just a whole bunch of additional considerations.
This is why the famous MIL-STD-810F (Department of Defense Test Method Standard for Environmental Engineering Considerations and Laboratory Tests) document includes a 9-page section on Salt Fog testing.
MIL-STD-810F Method 509.4 describes testing methods to determine the effectiveness of protective coatings and finishes on materials for corrosion, electrical effect and physical effects. The tests can also determine the effects of salt deposits on the physical and electrical aspects of materiel. The product is exposed to salt fog mist from a 5% salt solution via atomizers at about 95 degrees Fahrenheit for a minimum of four alternating 24-hour periods, two wet and two dry. The product is then examined for salt deposits that can clog or bind components, electrical malfunction, and potential short and long-term impact of any observed corrosion.
The reason why I am writing this all down is because my return coincided with an announcement from GETAC that its impressive B300 rugged notebook had received Salt Fog certification. Here's part of their press release:
LAKE FOREST, CA. – September 2, 2008 – GETAC Inc., a leading innovator and manufacturer of rugged computers that meet the demands of field-based applications, announced today that its B300 ruggedized notebook PC received full Salt Fog certification based on testing standards set by the Department of Defense (MIL-STD-810F – 509.4). Salt Fog is a specialized test used to evaluate and determine the effectiveness of protective coatings and finishes on materials to repel salt corrosion and may also be applied to determine the effects of salt deposits on the physical and electrical aspects of materials. Adding the Salt Fog certification to an already robust and rugged notebook PC makes the GETAC B300 the ideal choice for military installations, marine applications such as the Coastguard and other industries where salt or salt air can impact equipment performance.
“Salt is one of the most aggressive chemical compounds in the world,” said Jim Rimay, president, GETAC. “Salt will quickly corrode a computer’s exterior, impair vital electrical system functions through salt deposits and have a physical impact by restricting free movement of its mechanical components. The B300 addresses these issues with its Salt Fog certification and elevates it to an elite status among ruggedized computers for safe and uninterrupted operation in any location, especially in coastal regions of the world.”
We recently did a detailed hands-on test of the Getac B300 and found it to be a very impressive machine full of clever engineering and innovation. A combination of optical coatings and superbright backlight make the screen readable in the brightest sunlight, and amazing power conservation methods can extend battery life to a stunning 12 hours. It's good to see that the company also invests in testing against one of the less-often mentioned environmental threats to mobile computers -- salt fog exposure. While most specs include resistance to drops and vibration, salt fog/water exposure can destroy a piece of equipment just as surely. Once the corrosion is detected, it's usually too late, so it's nice to see Getac take proactive steps.
MIL-STD-810F, however, only describes testing methods, and not the criteria that determine passing tests. It would therefore be nice to know what Getac found during its tests, and what the company did to make the B300 as immune to salt fog damage as possible.
Posted by conradb212 at 02:31 PM | Comments (0)
August 06, 2008
The Motion Computing F5
We've had the Motion Computing F5 tablet here in the lab for a while. The F5 is a follow-up to Motion's C5 medical market tablet, which was a rather unique design solution that received a lot of positive feedback. The folks at Motion are generally right on the mark, and have been ever since some former Dell people formed the company back in 2002 or so to take on Fujitsu with a Tablet PC slate. At the time no one gave them much of a chance to prevail in a market that Fujitsu practically owned with their Stylistic pen tablets, but Motion pulled it off. I remember a dinner meeting with Motion founders Scott Eckert and David Altounian in San Francisco where they showed me the prototype of their initial tablet. It wasn't substantially different or better than what Fujitsu had at the time, but it was immediately obvious that the Motion folks truly believed in their product and that they had a very clear focus. That never changed. Whereas tablets are just a small part of their overall business for Fujitsu, tablets are the only thing Motion does. It's been six years now, and Motion never wavered from their mission. And somehow they always managed to stay ahead of the curve, with new technologies generally available in Motion products sooner than anywhere else.
I don't know what the thought process was that led to the design of the original C5 medical tablet, but it was certainly a smart decision to go after the medical market. It's a tough one to break into for a variety of reasons, but also one where mobile systems can make a huge impact. At Kaiser, the HMO I use, they finally have terminals in almost every examination room so they can call up patient info, and they can now also call up x-rays onscreen, but it took them forever, and I still see no portable electronics. I suppose it's the same elsewhere.
The Motion C5 was an attempt to provide a portable computer that could do more and was easier to integrate into the daily workflow of medical people. So they made it small and light and gave it an integrated handle to easily carry it around. They integrated an RFID reader and a bar code reader and also a camera. They also made it white so it fits in with all the other medical equipment, and it's easy to wash and disinfect. Motion also created a small, handy dock for it. So the overall idea was the provide a small computer that was easy to carry around and that included all sorts of data capture methods. It all still depended on systems integrators to package the hardware with medical systems software, and then have hospitals actually pick it up and use it. I am not sure how many did, but the Motion C5 was, and currently still is, probably the best mobile hardware for such projects.
When I first looked at the C5 I wondered why Motion limited the platform to just one market. True, it's a potentially huge market, but the C5 seemed sturdy enough to be used in other mobile applications, and it already carried IP54 sealing, which means it was didn't mind a bit of rain and some spills. Motion apparently agreed and created a second version of the C5, the F5. They called this one a "Field Tool," -- not the greatest of names, but obviously an attempt at communicating that this computer should be seen as a tool for jobs rather than a conventional computer.
I must admit, I had a bit of a hard time with the F5. When I wrote about the C5, I had no problem seeing the design decisions that had been made to make this computer just right for the medical market. The size, the shape, the features, the color and so on. The F5 is gray instead of white, but other than that, it's the same computer. It does include Motion's "View Anywhere" display because unlike the C5, the F5 would probably be used outdoors where sunlight viewability counts. So there wasn't any additional thought on how to make a computer best suited for use in the field.
The way I see it, the field IS different from a hospital. You won't always have a dock to charge a computer, and so the fairly small battery of the C5 may not be enough. And in the field it does come in handy to have a USB port or two and perhaps even an old serial port for some arcane instrument or measuring tool you need to hook up. And having some sort of expansion slot also comes in handy. Wireless communication is great and we can't do without, but it's been my experience that even with Bluetooth and WiFi, there are times when it's a lot simpler to just copy files onto a USB key or a SD card than to send them. The F5 can't do that as it doesn't have any ports or slots and totally relies on wireless or the dock.
All of this made it a bit more difficult to review the product. I am used to Motion having a very clear rationale for a machine, and in this case the rationale seemed to be that the healthcare C5 was good enough to be offered for other markets. That was probably a good idea, but something still doesn't feel quite right. Even the "View Anywhere" display that I remember as effective from previous reviews of Motion tablets seemed rather low-contrast compared to other sunlight-viewable technologies on the market.
The F5 is also one of the few machines that uses the Intel Core Solo processor. The Solo is essentially a Core Duo with one core not used, sort of like an 8-cylinder engine with only four of them running to conserve fuel. It is an economical chip, with a thermal design power of just 5.5 watts, which is only a bit more than half of what a Core Duo chip running at the same clock speed uses. Problem is that benchmark performance is much lower, too, and generally closer to the lowly Intel A110 than even an ultra-low-power Core Duo. The F5 is no slug at all, at least with Windows XP, but with Motion always being at the forefront of technology I wonder why they didn't just use an Atom processor instead. They did switch from the Core Solo U1400 to a Core 2 Solo U2200 which is said to include better caching and even more power-saving technologies, so perhaps that was the right move for now.
Anyway, just a few thoughts on what is, in fact, an interesting and welcome addition to the hardware alternatives available to those who need to implement computing solutions in the field. The official review of the Motion Computing F5, with pics and specs and all is here.
Posted by conradb212 at 02:03 PM | Comments (0)
June 23, 2008
Tablet PC: We could use a hammer....
"We could use a hammer..." That's the tag line of MobileDemand's latest video in their Tablet PC Torture Chamber Series where a man uses a Tablet PC to hammer a bunch of large nails into a board. The video is the latest in a series of increasingly sophisticated and outrageous demonstrations of just how tough their Tablet PC is.
Usually, rugged equipment is dropped or exposed to water to show that it can survive the kind of punishment encountered in the field. MobileDemand's earlier videos pretty much followed that tradition. xTablets were dropped, exposed to showers, rolled down a hill and so on. But soon the videos showed drops more extreme than anything that would likely happen in the real world. And instead of being exposed to a showerhead, the computer was strapped to the top of a car and run through a car wash five times, with the computer running and its display on camera during the whole ordeal.
And now the "We could use a hammer..." video. It's very smart. No one would actually use a computer as a hammer (though, come to think of it, I've used a variety of objects as hammers when none was handy), but the image of using that sophisticated piece of electronic equipment as a hammer certainly drives the point home, no pun intended.
Using the xTablet Tablet PC computer as a hammer really means to illustrate a point: shock and vibration do happen in the field. If you use a machine in a truck or as a data capture device you do not intend to damage it, but sooner or later it will fall. And constant vibration is affecting the computer. Eventually things can happen. Electrical parts may touch and short-circuit. Fasteners may come loose. Structural pieces may crack. Seals may deform and begin leaking. Electrical contacts may become unreliable. The display panel may become get out of alignment. Fasteners and ties may get loose. Wiring may chafe. Materials may fatigue and then break. Parts may deform or crack. And so on. At best, sealing may be compromised, electrical noise may be introduced, and individual parts are headed for failure. At worst, the computer fails.
This is why manufacturers usually provide test data, usually how a product performed when using the procedures described in MIL-STD-810F. Those procedures try to replicate conditions actually encountered in the field during transportation and operation. That makes sense, but the testing is quite involved and not very easy to interpret. Witness the following caution regrading acceleration testing found in MIL-STD-810F 514.5:
Care must be taken to examine field measured response probability density information for non-Gaussian behavior. In particular, determine the relationship between the measured field response data and the laboratory replicated data relative to three sigma peak height limiting that may be introduced in the laboratory test.
That's a mouthful, and the results are even more difficult to read. General integrity test conducted may then yield results such as, say, a power spectral density of 0.04G²/Hz, 20 to 1000Hz, descending 6dB/oct to 2000Hz. MobileDemand, like all the other serious rugged equipment vendors and manufacturers, has its gear tested in accordance with the MIL-STD-810F (and other) procedures, but what has more impact, some tech specs comprehensible only to engineers or a video of a man using the that rugged Tablet PC as a hammer and it still works?
"We could use a hammer..."
Brilliant.
To see the "We could use a hammer..." video, click this Blip.tv link.
Posted by conradb212 at 03:46 PM | Comments (0)
May 28, 2008
Electrovaya settles patent infringement suit
An interesting situation: An intellectual property company named Typhoon Touch Technologies announced Electrovaya had settled a patent infringement lawsuit by Typhoon and Nova Mobility Systems "for an undisclosed sum representing a royalty payment of at least 20% on past and future sales of its Scribbler Tablet PCs in the United States. Additionally, Electrovaya formally recognized the validity of Typhoon’s patents at issue in the litigation and acknowledged infringement of one or more of the patent claims." (see here)
20% on past and future sales of a tablet? Wow! And recognizing the validity of a patent? That's even more amazing given the vague and confusing nature of many patents. So what is this patent for? That would be US patents 5,379,057, issued January 3, 1995 and 5,675,362, issued October 7, 1997. They both have the same abstract:
"A portable, self-contained general purpose keyboardless computer utilizes a touch screen display for data entry purposes. An application generator allows the user to develop data entry applications by combining the features of sequential libraries, consequential libraries, help libraries, syntax libraries, and pictogram libraries into an integrated data entry application. A run-time executor allows the processor to execute the data entry application."
The drawings accompanying both patents show a tablet computer like the ones Momenta, IBM, NCR, GRiD, Samsung, Fujitsu, Dauphin, TelePad, Toshiba and many others offered for sale in the early 1990s. The picture on the right shows the drawing included in the 1995 patent and a couple of computers that precede it. The two computers I added for comparison's sake are a 1993 IBM ThinkPad 700/710 and a 1992 Dauphin DTR1. On the surface it's hard to see how a 1995 patent for a "self-contained general purpose keyboardless computer" could impact a 2008 Electrovaya slate when numerous companies made such computers already in the early 1990s. Then again, patents are finicky things and their interpretation is up to courts.
Anyway, the patents in question were issued to Microslate, a company that was certainly a pen computing pioneer with its ultra-rugged Datellite touch screen computers (see one of our early reviews of it in Pen Computing here).
Interestingly, Typhoon also sued Dell, Xplore, Sand Dune (the Tablet Kiosk folks) and Motion for infringement on touch screen technology and seeks damages for lost profits. Motion reached some sort of settlement. Typhoon apparently thinks that the patent in their possession covers just about the entire mobile market: "manufacturing, selling, offering for sale, and/or importing a variety of portable computer products, including but not limited to tablet PCs, slate PCs, handheld PCs, personal digital assistants (PDAs), ultra mobile PCs (UMPCs), smart phones, and/or other products covered by the patents-in-suit."
The suit has a co-plaintiff in Nova Mobility Systems, located in Tempe, Arizona. Nova, interestingly, offers the SideARM handheld. The SideARM was originally conceived by long defunct Melard and then became part of Microslate's lineup, the very company that was assigned those two patents. Typhoon's Form 10QSB shows that they bought the patents from Nova Mobility and agreed to pay them a 10% royalty from enforcements. So Microslate, an early player in the rugged slate market, sat on the patents all this time, then sold them, and now they are supposed to cover virtually every mobile device ever made even though such devices existed long before the patents? Elegant.
We're all in favor of respecting intellectual property, but figuring out what exactly that means isn't always easy. When I was a kid many decades ago I envisioned a little black box that told me everything I wanted to know by simply asking a question and let me communicate with anyone who had one. I doodled drawings of it. Does that mean I own the exclusive rights to cellphones, smartphones, Google and the entire web? Sadly not. But it would really be nice to at least have 20% of all those sales.
Posted by conradb212 at 04:36 PM | Comments (0)
May 26, 2008
XP Embedded: When benchmarks lie
Providing rugged mobile computers is a constant exercise in trade-offs and balancing. Screens get bigger and brighter, processors get fasters, disk larger, and customers want all that, without paying for it in the form of larger batteries and more weight. The problem, really, is that battery technology has not kept pace with the rest of the circuitry inside a computer, and so batteries struggle to provide enough juice to keep everything running for long. When you think about it, it's pretty bizarre that the very machines that are supposed to go as fast as possible often annoy their users by constantly trying to go to sleep, stand by, hibernate or shut off. Or that they come factory-configured to run at half speed and with the backlight dimmed.
The increasing power demand of the latest electronics (and in the processor department, their cost) has driven many manufacturers to look for alternate solutions. One is to pick a much simpler processor that consumes a lot less power. That approach, however, has its own problems. Two primary ones, in fact. The first is that customers think a machine with a "slow" processor cannot possibly be very powerful. And second that, in fact, it isn't. Fortunately there's a solution, albeit one that is only suitable for certain tasks and applications.
An embedded operating system.
See, a general purpose OS, like Windows XP Professional, is just that, general purpose. You can do anything you want with it, and run anything you want on it. With that in mind, Microsoft equipped Windows XP with all the drivers and software and utilities one could possibly need. The result is a rather large operating system with numerous processes and services running all the time, all consuming memory and power, and having the potential to slow even a powerful machine to a crawl.
An embedded operating system is totally different. The idea is to only use what you need to perform a certain task and leave everything else behind. This greatly reduces the size of the operating system and dramatically reduces hardware requirements. XP Embedded is generally used for smart, connected and service oriented commercial and consumer devices that do not need all of Windows XP, yet can still run thousands of existing Windows applications. An embedded OS can easily be as small as 40MB and it's even possible to cut it all down to around 8MB with a bootable kernel.
XP Embedded is not one-size-fits all. A company will determine exactly what a machine is for and what it should be able to do. They then include as many components (hence the term "componentized" operating system) as they need. There are over 10,000 available and it's easy to create lean, nimble embedded OS platforms that can still do sophisticated high level tasks like advanced multimedia, browsing, communications or whatever a task requires. An embedded OS can even run as a real-time OS via third party plug-ins. Essentially you get the power of the basic Windows XP engine, but without any overhead you don't need.
Which means that in an embedded systems machine, benchmarks do not necessarily tell the true story. They simply measure raw power, but not how efficiently that power is put to use. What all this boils down to is that a mobile computer with an embedded OS can be much faster than you'd think it is based on its hardware specs. In fact, we reviewed some that were so quick that almost no one would believe they ran on a low-power, inexpensive processor and just a minimum of RAM. So benchmarks would tell one story, real world performance another.
This is not to say that an embedded OS is the perfect solution for all mobile computing tasks. But it can be for organizations that build their own customized, componentized OS. And for those who have very clearly defined applications that work within the confines of an embedded OS.
Posted by conradb212 at 03:50 PM | Comments (0)
May 21, 2008
What happened to Symbol!?
Symbol Technologies was always one of my favorite companies. I visited their headquarters in Holtsville, long Island several times over the years and always came away impressed with their sleek designs and willingness to try out new ideas. That feistiness carried over into some aggressive acquisitions (like the bitter fight with Telxon) and, after some financial incongruencies, the sale of Symbol itself. Now Symbol is part of Motorola, but it isn't very clear what kind of part.
A good year or so after the acquisition Symbol seems to have been halfway absorbed into Motorola, but if you go by the Motorola website it's almost impossible to figure out how. Symbol is only listed as carrying bar code scanners, mobility software, and OEM scan engines, but no longer any handheld computers. The former Symbol handhelds have become sort of stateless, popping up under "Mobile Computers" without any brand name at all. So the former Symbol MC50, for example, is now just a "MC50," presumably somehow by Motorola.
It's actually quite sad to see all that. Symbol's once proud state-of-the-art handhelds now languish, carrying on in some way with dated processors and even more dated software. Some have unceremoniously been discontinued whereas others seem destined to just die from neglect. The MC35, MC50, and MC70 had a very promising career ahead of them when they were introduced, but now they are aging rapidly. The emphasis appears to be on the big and fairly conventional MC9000 Series of handhelds. They come in a variety of permutations with various size keypads, and they remain reasonably up-to-date with Windows Mobile 5.0 and Marvell (why does almost everyone still call them Intel when Intel sold the business a long time ago?) PXA270 processors.
There may well be method to this madness, and the decision to focus Symbol entirely on scanners may be a good one. Obvious it's not. And it's truly sad to see Symbol's proud legacy of handheld computers rapidly go to seed. I mean, make them part of.... SOMETHING!
Another sad thing is Motorola's website itself. It must rank right up there with the most confusing, least user-friendly ones I've seen. It's not surprising the company is in such trouble. The impression you get along every step of the way is, "We don't know who or what w are, or what we want to be!"
Frankly, as is, I think Symbol, and its customers, would have been a whole lot better off with Symbol intact and independent. Spin them off so they can get back to business, Motorola.
Posted by conradb212 at 01:21 AM | Comments (0)
May 06, 2008
A video says more than a thousand pictures
While it's still not entirely sure how the YouTube phenomenon is changing our view of the world, changed it has. Initially we thought YouTube and its many competitors were simply repositories for stuff people recorded off TV, but that has changed. These days, if anything happens anywhere, whether it's important or not, it'll be on YouTube in a moment.
However, the YouTube phenomenon has also led to entirely more serious changes in how things are being portrayed to the world. Specifically, video is being used to show what products can do. But that's not new, you might say. No, the idea of using video to highlight a product is not new, but the way video is being used now is. In the olden days, videos were mostly polished commercials, the kind we watch on TV (unless we have TiVo). YouTube gave video sort of an underground flavor. It's not glitzy footage created by Madison Avenue types, but clips done by us, the people.
Last fall, for example, we thought it might be fun to do an underwater video of one of the products we reviewed. It was by no means professional quality; we just used a little Casio digital camera with a YouTube mode. Then we set up a tripod in a pool, I donned my scuba gear and, bingo, video of a handheld computer being used underwater. This went up on YouTube with a rather innocuous title, "Trimble Nomad computer goes diving." Amazingly, even with this non-provocative title and very utilitarian keywords (trimble, tds, rugged, scuba, waterproof), the video has been viewed over 4,000 times in the few months since. Another one we did a bit later, of the Juniper Systems Archer Field PC, has also been viewed almost 2,500 times. Hmmm....
Turns out, an increasing number of entrepreneurial companies are taking advantage of the YouTube phenomenon by rolling their own underground videos. One of our sponsors, MobileDemand, has been playing a leading role by creating a number of videos that demonstrate the toughness and ruggedness of their xTablet slate computer. The result is a series of increasingly better and more outrageous videos that are both funny and compelling. While I never warmed up to Panasonic's omnipresent "Legally we can't say..." commercials/videos/billboards/print ads, MobileDemand makes their point much more convincingly (and at infinitely lower cost). And while the origins of the idea are clearly based on the YouTube syndrome, MobileDemand is running its videos on Blip.tv which has much better video quality.
If you haven't seen one of the MobileDemand videos you can do so right here by running the clips embeded in this paragraph. You see their flagship product being tossed around, thrown off a hill, and strapped to the top of a car and taken through a car wash. In a loose adaptation of the MIL-STD-810F "drop test" (officially called MIL-STD-810F Method 516.5, Procedure IV -- Transit Drop), you see the xTablet being dropped, rapid-fire, 26 times. To drive the point home they use the computer to pound a nail into a wooden board. All the while, video is running on the computer's screen so you can see that it still works and never skips a beat. That's pretty clever. Oh, and knowing that outdoor footage of a screen that is not outdoor-viewable isn't exactly compelling, the MobileDemand folks smake sure it's abundantly clear that theirs IS outdoor-viewable. It's all done in a fun, "YouTube" way. To demonstrate that their tablet's display, usually the most vulnerable part of a rugged computer, can take a direct hit, they drop a full beer can onto it. And then, to make sure folks realize that a beer can dropped from a few feet packs a punch, they drop one onto a guy's midsection. Ouch!
A video can clearly say more than a thousand pictures. That's because we've all become jaded with mere images. We all know how easily they can be edited, modified and faked. Video, that's another story. It's hard to fake a video of a guy hammering a big nail with his computer. Which means, for now, demonstrating products on funky videos is a great idea. It certainly doesn't replace images or the printed word as video is a serial medium that you pretty much have to watch from start to end as opposed to glossing over "random access" print.
Posted by conradb212 at 07:59 PM | Comments (0)
March 18, 2008
Shrinking military spending an opportunity for mobile vendors?
What I am about to write is based on assumptions and conjecture. It has to do with military procurement. And more specifically, military procurement of rugged mobile technology.
We've all heard about the proverbial $600 toilet seats and other supposed gross waste of resources. We also somehow assume that the military has ultra-advanced equipment and secret weapons that are more sophisticated than anything we can think of. In the same respect, having served in the military, I know that the armed services often use equipment that, by civilian and commercial standards, is completely and utterly obsolete. So what is true? That the military has incredible gee-whiz weaponry and gadgets, or is it all tried-and-true (and rather old) stuff?
Most likely some of both. When you peruse the product lineups of some of the defense contractors you see some shockingly obsolete stuff in there. Machinery powered by ancient Pentium chips, murky LCDs, a complete lack of modern interfaces and so on. Heck, our fighter planes are positively ancient if you applied the standards of, say, the automotive industry. Sure, they are said to be equipped with the latest computer gadgetry, but still, how up-to-date can decades-old designs be?
Anyway, I really want to talk about how all of this relates to the cost of rugged mobile equipment. In a recent summary report, Venture Development Corporation (VDC) reported that military spending on expensive rugged mobile technology may dry up in coming years. They also stated that this will leave an interesting opening for a new class of "good-enough" hardware that can fill most requirements, or all, at a considerably lower price. What this means is that the military may stop paying premium prices for traditional military market equipment from traditional military market vendors. So instead of simply ordering a successor model from an established (and presumably expensive) vendor, they may look around for less costly alternatives.
This indeed may present an interesting opening for some companies that have not traditionally dealt with the military market. It also means that such companies will have to take a crash course in how to deal with the military, learn more about requirements and certifications, and about service and sales cycles. Truth be told, we've seen a good number of "civilian" rugged handhelds that we believe could serve the military quite well whereas some of the traditional gear makes us wonder about its usefulness.
So are some vendors just a small learning curve and a few modifications away from being serious contenders for armed forces contracts? Or is dealing with the governments simply too cumbersome to even attempt for anyone other than the handful of defense contractors?
Costs, of course, are relative. Given that a very simple ankle fracture without any complications or anything cost a friend of mine the appalling amount of $28,000 five years ago, I can only imagine what the military's health care cost must be. Perhaps, compared to that, it simply doesn't matter whether a handheld costs $1,500 or $5,000.
Posted by conradb212 at 07:40 PM | Comments (0)
March 10, 2008
Keeping track of who makes (and sells) what
Keeping RuggedPCReview.com updated is no easy task. In the olden days, when we started Pen Computing Magazine back in 1993, there were only a small handful of companies that offered ruggedized equipment. These days, a even giant companies like Dell are realizing that adding durable and ruggedized equipment makes a lot of sense. I mean, in a mobile world not everyone is well-served with a flimsy, plasticky notebook that can't handle the potential abuse during a day on the job.
Anyway, keeping track of things... Not only is it quite a job to stay on top of every tech upgrade (and with Intel adding and changing processors every few weeks those come hot and heavy), it's often even more difficult figuring out who makes what and where it's being sold. For many years now, most notebooks sold in the world have been made by a fairly small number of Taiwanese and, increasingly, Chinese OEMs. For a while we licensed Pen Computing Magazine to a publishing company in Taiwan and I had a chance to go to Taipei to see them and also make a presentation on Tablet PCs in the Taipei International Convention Center. My hosts arranged for interviews with most of the major OEMs, such as Compal, Quanta, Mitac, FIC, Tatung and so on. That was very informative, but it's difficult to keep track of the ever-changing alliances between OEMs, ODMs, resellers, partners and customers.
So what does that mean for all the hundreds of rugged products listed and described at RuggedPCReview.com? Most are manufactured, though not necessarily designed, by an OEM in Taiwan. Many are joint productions where a computer company designs a product and then has it built by an OEM. Or the various aspects of design are divided in some way. Or a product is available from several vendors, but is customized for particular markets for different vendors. Sometimes there are exclusives. Other times the same machine is sold under different labels. There are also cases where an OEM sells a product under its own name, but that same product is also sold by other companies under different labels. This whole big supply chain means that there are many different ways of working together.
As for us here at RuggedPCReview.com, we always try to know who exactly makes a product. That's primarily so that we can state facts. If a product is really good, we'd like to know who deserves the praise. It makes no sense to heap praise on an OEM when the design actually comes from elsewhere. Or, the other way around, celebrate the genius of a reseller when they really did not design the product at all.
But that's not all of it. Another problem for us is that larger resellers do not necessarily offer the same machines in all markets. This morning, for example, I updated some product listings and realized that some of the old Dolch products were still listed under Kontron, the German company that had taken over Dolch in February of 2005. We had often marveled at Dolch's various rugged platforms at industry tradeshows and were bit saddened to see them get absorbed. After all, Dolch had been building rugged machines since 1987. So we relisted whatever Kontron took over as Kontron machines and added new contact information. Kontron had also created a new website, kontronmobile.com.
At the time, Kontron's CEO was quoted as saying, "This investment presents an excellent opportunity for Kontron to further expand its embedded computer solutions in the USA and Europe on mobile platforms for government and defense programs." Well, apparently it was not such a great opportunity after all as Kontron's US website now states, "Thank you for your interest in mobile rugged computing. This line of products was recently acquired by Azonix, a division of Crane Company." Azonix so happens to be a division of Crane, a multinational with over 10,000 employees. Azonix Corporation is located in Billerica Massachusetts and was set up in 1981 as a design and manufacturing firm specializing in rugged, high-precision measurement and control products. Some of the former Dolch/Kontron products are now part of the Asonix Military Grade Solutions product lineup, in competition with the likes of DRS Tactical and General Dynamics.
The Dolch/Kontron/Asonix NotePAC, however, looked familiar to me and it turns out to be a GETAC machine, the A790. On a hunch I go to the German Kontron website and it turns out that Kontron continues to sell rugged notebooks in that, and other, markets, just not in the US. In fact, the German Kontron lineup does not hide its GETAC origins. They have a whole line of Kontron NotePACs, all carrying the same model numbers as the corresponding GETAC machines.
Nothing wrong with all that, of course. It's just another example of how everything is going global. But after all is said and done, customers need to know who they can call if they need service and support. And then it is good to know they're dealing with a reliable, competent company that doesn't just slap a badge on a machine and pushes it out the door. In the end, it is that support and that local connection that matters and factors in big in that holy grail of vertical market mobile computing, the Total Cost of Ownership.
Posted by conradb212 at 06:48 PM | Comments (0)
March 03, 2008
Where will Intel's Atom chip fit in?
On March 3rd, 2008, Intel introduced the low-power Atom processor designed specifically for mobile internet devices. While desktop chips draw as much as 35 watts of thermal design power (TDP) and even ultra-low power Core Duos draw almost 10 watts, the Atoms will draw from 0.6 to 2.5 watts. Intel stresses that the chip is not a shrunken version of a desktop chip, but designed from the ground up. In a series of YouTube-style videos various Intel spokespeople describe Atom's use. It goes into really inexpensive ($250-400) notebooks. It is "Intel's architecture for mobile devices." It is for "devices that fit in pockets." And it is "the basis of new sexy: low power and small." And no fan is needed. Does this mean the Atom processors are meant to replace replace the ARM-based PXA processors that Intel jettisoned to Marvell?
It's really confusing with processors these days. Back in the early days of mobile computing everyone knew what to expect from an 8088 processor (including price, which was about $5), and then, say, a 386/16 or a 486/33. People even had a "feel" for how fast a Pentium 90 was going to drive an early Windows computer. Later, Intel's product lines mushroomed, but it was still kind of possible to guess how each would perform because in the public's mind, the clock speed of a computer chip determined how fast it was. Then Intel did away with that also, sort of, and now we have slower processors that are faster and faster ones that are slower. Processors are no longer sold on their specifications, but on what wonderful things Intel says they will do for us.
For those of us in the mobile field, one problem with Intel has always been that the company really had no mobile chips. Whatever found its way into notebooks was generally a crippled desktop processor. Sometimes crippled in terms of technology (like when one of two cores was simply disconnected as in the unloved Core Solo) and sometimes by running the poor thing with so little juice that it barely moved.
But Intel also had the PXA processors specifically developed for handheld devices you may say. Yes, they had, and it is not entirely clear why. Think back to the beginnings of Windows CE in the mid 1990s (it was introduced at Comdex 1996 to be exact). Windows CE began as a multi-processor architecture platform. Unlike desktop Windows PCs that almost exclusively relied on Intel, CE devices had a choice of several chip architectures. There was support for Hitachi's SuperH architecture and two variants of Silicon Graphic's MIPS engine, and then Microsoft announced support of the 486 and Pentium, the PowerPC 821, and the ARM architecture. I don't think the first three ever became real, but ARM support sure did. Anyway, the competition among chip manufacturers was heavy and resulted in sort of an "arms race" to deliver faster and more integrated chipsets. There quickly were faster versions of the Hitachi SH-3, Philips introduced the TwoChipPic set, and NEC the 4100 family. Toshiba announced its entry with the MIPS-based TX39 family of RISC processors (perhaps one of the quickest CE chips ever), and Digital Equipment Corporation the StrongARM 1100. And there was AMD with its 486-compatible Elan variants. Now that is competition.
Sadly, all that changed with Pocket PC 2002 when Microsoft dropped support of the MIPS, SH, and X86 architectures and mandated the use of an ARM core, which at the time was the SA1110 "StrongARM," and the ARM72xT and ARM92xT. That swiftly eliminated a whole bunch of CE device manufacturers from the market, and some never came back. At least, we thought at the time, ARM processors were made by Intel, Motorola, Texas Instruments, and ARM itself, but even then we assumed that there would be an emphasis on the Intel StrongARM and Intel's Xscale architecture.
XScale, of course, prevailed and was soon found in virtually all Windows CE devices. Now let's remember that StrongARM really wasn't an Intel invention at all. It originated with none other than the once mighty Digital Equipment Corporation, the supermini powerhouse that once seemed destined to replace IBM, but then meekly imploded and sold itself to Compaq, which meekly imploded and sold itself to HP. Somewhere along the process Intel picked up StrongARM and quickly morphed it into XScale. I remember several somewhat awkward conference calls where Intel reps tried to explain how XScale was different from StrongARM. In the end it really didn't matter as the Intel PXA chips became fairly competent workhorses for millions of Windows CE-powered devices.
However, XScale had fatal flaws. First, it couldn't run "real" Windows. Second, it wasn't a very lucrative business. And third, it was not invented here. So off it went, to Marvell. Marvell Technology Group -- a silicon solutions high tech firm based in Santa Clara, California -- officially took over Intel's communications and applications processors in November of 2006 and has since launched the PXA 3xx series, consisting of the high-end PXA320 running at 806MHz, the cost-optimized low-end PXA 300, and the PXA310. The 806MHz PXA320 is a scorcher as we found out in a review of the Trimble/TDS Nomad rugged handheld. Unfortunately, Marvell's marketing is so low-key that hardly anyone knows they exist. Check the tech specs of just about any Windows CE device and it still says "Intel PXA." And despite the remarkable power of the PXA320 chip, few have picked it up. Shame, that.
So now we have the Intel Atom chip. Designed from the ground up for mobile devices. Designed for cheap computers costing just 250-400 bucks. Not a shrunken desktop chip, but still one with 47 million transistors. One that goes into devices that fit into pockets but also on desktops, and those inexpensive notebooks. And then there's the new sexy, "low power and small." Why "Atom"? Because "it's the smallest element of computing."
Along with the Atom chip also comes Atom Centrino. With "Centrino" being a rather successful Intel strategy of bundling various Intel components and making the package look superior to just an Intel processor and then third party components, Centrino Atom is no surprise. Centrino Atom will include an Atom chip and companion chips for graphics and wireless for "the best mobile computing and Internet experience on these new devices."
The thermal design power (TDP) specs are certainly impressive. Just 0.6 to 2.5 watts, as opposed to almost ten for an ultra-low power Core Duo processor. And the 45nm process is unimaginably microscopic (the PXA processors use 90 nm) and certainly a testimony to Intel's expertise. Thermal design power, of course, is a somewhat odd measurement. It just describes, according to a Wiki entry, the "maximum amount of power the cooling system in a computer is required to dissipate."
To me, the question is where the chip will really fit in. One of the Intel clips has the spokesperson showing an OQO type of little computer with a slide-out keyboard. Quite obviously, the overall goal is to provide the kind and quality of internet access we've all become used to, and even more so since Apple showed that "real" browsing is possible even on something as small as the iPhone.
So what does Atom mean for the manufacturers of all those PXA-powered devices? With Marvell taking such a low-key approach, are they hustling to see if Atom perhaps is a better alternative? I am certain Intel hopes so. What are the respective power requirements? I don't think I've ever seen a TDP spec for the PXA chips. Whatever specs there are for the PXA320 would indicate substantial capabilities and power, but so far we haven't seen any device that takes advantage of all of its remarkable range of multimedia features (see Marvell PXA320 features).
There are, of course, other considerations. For example, we're seeing new products with Intel's A100/A110 chips that are part of Intel's UMPC 2007 platform. Those chips, essentially lower power M-cores, also use 90 nm technology, run at 600 and 800MHz and have 3 watt TDPs. Will these be totally replaced by the Atom chips that appear to have a range from 500MHz to 1.8GHz at lower to equal TDPs?
Time will tell.
Posted by conradb212 at 05:53 PM | Comments (0)
February 20, 2008
What do we make of Geode, VIA and Intel A100 powered devices?
As of late, I've seen an increasing number of small tablet-style devices that run Windows but do not use one of Intel's heralded Core processors, or even one of their lower-powered predecessor chips. That inevitably brings up the central conundrum the industry has been dealing with for the past 15 years or so. After dabbling with Windows CE in its various versions, Microsoft has pretty much decided that "real" Windows is the way to go. Any device that is not solely dedicated to performing a single task, or running a single custom app, will likely do other things or have to communicate with other computers. And that is when the problems start. Anything that doesn't run "real" WIndows will inevitable have browser problems, drivers and plug-ins aren't available and so on. Might as well give up and build a small device with real Windows. That can be done, but real Windows was designed for desktops and powerful laptops. It wants plenty of processing power and a big screen lest it all becomes an exercise in frustration.
So here we are, with Vista taxing even the most powerful machines and even XP desktops struggling to keep up with the myriad of functions and giant applications and add-ons and start-up programs and other gunk. Heck, my own personal 2GB Gateway notebook takes so long to boot Vista or bring up programs that I usually have meandered off to some other task by the time it's done. And yet, I see Microsoft plugging its Intel Ultra Mobile Platform 2007 with its A100 and A110 processors running at 600 and 800MHz, and AMD's Geode LX800 and LX900 at 500 and 600MHz. VIA's ultra low voltage C7-M runs at 1-1.5GHz and is probably in a somewhat different class, but in all instances we're far from Intel Core Duo and Core 2 Duo specs.
The question simply becomes this: Can a tablet powered by one of these chips really run Windows XP without its owner quickly giving up on it because it is too slow?
Unfortunately, there isn't an easy answer. See, it's really all a matter of software. Let's not forget that a couple of decades ago perfectly functional computers booted faster and ran their spreadsheets, wordprocessors and databases faster than what we have today, all on a few meg of memory and 16MHz processors. We have vastly more functionality today, but it's all become so complex that it often barely moves, and that is WITH powerful processors.
So why not simply scale back the software? That's a good idea but far from simple. If we only could just load Windows 98 onto a new machine and make it do whatever we need. It'd probably fly even on a -- by today's standards -- vastly underpowered machine. Sadly, it'd also be almost useless because it couldn't connect to anything and be incompatible with almost everything.
So the answer is to use today's software that speaks today's protocols and runs today's drivers, but remove as much overhead as possible. That can be done in several ways. You can, for example, load a standard operating system but do away with all the clutter and shovelware today's computers come with. You also remove all unnecessary startup programs, all unneeded background processes and so on. That still results in a big system, but it's surprising how much speed can be recovered by putting Windows on a diet.
Another approach is using Windows XP Embedded. What does "embedded" mean? Basically that you only pick those parts of a componentized operating system that you absolutely need for a task. Standard Windows XP or Vista load a computer with everything under the sun, whether you ever need it or not. An embedded version of Windows XP has ONLY what a device needs to do its job. That means it will be limited, but it will also be faster and use fewer resources. XP Embedded is especially well suited to run on a relatively small flash disk.
Yet another approach is to use one of the various Linux variants. Standard Linux distributions also have grown over the years and they now need much more space and have far larger resource requirements than they used to, but they are generally still smaller and faster than Windows. And since Linux is free and all its major applications are free, there can be substantial cost savings. Not everything is free, of course; companies who create custom applications to run on Linux systems can and will charge for licenses and upgrades.
All this gets me back to the original question: can a small slate computer with a minimal processor and minimal resources really run Windows at an acceptable pace? Does it all make sense? Some rather prestigious manufacturers seem to think so. Getac announced its lightweight rugged E100 tablet that uses an Intel A110 chip. Roper Mobile Technology announced the Geode-powered Duros Tablet PC. HTC's intriguing "Shift" can run both Windows and a clipped version of Windows Mobile, and Windows runs on an Intel A110. And there is a whole slew of other small devices that roughly follow what once was the Microsoft "Origami" ultra-mobile PC spec. All do Windows, and all use one of those ultra-economical processors (I hate the term "low-power" as it implies low performance rather than high energy efficiency) that is supposed to provide an adequate user experience while still providing halfway decent battery life.
What I'd really like to do, and I hope we get a chance here at RuggedPCReview.com, is to compare the Windows XP, XP Embedded and Linux versions of some of those machines side-by-side. I somehow cannot image that anything that runs XP on a 600MHz processor will be blindingly quick when even my 3GHz desktop is a slug, but it's entirely possible that a lean and specially configured rugged tablet with one of those high-efficiency (see, I didn't say "low power") processor is just what the doctor ordered.
Posted by conradb212 at 08:05 PM | Comments (0)
January 24, 2008
Panasonic -- Still top of the heap?
We just finished taking another detailed look at an old acquaintance, a Toughbook from Panasonic. Now called the CF-30, it's a descendant of the original Toughbook that goes back many years and essentially created a whole new market. The way that came about was that a number of Japanese companies that had once dominated the US laptop market found it increasingly difficult to be profitable. At some point the US launched protectionary measures against TFT LCD panels, making them more expensive. And the Taiwanese were beginning to move in.
Panasonic's approach was to seek new ways and they decided to gamble on a niche they had discovered. As notebooks were increasingly used in the field, customers became unhappy with standard laptops breaking all the time. It really wasn't the laptops' fault. They were built to be used at home and in an office, and then being shuttled back and forth. But with companies now deploying them for all sorts of field applications, they just couldn't handle it. So Panasonic conceived the idea of notebooks that were as elegant and powerful as standard laptops, but a lot tougher. And they came up with the "Toughbook" moniker, which was brilliant.
For many years, Panasonic owned the market. It wasn't that they were so much better than the rest, but their products sure looked better, and they had giant Matsushita behind them, so there were plenty of resources and off-the-shelf components right inside the company. And they knew the importance of industrial design. Compared to the utilitarian-looking competition at the time, Panasonic's ruggedly handsome Toughbooks were simply in a league of their own.
Panasonic also did a terrific job working with the press. In the heydays of vertical market print publications, when we did Pen Computing Magazine, Panasonic's PR folks always made sure we were informed of every new product. They made review units available and just generally helped us in every way to get information and hands-on time with the units so that we could keep our readers informed. So we reviewed many Toughbooks, liked most and criticized some. Panasonic was always appreciative of feedback and apparently passed constructive criticism on to their engineers as the machines steadily improved.
But time does not stand still, and the only constant is change. The rest of the industry began catching up and Panasonic, as the market leader, had a bullseye on their back. They were everyone's target. All of a sudden, superb industrial design was no longer exclusively found at Panasonic. One look at currently available rugged and semi-rugged notebooks shows that it's a real race now, and one where Panasonic no longer automatically has an edge.
There are other issues. Relationships matter, and after many years of superb access to Panasonic through a couple of long-term PR people, things changed and it became next to impossible to get anything from Panasonic. Seemingly every contact with them was from a different PR person. So when we emailed one of them, s/he was already no longer with the company, or the PR firm had changed. Not good. Whoever we deal with does their best, of course, and sometimes things just cannot be helped.
Anyway, we finally did get another longer term hands-on with a Toughbook. As described in detail in our review on the site, the Toughbook CF-30 is almost unchanged. Which is really a good thing. After all those years, that particular platform -- the traditional full-size rugged notebook -- is as mature and perfected as it gets. And having talked to Matsushita's engineers and designers In Japan, and having seen the production facilities in Osaka and Kobe, I am not surprised at the extremely high level of execution, fit and finish. It's probably nearly impossible to meet Panasonic's sheer perfection when it comes to do wizardry with magnesium or applying the most eye-catching finish to it.
And Panasonic certainly keeps the machine technologically up-to-date. The one we reviewed had an Intel Core Duo processor, but by the time the review was over, in January 2008, Pana had already revved the machine again and it now has a Core 2 Duo and a few other enhancements, albeit not enough to change the name from CF-30 to CF-31 just yet.
Outdoor viewability is becoming ever more important, and there has been a lot of progress in that field. Our technology editor, Geoff Walker, is an expert in that field, and thanks to him we have a pretty good idea of the state-of-the-art. From what I can tell, and from what I have seen with my own eyes, Panasonic is not completely at the forefront with their outdoor displays, but they are close. No display is anywhere near perfect yet, but the progress that's been made is amazing, and current technology can only do so much against the sun.
But is the CF-30 still on top? That's hard to say. In terms of look and finish, it remains unsurpassed, but it is an aging platform. The touchpad was just plain unresponsive and certainly didn't make the machine easy to use. In the olden days, a quick call to our sources at Panasonic might have yielded an explanation as to why a particular type of touchpad was used, but these days the path of communication is longer. Fortunately, today's company websites contain so much information that grabbing a missing spec is usually just a lookup away, but, alas, as pretty and professional as Panasonics Toughbook website looks, it is a total bear to navigate and find anything. If it takes me several screens to actually find a product, something's wrong. And the confusing, inconsistent way Panasonic literature and online resources handle ruggedness specs is not doing them any favors. And Panasonic's "Legally we can't say...." campaign we're assaulted with in every airport or business magazine, well, the less said the better.
But what about other Panasonic products? Well, most are still there and more or less the same. I saw the prototype of the very compact CF-18 notebook convertible at Panasonic in Japan back in 2002, and we later reviewed the final product. It's almost six years later now, and the CF-18 is now the CF-19. Is it still the best? Maybe, maybe not. GETAC's V100 competes with it now, and when we reviewed that rather excellent machine we wondered whether Panasonic has kept up.
Don't get me wrong. The Panasonic CF-30 is an awesome machine. But the world has changed, and it's not clear to me if Panasonic has made all the right moves.
Posted by conradb212 at 05:05 PM | Comments (0)
November 22, 2007
Thoughts about rugged handhelds -- the Juniper Archer
For the past few weeks we've had an Archer Field PC from Juniper Systems. "Field PC" is perhaps a bit of a misnomer as "PC" generally implies a Windows-based computer. The Archer is Windows-based alright, but it's Windows Mobile, so it's really a Pocket PC or whatever Microsoft is trying to call handhelds these days. We still generally call these machines Pocket PCs, or just PDA, the term Apple originally used when it came out with the Newton back in 1993.
Creating a "rugged" PDA isn't easy. And just like "rugged" notebooks or slate computers, the degree of ruggedness varies greatly. Commercial products really don't have that problem. It's the electronic guts and then a plastic case that should look good, be small and light, and hold up in daily use. It doesn't have to be waterproof or be able to absorb punishment, like drops or getting crushed and so on.
For mobile computers used in field work, things are very different. If you use a machine outdoors, all sort of stuff can happen. For one thing, outdoors is not an air-conditioned 72 degrees all year round. It can get very cold and very hot. Some electronics don't like that. Also, outdoors it rains. And sometimes pours. And a handheld terminal may even fall into a puddle or get sloshed by water some other way. Dropping it is a distinct possibility. And that generally happens when you pull it out of a bag or Pocket, or while holding it. So it should survive four to five feet drops. There's other stuff to consider. If it goes up in a military airplane, pressure may be an issue. If it's strapped to a truck, vibration can be the killer issue. And in certain flammable environments it is imperative that there is chance the device can ignite things with a little spark or arc. There's more, but one thing isn't usually listed: if a device must be rugged, it's likely going to be used outdoors, and outdoors there is sunlight. So the display must be readable outdoors. That's never included in ruggedness specs as it is, technically, not an environmental exposure issue. But it's part of what a rugged device must be.
So how do manufacturers go about building rugged handhelds? In many different ways. While the guts of a Windows Mobile/CE device are fairly standard, rugged housings most definitely are not. As a result, almost everyone does it in a different way. Here at RuggedPCReview.com, we love looking at, and analyzing, those different design approaches.
In a way, making a handheld tougher is not that different from making a slate or notebook computer tougher. Seek the traditional weak points and eliminate them. Consider all possible accidents and challenges and address them. And since building a rugged device usually means higher cost, larger size, and higher weight, have a very clear view of what exactly you're trying to achieve. The design must be just right for its intended use.
So how does all that apply to the Archer handheld build by the friendly folks at Juniper Systems in Logan, Utah? Well, they have a history in catering to agricultural markets, then branched into all sorts of other outdoor markets, like surveying, forestry, fisheries and so on. So whatever they build should be fairly waterproof, able to handle a drop and just generally be a tool that its owner can take along on a hard day's work in the wild, without having to baby the computer.
When you first see the Archer, and usually you see the one with bright orange protection molding, it has a friendly look that is far removed from some of the deadly-serious designs that, if they were in a Pixar movie, would probably say, "Sir, unless you're military and have proper clearance, you are not authorized to touch me. Please step away." When you look at the Archer, alas, pumpkin comes to mind. Same orange, same texture. That provides excellent visibility, which is a good thing if you accidentally dropped it in the woods and then have to backtrack to find it. For that, bright orange is much better than camouflage.
But take a closer look and the Archer is a rather nasty wolf in sheep's clothing. The friendly elastomer overmold comes off easily and underneath it's a hefty case made of magnesium. Hefty as in you could probably take a sledgehammer to it. I described all of this in the review, but seeing this "compartmentalized" approach to designing a rugged device was really interesting. They Juniper engineers must have said, "Look, if we enclose the whole box in a waterproof and dustproof shell, how are we going too have connectivity? Hardly possible. So let's separate things into a totally sealed core and then protect that with rubber molding that can easily be replaced. And we just seal the electronic contacts and leave the actual jacks exposed. Think that'll work?"
It does, with some limitations. The Archers housing is certainly an "armored core" and invulnerable, but dust and water can get into the jacks and other places. Which means the Archer DOES have great connectivity in an ultra-rugged device, but if it falls into the water or hits a dust storm it will not fail, but afterwards you have to take it apart and dry and clean everything outside of the armored core.
A couple of months ago we did a little stunt with the Trimble/TDS Nomad by actually taking it scubadiving. It was just in a pool, but it made for great video and underwater pics. I wanted to do the same with the Archer after we determined that it could do it, but the water was pretty cold by now and so we just dropped it into the pool. Juniper's most helpful Pat Trostle had told me how they often display the Archer in a fishtank at trade shows, but that they keep an eye on air bubbles which usually mean the thing is flooding. I've flooded a few underwater cameras in my day and know what Pat meant. So when bubbles emanated from the Archer upon being dropped into the pool, I felt a little burst of anxiety until I remember that, of course there will be some bubbles. They come from the air escaping the outside overmold and the plastic block that houses the interface jacks. No matter gets inside the core, of that I was sure. And it didn't. But it had to be taken apart and carefully cleaned and dried afterwards. Professionals would do that anyway, so no worries there. Saltwater may be a bit of an issue and I wonder if Juniper has data on the long-term effects of repeated contact with saltwater.
Later, we did drop tests by carelessly swiping the Archer off a wall and down onto rather a rough driveway surface. We did that two or three times and I was afraid the unit would go back to Juniper with some good scratches. Amazingly, no scratches at all. That is impressive. Rugged device with exposed metal almost always scratch. Apparently not this one.
Like many mobile computers, the Archer can be expanded in a number of ways, via a SD and a CF card slot. That way customers can use their own choice of expansion cards rather than being stuck with whatever is integrated into the unit. That's a good solution, and Juniper offers several extended caps that fit over such expansion cards. Amazingly, they claim that all of those expansion cards also provide the exact same IP67 ingress protection rating. That is a tall order. The way they do it is by separating the extension caps into two pieces. One is a precision-engineered adapter plate with a o-ring type of seal. The cap then screws on top of that. It works beautifully. But as anyone familiar with underwater housings knows, the o-ring approach depends totally on having immaculately maintained o-rings or sealing plates (which is what Juniper uses). Rings are, as far as I am concerned, easier to maintain as they can be replaced. The soft rubber sealing plate in our adapter was slightly deformed, and I wondered if it still sealed properly. I didn't want to risk flooding the machine and thus didn't put it to the test.
It was an interesting experience, reviewing the Archer. It is fully up to the job and probably suitable for a far wider range of applications than Juniper currently pursues. But it also showed me again that design of professional equipment is only one part of the whole package. The other is the care the professional him/herself takes in working with, and maintaining, the equipment. These are tools for tough jobs, and good professionals always treat their tools with care and respect.
Posted by conradb212 at 05:08 PM | Comments (0)
November 15, 2007
Tests and reviews - how much punishment?
I love rugged machinery, and so does everyone else here at RuggedPCReview.com. When a new machine comes in, everyone wants to see it, touch it, comment on in, and speculate how much abuse it can take. And this is where it gets interesting, the degree of abuse.
Rugged machines are, by design, conceived and built to take a beating and survive. But the only way to know for sure if they indeed CAN take a beating is to administer one. And whether or not we should do that is a sensitive issue. A lot of this equipment is not inexpensive. So do we take a $4,000 computer, drop it, twist it, spill coffee on it, try to see if the screen is really scratch-proof and whether it's really water-proof? And then send back, at best, a severely banged-up machine, and at worst, one that is destroyed? Dvorak may get away with that and maybe some of the few remaining big print magazines, but I am not sure most eval unit coordinators would look upon such a reputation with great favor.
That puts us in an interesting situation. We really think that rugged equipment should be just as rugged as manufacturers say it is, and sometimes we have doubts. We also see some stuff we are not very fond of. For example, glossy metallic surfaces that can and will get scratched in an instance simply should not be on a rugged machine, no matter how cool they look. But even there, do we just mention that in a review, or see just how badly it scratches (or not), document that, and then send it back?
Most rugged machines come with ruggedness specs. MIL-STD results are listed and perhaps compliance with other testing procedures as they may vary from country to country. That can include inhouse testing and third-party independent tests in labs. Now I have seen many of those torture chambers -- the ones of Panasonic, GD-Itronix and Intermec, to name a few. I've seen machines being baked, shaken, rattled, dropped, scratched, exposed to extreme humidity, vibration, pressure, materials fatigue testing and more. The tests are real, and they certainly reveal weak points that are then addressed.
Problem is that the reported testing results are not always very informative. MIL-STD testing means just that; a piece of equipment has been tested in accordance with the procedures mandated in a MIL-STD document. Often it is not reported what the outcome was, or if the machine even passed. Or only part of the test results are included in the specs. So prospective customers often do not have enough data to really compare. Some of the big companies in the field are guilty of not including truly meaningful ruggedness specs, and that doesn't do anyone a favor.
Sometimes we do go beyond simply describing a machine and administer our own torture testing. When Trimble/TDS claimed their Nomad handheld was waterproof to the extent that it would survive for an hour in a full meter of water, we decided to see if that was really so. I made sure they were okay with that. We used scuba gear and actually took it for a dive. I used it underwater and pushed the specs. The Nomad went down to maybe seven feet, it stayed underwater for a good while, and it survived. It worked underwater and I even used it for handwriting reco underwater. It's all on video and up on YouTube.
As a result, some manufacturers may be reluctant to send us their gear because -- hey -- those guys at RuggedPCReview may actually check the ruggedness specs for themselves. Others send us gear with the specific request to do so.
A current example: Toshiba makes a remarkable machine, the R500 notebook. It is an ultra-light and definitely not fully rugged. But it has an awesome outdoor-viewable display and was designed to take the kind of punishment that may occur on the road. I think a Toshiba rep called it "executive-rugged". The R500's display case is very flexible, so much so that we had our doubts if it'd hold up to any abuse. Well, Toshiba explained it was designed that way, and there is even a video showing the machine take abuse and the LCD being twisted to a frightful extent, and survive. We're tempted to see if we can duplicate that, but should we? The last thing I want to do is send the R500 back with a busted display.
For the most part, all this doesn't pose a dilemma. Most of the time the official test results are very clear and we see no reason to doubt them, nor would we have the ability to duplicate the torture testing. But the question does come up at times, and hence this column.
What we would like to challenge the rugged industry to do is this: State all ruggedness specs fully and clearly enough so readers will know what exactly the machine passed, and, more importantly, what it means.
Posted by conradb212 at 02:43 PM | Comments (0)
September 08, 2007
Underwater computing?
Underwater computing? Now that's a novel concept. For the past 15 years I've been dealing with rugged computing equipment, machines that can be dropped, survive in dusty environments, continue to operate whether it's scorching hot or really cold. They can also handle rain, though these days the trend seems to be surviving an accidental coffee or soda spill onto the keyboard. Sort of like cupholders in cars have become a make-or-break feature, second only to how many DVD screens for entertainment they have.
Anyway, it's not unreasonable to expect computers come in contact with water. It covers 70% of the planet. People hang out around water. It rains. So we might expect a rugged handheld to continue to function if it is exposed to water. Why am I thinking of that? Well, maybe it's because I took up diving last year and since have been exposed to some pretty amazing equipment that does work underwater.
For example, divers depend on dive computers. That's because diving subjects the human body to much higher pressure than it is subjected to on the surface. To counteract that pressure, the air a scuba diver breathes is also much denser. At a depth of 33 feet, for example, the pressure is twice that on the surface, and the air that is released from the scuba tank via the regulator is also twice as dense. That means that the partial pressure of nitrogen is twice as high, and according to William Henry's law, more nitrogen dissolves into body tissues. Once the diver comes up and the pressure lessens, that nitrogen is released from the tissues again. Normally it just goes into the bloodstream and is safely breathed out through the lungs. However, if the diver ascends too quickly, or if s/he has absorbed a large amount of nitrogen during a long, deep dive, the released nitrogen can form bubbles, and that can have dire, and at times deadly, consequences. Divers used to compute safe dive times on dive tables, and that is still being taught in scuba classes, but almost everyone uses a dive computer these days. Dive computers are sophisticated devices that continually measure depth and compute absorbed nitrogen. They show numerous values on their displays, tell the diver how much longer s/he can stay at a given depth, and when it is time to go up.
Needless to say, dive computers must be totally and completely reliable. Failure is not an option. Leaking is not an option. Bugs are not an option. And wimpy battery life is not an option. And they must be able to handle not just a bit of splashing, not just a few minutes at three feet, but potentially hours at hundreds of feet. Without failing, ever. My dive computer has a wireless connection to my air tank so that it knows how much air I have left. After using the computer for a YEAR, the battery is still at 95%. Extreme "technical" diving may require very sophisticated dive computers to perform numerous life-supporting tasks at depths of many hundreds of feet. Sure, some look just like watches, and we're used to trust watches to survive swimming and snorkeling and a bit of diving. But many are larger -- sophisticated devices bigger than smartphones or PDAs, and with large displays and several controls.
But it's not just dive computers. It is also cameras. As a reviewer of rugged mobile computing equipment I have an appreciation for one of the standards by which we judge a machine's ability to protect itself from dust and water, the Ingress Protection, or IP, rating. A handheld rated at IP56 is one tough machine and can likely survive in just about any environment. If, in addition, it can survive four foot drops, well, that is a very rugged device, and it probably looks like one, too.
Diving exposed me to equipment that can do all that, and more. Case in point - a camera that Olympus makes. If you were to look at the Stylus 770 SW, you'd see a snazzy, handy little digital camera measuring 3.6 x 2.3 x 0.8 inches and weighing a bit over six ounces, battery included. It looks very elegant with a matte-silver finish. It has a bright 2.5-inch LCD display that's larger than those on most smartphones. The camera has about a dozen hardware controls, mostly pushbuttons, but also a navigation disk. There is a microphone and a speaker. What is special about it?
It is rated IP58. It can survive 5-foot drops. It is crushproof. It can operate at 14 degrees Fahrenheit. And it can be operated in 33 feet of water.
It does that without any protective case at all. No rubber bumpers, nothing. Just very intelligent design, meticulous manufacturing, and good sealing. It costs just over US$300.
As a diver, I took that camera down to not only 33 feet, but 67 feet, and later 77 feet. It stayed underwater for a good hour. No problem at all. At the maximum depth I reached, the water pressure was so great that some of the push buttons were pushed in. And a small black rectangle showed up in the center of the LCD, from the water pressure. But it continued to take pictures.
What those dive computers and cameras like the Olympus 770 SW show is that it is possible to create sophisticated electronic devices that can function underwater. I totally agree that there probably isn't a great need for handhelds you can take diving. Then again, some people out there might just like to have one. Most likely, we haven't even really started to think about possible applications.
I am pretty sure military divers would make good use of an underwater rugged computer. And commercial divers would, too. Even recreational divers might just love to take a handheld underwater, or perhaps a tablet so they can write on it or doodle or draw. Divers communicate via hand signals mostly, and those are often misunderstood. As an alternate they write on little slates. A computer or electronic slate would certainly be much better. As I write this I am supposed to follow up on a new underwater texting technology -- texting like SMS on cellphones. My guess is whatever device is used for that must be rugged and quite waterproof.
As is, we have a brand-new Trimble/TDS Nomad rugged handheld in our lab. It is a very tough handheld computer with an IP67 rating and thus was designed to survive immersion into water. We may put that to test test and record the performance on video. Simply don scuba gear and find a nice comfy spot somewhere at a depth of six or seven feet. Then see if it works. Without, of course, exceeding design specs. It's been pointed out that touch screens have not been designed to deal with water pressure and may thus fail to operate properly. At a depth of seven feet, the pressure on the touch screen would indeed be about 21% higher than on the surface, and this might make it inoperable, depending on design.
Is rugged underwater computing on the horizon? Is there a need for it? Personally I think there is. There are practical applications. And besides, it is always interesting to see if something can be done. Hey, Olympus did it, with a vengeance.
Posted by conradb212 at 11:12 PM | Comments (0)
July 31, 2007
Marvell, not Intel
I spend a lot of time updating the vast database of rugged devices listed and reviewed here at RuggedPCReview.com. Specs change all the time but the rugged and mobile computing industry is usually very modest when it comes to press releases and announcements. It's not like certain other fields where every new cellphone ringtone or executive promotion warrants a major PR campaign. So the way we go about it is making the rounds of all the companies, via their web sites, and check for updated specs.
One thing I noticed is that even in updates, almost everyone continues to refer to the "Intel XScale" processor, the family of chips that power almost all Windows Mobile and Windows CE devices. Well, Intel doesn't make them anymore. They sold that business to a company named Marvell. Here's what happened:
Marvell Technology Group -- a silicon solutions high tech firm based in Santa Clara, California -- decided to become a supplier in the cellphone and consumer electronics markets, and officially took over Intel's communications and applications processors in November of 2006. The original deal between Intel and Marvell was made in June of 2006 when Marvell agreed to buy the business from Intel for US$600 million. Under Intel's watch, the XScale PXA series were used in a wide variety of devices, with the PXA2xx used in Windows Mobile devices and the PXA9xx in such handhelds as the Blackberry 8700. Early on, Intel benefitted greatly from Microsoft's decision to switch Windows CE from a more or less open processor platform to mandating XScale. The deal between Intel and Marvell took several months to complete as Marvell had to find a manufacturer for the chips. Under the deal, Marvell took over the 3rd generation XScale processors, codenamed Monahan, and the 1.25GHz successor to the PXA27x Bulverde processors.
Losing no time, in December 2006 Marvell launched the PXA 3xx series, consisting of the high-end PXA320 running at 806MHz, the cost-optimized low-end PXA 300, and the PXA310. The PXA300 and 310 run at clockspeeds up to 624MHz, with the 610 adding VGA playback. The PXA320 is able to scale from 806MHz to 624MHz to conserve power when full performance isn't needed. The chip is also more energy-eficient than the predecessor Bulverde processor, especially under heavy video and audio load. The PXA320 can run VGA resolution video at 30 frames per second, support a 5megapixel digital camera, video telephony, all at lower power consumption than the older XScale chips. The first products with the 806MHz PXA320 are now appearing, such as the recently released Trimble Nomad.
From what we can tell, Marvell will continue to offer both the XScale PXA27x family as well as the older PXA255. But they are now Marvell chips, and no longer Intel chips. So let's do a global search and replace: It's Marvell XScale PXA and no longer Intel XScale PXA.
The emergence of the PXA 3xx processors is exciting. More performance and more capabilities at lower power consumption. That's great. We can't wait to do hands-on reviews of the first Marvell XScale powered devices!
Posted by conradb212 at 11:11 PM | Comments (0)
July 25, 2007
The RuggedPCReview Blog launches
Well, we finally added a blog section to RuggedPCReview.com. Yes, I know, everyone and their uncle has a blog these days, but I think it definitely makes sense to have one at a site like this where we are compiling information on just about every rugged mobile device out there. As is, our front page lists daily news and alerts readers to additions to the site, but often there is more than that. What's in a review is not always the whole story -- there's more to tell. Impressions, circumstances, interactions with PR people, engineers, product managers, testing, all the stuff that generally does not go into a review. That's one thing.
Another is that we tend to have our own opinions on matters. Be it new developments in the field, new product, company acquisitions, mergers, or consolidations. Anything that affects the rugged industry landscape. Or promising new technologies, and how we see them fitting into rugged computing. Sometimes we do factory visits and those are always fascinating and provide new insights.
Other times we have gripes, or come across stuff that simply doesn't make sense. So we may wonder, "What were they thinking?!?" and contemplate that. Or we may be presumptuous enough to offer commentary and recommendations, or share our views on developments.
Finally, we go to shows. We see new stuff. We talk to people. All that will go in here. And it won't just be us guys here at RuggedPCReview.com doing all the commenting and blogging. No, we'll invite guest bloggers to share their views and insights, so that you'll get as broad a cross section on opinions as possible. So if you have something to say or contribute, let us know via email to cb@ruggedpcreview.com!
Posted by conradb212 at 11:11 PM | Comments (0)