News Week of July 29, 2007

Healthcare, Computers and the Bottom Line

A recent annual visit to my doctor's office showed me just how efficient electronic health records could be. I quickly noted that all of the healthcare professionals (doctors and physician assistants) were walking around with tablet PCs. These small laptops contain all of a patient's medical records that were formerly on paper.

This does not mean that the doctor has to have each of his patient's records on this small tablet PC. The fact is, my doctor's office has WiFi and he merely had to pull up my name from his main computer, and all of my records were instantly found. (For additional information on WiFi, please see my previous E-Commerce Times article, "WiFi Will Change the World.")

In addition, my doctor's tablet PC contained patient screening protocols that assist the healthcare professional in asking the right questions and not forgetting any important ones. My physician asked me a long list of questions such as do I wear seat belts, how much do I drink, etc. Additionally, he asked me some questions never asked before. It seemed obvious to me that all of these questions emanated from his computer, because he was looking at it as he was questioning me.  (Source: Theodore F. di Stefano, E-Commerce Times, TechNewsWorld)

Military-grade tablet PC launched

The V100 notebook and tablet, launched this week, comes with a magnesium alloy casing and has been designed to withstand extremes of temperature, according to its maker, Getac.   (Source: Andrew Donoghue, ZDNet)
Posted Friday, August 3, 2007 by ChrisD
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Kohjinsha's UMPC gets a taste of SSD

Kohjinsha's UMPC/convertible tablet (and its various incarnations) has already been pretty well received since its release, but the company looks to be sweetening the deal even further, with it now set to offer the diminutive device with some solid state storage in place of the standard hard drive. From the looks of it, a 32GB SSD drive will be your only option on the solid state front, with the other specs remaining the same as before. That includes a 7-inch 1024x600 display, an Intel A100 processor, 1GB of RAM, an integrated 1.3 megapixel webcam, and built-in WiFi and Bluetooth. No word on price just yet, but it'll apparently be available for pre-order tomorrow.  (Source: Donald Melanson, Engadget)
Posted Thursday, August 2, 2007 by ChrisD
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The Tablet PC Is The Next Big Thing In Personal Technology

Have you heard about the tablet PC?

You might as well get used to the term because if high tech experts are right, it's about to take the computing world by storm.

Of all the personal technology advances we've seen over the past five years, the Tablet PC has to rank among the most significant. For the Tablet PC is truly one of the most innovative and useful products that is just now starting to gain major traction. These machines, which are powered by a specially tweaked version of the Windows XP operating system, allow users to scribble notes on a screen with a pen-like stylus, turning handwriting or block printing into what's called digital ink.   (Source: Arabia on Line)

HP Compaq 2710p Tablet PC Review (Video)

HP has done it again, but this time they turned it up a notch with the newly released 2710p Tablet PC. This 12.1" tablet has a solid design that is sleek and very appealing. It's not all eye-candy either, with its 1.2GHz Core 2 Duo processor and solid chassis. I mean there is no flex in this tablet at all and the brushed aluminum trim around the keyboard definitely catches the eye.

The HP Compaq 2710p Tablet PC.   (Source: Tiffany Boggs, TabletPCReview.com)

Spellex Corporation Announces New Handwriting Recognition Medical Terminology for Tablet PC

NewswireToday - /newswire/ - Tampa, FL, United States, 08/01/2007 - Spellex announces a new Tablet PC version with complete compatibility with their popular medical dictionary software. The new Tablet PC enhancement includes more than 370,000 medical words to enhance handwriting recognition.

The new Spellex Tablet PC Suite allows your Tablet PC to better recognize handwritten medical and pharmaceutical terms while greatly enhancing the Microsoft Office basic English spell checker. Hundreds of thousands of medical terms are instantly added to popular Tablet PC programs such as Microsoft Office, OneNote, Windows Journal, and many other handwriting enhanced applications. Comprehensive medical spell checking and increased handwriting vocabulary can be yours in one easy-to-use software suite!

Medical: The enhanced Spellex Tablet PC Suite includes Spellex Medical 2007, which adds medical words from over 70 medical specialties. Spellex enhances your Tablet PC with medical and surgical terms, procedures, diseases, drug names, acronyms, eponyms, medical devices, abbreviations, Greek terms and diacritical markings such as Behçet's syndrome and Legg-Calvé-Waldenström disease. With the Spellex dictionaries installed, you can correctly recognize and spell thousands of critically important terms from medical, surgical, chemistry, and laboratory terminology.

Pharmaceutical: For enhanced handwriting recognition and spelling, you can add Spellex Pharmaceutical 2007, which correctly spells thousands of OTC drugs and prescription pharmaceuticals, generic and trade name drugs, Latin and Greek terms, orphan drugs, pharmaceutical manufacturers, drug distributors, and more. The pharmaceutical speller includes comprehensive pharmacologic - therapeutic classifications covering anesthetics, anti-infective agents, antineoplastic agents, cardiovascular drugs, central nervous system agents, dental agents, diagnostic agents, enzymes, gastrointestinal drugs, oxytocics, serums and vaccines, vitamins, and more!

Pricing for the Spellex Tablet PC Suite starts at $124.00. Multi-user licenses and educational discounts are available. The Spellex Tablet PC Suite is compatible with your favorite handwriting enhanced applications including Microsoft OneNote, Microsoft Office, Windows Journal, Franklin-Covey Tablet Planner, Windows Tablet Input Panel, and many others.

To order the Spellex Tablet PC Suite or to request product information or a free evaluation copy, visit the Website or contact Spellex.  (Source: Press Release)

VSU Pre-Engineering Program Awarded $120000 HP Grant

The Pre-Engineering program at Valdosta State University was one of ten in the nation that were awarded a 2007 HP Technology for Teaching Leadership award designed to transform and improve learning in the classroom through innovative uses of technology.

In 2006, the University received a $69,000 Technology for Teaching Initiative grant to use for its project, "Using Mobile Technology to Improve Visualization, Technical Communication, and Analytical Skills of Engineering and Science Students and to Facilitate Student Learning," This effort uses HP resources in teaching fundamental engineering, physics, geology, and biology courses.
Leadership awards, like VSU’s 2007 award, are additional, higher value grants awarded to HP Technology for Teaching grant recipients, who projects demonstrate success in their first year of implementation. VSU was selected for reinvestment because of its success in using HP technology to enhance instruction, demonstrating a measurable, positive impact on student achievement, and proposing innovative plans to expand their programs to have broader impact on student success.

According to Dr. Barry Hojjatie, the principal investigator (PI) of the project, traditional methods of teaching engineering, physics, and other applied science courses give limited opportunities for student-student and student-faculty interactions, and in many cases, connection between theoretical materials lectured in classroom and real-life engineering applications does not exist. VSU will use Tablet PC technology to engage students in classroom and field-based activities to improve their visualizations and analytical skills related to engineering and science courses and make better connection between theory and practice.

“Our pre-engineering program is linked to Georgia Tech and because of a potential for enhancement of learning outcome in fundamental engineering and science courses through this project, we are hoping to increase the rate of retention in our program and be able to transfer more quality students to Georgia Tech and other engineering schools and positively impact the quality of teaching in other programs at VSU college of Arts and Sciences,” Hojjatie said

The program involves collaborations with faculty from different VSU programs as well as faculty members from Lake City Community College and the University of Florida College of Dentistry, including co-PI Professor Homa Hooshmand (LCCC) and Professors Mark Groszos, Can Denizman, Perry Baskin and Karl Söderholm (UF). The project has also received a commitment from VSU's Information Technology Director Joe Newton, who will be responsible for the installation and maintenance of the equipment and other support related to instructional technology activities. Beatriz Potter, VSU Distance Learning, will be involved as well.

Based on the results from the first phase of the project, most students have expressed more interest in learning fundamentals in engineering and science courses when they have been engaged in collaborative learning and field based projects through the use of the Tablet PC technology.

“Applications of this technology can make learning and teaching more meaningful and enjoyable for most students and faculty,” Hojjatie said.

Valdosta State University is one of 10 HP Technology for Teaching higher education grant recipients selected for the Leadership award in 2007. The award package includes HP Tablet PCs, cash and professional development with a total value of more than $120,000 and will benefit the university's pre-engineering, physics, Geosciences and other sciences programs at VSU. In addition to the equipment and cash, the Principal Investigator of the VSU Project will attend the annual HP Technology for Teaching Worldwide Higher Education Conference to be held in San Diego, Calif. in February 2008.

Since 2004, HP has contributed approximately $44 million in HP Technology for Teaching grants to more than 850 schools worldwide. During the past 20 years, HP has contributed more than $1 billion in cash and equipment to schools, universities, community organizations and other nonprofit organizations around the world.

More information about the 2007 HP Technology for Teaching program and grant recipients is available at www.hp.com/go/hpteach . More information about Valdosta State University Pre-engineering program and the HP technology in teaching project is available at www.valdosta.edu/~bhojjati . (Source: Press Release)
Posted Wednesday, August 1, 2007 by ChrisD
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Full-Ruggedized UMPC Victum-Tablet 8

Ultra Mobile PC (UMPC) for outdoor applications by Acturion.

Munich, August 1st. 2007 - Acturion Datasys, specialized system vendor in the field of industrial and military mobile computing, releases the new outdoor UMPC Victum-Tablet 8. The Victum-Tablet 8 UMPC is designed for use in harsh environmental conditions. The UMPC is resistant against drop, shock, vibration, high and low temperature, rain, and dust and sand. The outdoor UMPC has a completely sealed light alloy metal housing which ensures highest reliability in all situations. The housing of the Victum-Tablet 8 fulfils IP 54 (NEMA 12) and it even complies with the military standard MIL-STD 810-F. Furthermore, the UMPC complies with the International standards CE mark, FCC class B, UL and CSA.

At the core of the full-ruggedized UMPC is a 1.2 GHz Intel Low-Voltage Pentium M Processor. The UMPC Victum-Tablet 8 is slate-style tablet PC without keyboard. The Victum-Tablet 8 is ideal for pen based applications. A unique feature is the dual mode operation which means that the Victum-Tablet 8 can be operated by finger or stylus pen on the pressure sensitive touch screen or with an active digitizer pen. The operation mode can be switched manually by pressing a hard key. The 8.4´´ SVGA colour TFT display has an ergonomic optimized resolution of 800 x 600 pixels. The outdoor UMPC can be ordered with a standard daylight readable display or optionally with a sunlight readable display which has an enhanced backlight.

A number pad for entering numerical values is provided at the right side in the front bezel. This makes the UMPC Victum-Tablet 8 the ideal companion for home delivery services, mobile POS, technical maintenance personnel, search and rescue services and law enforcement. In addition to the integrated number pad there are integrated cursor keys which enable the user to navigate in large documents more comfortably. An X-form hand strap at the back of the UMPC enables a very easy handling of the PC in landscape and portrait display mode. The Victum-Tablet 8 comes with Windows XP Tablet Edition installed as standard operating system but LINUX is also supported.

Outstanding technical features of the UMPC Victum-Tablet 8:
- Support for up to 1.25 GB of RAM
- A shock mounts protected 2.5” hard disk with
up to 160 GB of storage
- Full range of I/O-Ports: USB-2.0 (2), Mini-
Serial-Port, RS232 with D-Sub 9 connector,
10/100/1000-Base-T-LAN RJ45 Ethernet
connection, 56K-Modem RJ11 and an Intel
PRO/Wireless 2915 ABG 802.11a/b/g WLAN module.
- Bluetooth 1.2 for wireless connections to
peripherals like printers
- Onboard AC97-Audio-Support with a built-in
speaker and built-in microphone make the
industrial UMPC ready for multimedia
applications.
- PCMCIA slot type I/II with Card Bus Support
and a CF Card slot. These slots can be
used with WAN 3G modules and GPS receivers for
satellite navigation.

The handy full-metal housing measures only (WxHxD) 270x42x184mm (10.6´´x1.6´´x7.2´´) and weighs 1.9Kg (4.2lbs) with the enhanced battery, only 1.7Kg (3.7lbs) with the slim pack battery. The enhanced battery keeps the UMPC alive for up to 7hrs, the slim pack battery for up to 4hrs. Operation temperature range is -20°C through +60°C (-4°F - +140°F).

Acturion Datasys can supply the Victum-Tablet 8 UMPC with 2 years warranty from stock.  (Source: Press Release)

New PDF Annotator 1.5: Just Type Right in a PDF Document

The new PDF Annotator revolutionizes the way users in business, educational, or home settings deal with their PDF documents. Now it's possible to insert comments on PDF documents from any PC. Text boxes, highlighting, drawings and images -- all are easy to add to any PDF document with PDF Annotator.

The whole world is becoming digital. Documents are no longer distributed on paper, but sent on their way electronically. To eliminate compatibility issues between the sender and the recipient, the PDF format was devised. Any type of file that uses this format can be opened, read or printed from any computer, but cannot modified.

This is where PDF Annotator comes in, to put an end to a forced passivity where dealing with PDF files is concerned. In the words of developer Oliver Grahl: "Users can process PDF's as if they were documents lying on a table in front of them. They can use any white space to insert comments, and they can point out important sections by underlining or highlighting them or correct mistakes by crossing words out." Whenever a document is presented in PDF form, PDF Annotator is the tool of choice when it comes to searching text, collaboration, or editing.

 Users can process PDF's as if they were documents lying on a table in front of them. They can use any white space to insert comments, and they can point out important sections by underlining or highlighting them or correct mistakes by crossing words out.  
The software was first made available to users of Tablet PC's and graphics tablets in order to let them make corrections in place using a stylus.

PDF Annotator Version 1.5 has just been released. This means that PDF Annotator can now run on any desktop PC -- a request made by many users who wanted to be able to use this clever program on their office PC.

PDF Annotator 1.5: Just start typing

Now you can just type in corrections anywhere using your keyboard. This makes it possible to thoroughly comment a document without having to do it by hand. Just click any spot, and start typing. The text that you enter becomes part of the document, but you can also use PDF Annotator at a later time to change what you've added. Once you've made all your changes, you can integrate all of your comments into the document with a single click. But that's not all: the new version contains many interesting new features.

For example, you'll find that Version 1.5 lets you add images and photos to a PDF. Text and images can be brought into a PDF through the clipboard. You can also add any number of drawings to a PDF and mark up text. Version 1.5 gives users a palette of customizable drawing tools. Of course, PDF Annotator 1.5 is ready for Vista.

According to Oliver Grahl: "The most notable enhancement in PDF Annotator 1.5 is clearly the ability to enter text through the keyboard. This makes PDF Annotator available for use on any desktop PC. Our customers are always telling us that PDF Annotator is one of the few essential tools that they use every day."

Try PDF Annotator free for 30 days

PDF Annotator 1.5 (6.5 MB) can be used with Windows XP, 2000, and Vista, and also with Tablet PC's. You can download PDF Annotator for a free 30-day evaluation from the website. A manual (0.7 MB) is available as a separate download.

The software retails for $49.95(US). In addition, there are attractive discounts available for students, entire schools and institutes of higher education. Business users can take advantage of reduced-price Corporate Packs.   (Source: Press Release)

TabletKiosk™ Now Shipping Sahara Slate PC® i440D with Windows Vista®

First Slate Tablet PC with Dual Pen and Touch Screen Input now widely available

TabletKiosk™, a leader in mobile computing solutions, today announced that the Sahara Slate PC™ i440D featuring both pen and touch screen input, is now widely available with either Microsoft® Windows® XP Tablet PC Edition or Windows Vista® Business operating systems.

Standout features of the Sahara Slate PC i440D include:

*  dual mode display that switches between touch screen and active digitizer (pen) input with Wacom® digitizer technology,
* I/O ports that include PCMCIA Type II, eSATA, USB 2.0 and IEEE1394a (6-pin),
*  a biometric fingerprint reader,
*  three user programmable buttons,
*  user accessible memory slot,
*  BTO configurations with up to 4 GB DDR2 RAM / 160GB SATA HDD,
*  all powered by an Intel® Core™ Duo LV processor.

“We are pleased to be the first manufacturer to ship a slate Tablet PC with dual pen and touch screen input,” said Martin Smekal, president of TabletKiosk. “Initial response to the Sahara Slate PC i440D is tremendous and we are seeing numerous enterprise accounts migrating over to our new form factor.”

For touch entry, the screen on the Sahara Slate PC i440D relies on resistive touch technology that responds to contact from a finger, gloved hand or stylus. It does not require direct skin convergence to react. “The resistive touch screen is a key point of differentiation for us. It is advantageous for users in our targeted enterprise markets, including healthcare and field collection, who routinely wear gloves as they conduct their work,” stated Amber Chiu, GM of TabletKiosk R&D. 

With its dual core processor, upgradeable system memory, DirectX 9.1 graphics support and wireless capabilities – the Sahara Slate PC i440D is designated Vista Premium Ready – making it the first dual mode slate Tablet PC shipping to run the Windows Aero Glass interface.  (Source: Press Release)

Dell Is Getting Pretty Confident About Their Upcoming Tablet PC

The authors of the Direct2Dell blog have created a great little YouTube video asking what you would do with a Tablet PC that drove you crazy. They then take an M400 Toshiba Portege 3500 Tablet PC and cut it in half with a table saw - quite a sight!

Do you think Dell is trying to send a message about their upcoming XT Tablet PC? This is starting to get fun....  (Source: Rob Bushway, GottaBeMobile)
Posted Monday, July 30, 2007 by ChrisD
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