Note: This article appeared in Intranet Professional, prior to its re-launch as Intranets (in 2004).
The word "gadget" has been used since the 19th century to describe small mechanical or electronic devices with practical uses. Personal digital assistants (PDAs), pocket, tablet, and panel PCs, and a menagerie of accessories are the gadgets "du jour." This article explores the range of gadgets available, how these gadgets interface with the intranet, and possible applications.
Hand-Held Computers
Hand-held computers include Palm operating system devices, pocket PC's, and combo devices.
1. Palm Operating System Devices
Four major players (Palm, Handspring, Sony, and Blackberry) have introduced devices running the Palm operating system (OS) to enhance daily access to information. Palm has been on the market the longest and has steadily introduced new versions of Palm operating systems since 1996. Its latest hot item is the Palm i705.
Handspring's Visor line of inexpensive PDAs (Visor Pro, with 16 MB of memory, and Visor Edge and Visor Platinum, both with 8 MB of memory) is good for new users. Handspring created the colorful Visor Prism. Handspring's real claim to fame is selling reconditioned Visors. It offers $100 trade-ins on purchases of new handhelds.
Sony's lightweight Clie PEG-360 has 16 MB of memory, a rechargeable battery, and the software package "Documents to Go" preloaded. It can be expanded with a memory stick and an MP3 audio adapter.
RIM Blackberry 5810 is a palm-sized wireless gadget running on 8 MB of RAM. Cellphone service is available to check e-mail and a calendar. The Blackberry syncs with any handheld. The product has a QWERTY keyboard that encourages "thum2.b typing" and includes a rechargeable battery.
2. Pocket PCs
Some major players are introducing new pocket PCs this year. Compaq has been a stable player, but new ones are fast appearing. Microsoft joined the pocket PC revolution with a pocket PC software application.
One of the most exciting new products is the OQO. Get the power of a full-sized computer with this new hand-sized wireless product. It runs Windows XP, comes with a 4-inch touch screen, and can be docked as a laptop or desktop computer. The 10-GB hard drive runs on 256 MB memory.
The color Compaq IPAC 3835 has a long-standing history. The newest version runs on Windows Pocket PC 2002 PDA software, has 64 MB memory and a SC (secure digital) memory slot. Compaq improved the life of its rechargeable batteries. Voice command is available.
The Sony Clie PEC-NR70V and the HP Jornada Series are Compaq's competitors. Sony's expensive Clie NR70V-Series Pocket PC has a built-in camera, audio, and keyboard. With 16 MB of RAM, it has a unique 180-degree rotating swivel screen. The NR-Series also utilizes the Palm OS. Jornada's 568 and 565 Pocket PC series has a 16-bit color display with full Microsoft Windows applications and a 14-hour battery life. The 568 series has 64 MB of RAM, while the 565 has 32 MB. The user needs a modem to access the Internet.
3. Combo Devices: Smartphones
Smartphones are combination devices—hand-held computer and cellphone. Handspring, Kyocera, and Samsung have products on the market. Microsoft is beta testing their software applications for Smartphones [http://www. microsoft.com/mobile/developer/default.asp].
The 8-MB Kyocera smartphone was first to market. With good battery life and a fast processor, the Kyocera combines wireless communication, Web access, and hand-held computing. Handspring's Treo, introduced last spring, was a long-awaited product. Using the Palm OS, the Treo is a communication and organization device with built-in keyboard or Graffiti writing area. The Treo is lightweight and affordable, and the cellphone works like any mobile phone. A wireless connection to send and receive e-mail messages is available.
Treo's rivals are the Samsung I300 and Kyocera QCP 6035. The Samsung has a color screen and virtual keypad. The user dials directly from a built-in address book and can set up 99 speed-dial numbers. Battery life is about 4 hours of talk and 100 hours of standby. It comes equipped with e-mail and Netsurfing capabilities.
Tablet PCs
Tablet PCs occupy the middle ground between handhelds and laptops. A tablet is like an advanced "Etch-a-Sketch." They are thin and light with fast processors. The Fujitsu Wireless Stylistic 3500 and the Viewpad 1000 are on the market. Compaq and Microsoft will unveil tablets soon.
The 256-MB Wireless Stylistic 3500 runs Windows OS with a built-in modem. The reflective TFT LCD screen creates a low-glare resolution producing vivid colors. The Intel Celeron ultra-low-voltage processor runs at a speed of 500 MHz.
ViewSonic's Viewpad 1000 is a small wireless tablet PC with one-touch access to applications. A wireless keyboard, built-in modem, and digital camera are included. The high-resolution touch-screen display enables portrait or landscape views. The Mobile Intel Celeron 800-MHz processor runs Microsoft Windows OS with 128-MB RAM and 10-GB hard drive.
Accessorize
Devices such as scanners, digital cameras, storage disks, keyboards, locking docks, memory sticks, mice, portable printers, portable hard drives, and software applications are useful.
The WizCom QuickLink Pen is a portable scanner that copies and stores up to 1,000 pages beamed via infrared or downloaded by USB port to the computer or PDA. The pen's software is compatible with most Windows OS and runs on two AAA batteries. If the batteries expire scanned data is safely stored on a flash memory card.
For extended battery life consider the PowerPad from Electrovaya, a battery the size of a sheet of paper that lasts 12-16 hours between charges.
Top brand digital cameras (Canon, Nikon, Toshiba, Sony, and Kodak) range from $150-2,000. Good cameras for under $300 are available for everyday photos. Canon's PowerShot A Series cameras fit in this category, as do Nikon's Coolpix 775 or 880, Toshiba's PDR-M series, Sony's Cybershot DSC-P series, and Kodak's DX3900. They take great photos, are easy to use, have removable memory cards, and boast at least 1.3 megapixel resolution.
Logitech's Quick Cam and the X Cam 2 are wireless cameras that connect easily to the USB port on a computer. They can be used for live video conferencing and chatting on the Internet. The color cameras are in the price range of about $50-100. Wide-angle lenses are available for the X Cam 2.
Information too large to transfer to a floppy or CD benefits from the Mini Storage Key (TREK) or Disk-On-A-Key. It fits in the palm of a hand and creates an extra virtual drive on the computer. Take the disk and transfer the data to another computer by simply placing the minidisk in the USB port.
Keyboards are available for handhelds, Pocket PCs, and cellphones. Palm, Logitech, and Go Type! sell miniature and folding keyboards. For thumb typists, Seiko created a thumboard.
Mouse devices abound. The small mouse allows the user full cursor and navigational control on the handheld. These mice, sold by Targus and Genovation, have hot key functions and a control bar.
Portable printers for gadgets are available. Small ink-jet printers weigh less than 3 pounds. The Canon BJC-55, which links via a USB port, prints black-and-white or color and received good reviews. The Brother MP-21C fast ink jet printer, new on the market in 2002 and available initially only for laptops, prints both color (720 x 720 dpi-2.5 PPM) and black and white. The fantastic news about this printer is it uses a PC card, making parallel cables and batteries unnecessary. For hand-held devices, try the Pentax PocketJet 200. One of the smallest portable black-and-white printers (less than a pound), it prints documents on thermal paper at 200-dpi resolution, comes with a serial cable, and is compatible with the major operating systems.
Memory sticks and multimedia readers are essential accessories. Users like them because the download time is faster when using the readers to transfer, store, and capture data from the stick. Sony and Dazzle are the primary manufacturers.
Most handhelds come with their own docking cradles but they do not lock. Speck Products sells an anti-theft cradle called Lock Dock. The handheld is released by entering a password in the coordinating software.
Portable hard drives make fine accessories. Both Iomega and Pockey have good products, but Pockey's unique 20-GB hard drive needs no external power (currently available only for laptops) and fits in a pocket.
Other gadgets worth mentioning are the EM Panel PC and the Dualscreen Laptop. Hitachi's Starboard EM Panel is a small portable electronic whiteboard. One can use computer applications from the interactive panel. It has a color 15-inch LCD touch screen, wireless pen, and serial connector. Another exciting invention is Estari's 2-VU Dual Screen Laptop. Estari calls it "the power of a computer with the simplicity of a book." The dual screen allows the user to simultaneously see and use two full-page documents. It has a 15-inch dual color screen display with a 1.6 GHz Intel Mobile P4 Processor with a 20-GB hard drive and wireless capabilities with an on-screen keyboard.
Gadget Software
Specialized software adds value to gadgets. Margi Presenter to Go dramatically changes how hand-held computing training is done. Before Margi trainers relied on screen shots, product demos, or mercurial Palm OS emulators. Now trainers can use handhelds to make presentations and train on applications.
The NEO Email Organizer software application organizes large e-mail folders and files. This plug-in searches for important messages and organizes junk, bulk mail, and documents. It catalogs messages independently of the e-mail system and indexes and stores messages to assigned topics.
Pocketclassroom, developed by Information Systems' R&D team at Wake Forest University, turns a wireless Pocket PC into a Web server, a PowerPoint presentation controller, and a feedback device for an instructor or speaker.
Syncing is the process of moving data and files between a gadget and another gadget, system, or network. Most syncing solutions were designed for individuals to store and back up personal information management content. Some software applications (e.g., Lotus Notes) require a third-party software solution for electronic mail to sync with hand-held devices. Portal software enables organizational users to synchronize not just personal information but also enterprise information. Many organizations seek solutions for enterprise-wide data synchronization. The ultimate goal for sharing information between hand-held devices and intranets is that the devices will always be "on" and the continuous communication flow will be invisible to the user. The devices will continually update each other without cradles or having to be close to each other for infrared syncing.
There are a number of challenges and solutions for syncing gadgets. The easiest and most common way to sync is via gadget cradles. The cradle connects to the computer via a USB or serial port. The user places the device in the cradle and presses the sync button, resulting in information sharing between the hand-held device and the desktop computer. Different types of gadgets require unique cradles, so even if users have different models of the same gadget, incompatibilities across cradles may exist.
Desktop software on a department computer can accommodate numerous users. However, if the user does not password the data, the data stored on the handheld will be available after a sync to anyone on the desktop computer. With numerous users syncing at one machine, space to store all the data becomes an issue.
Infrared syncing allows the user to connect to the machine and update information without a physical connection such as a cradle. It is an option for users who need to sync information at several devices or for computers with multiple users syncing. Users can "beam" applications and information to each other. The cost to set up a computer for infrared syncing is small and involves purchasing a serial or USB infrared port for the computer. Infrared syncing, however, is slow and unacceptable to many users. A faster intranet syncing solution from Clarinet EthIR Lan is also platform-independent and wireless.
At some point in the near future connectivity will be seamless for users with hand-held devices as they go from home to work or school and back home again. The handheld device will be connected via wide area network, local area network, and personal area network. Personal area networks wirelessly link devices within 30 feet of one another. Bluetooth, an option for short-range radio transmission, allows computers, peripherals, and mobile devices to communicate without a physical connection. Currently Bluetooth is designed for the personal area network, not the local area network. The transmission speed is slow at 1 MBps, compared to 11 MBps on a local area wireless network, and speeds of 100 MBps and up for a wired network.
The local area wireless network exists within an organization and is built on a wired network infrastructure. Access points each have a range of about 500 feet and are based on the wired network but allow devices to interact with the network with a wireless network card. A common standard for local area wireless networks, 802.11b, is faster than Bluetooth and requires an access point and an infrastructure or wired network, but it does not work on as many devices as Bluetooth and it is not as flexible on a personal area network.
Wide area wireless networks are built on cellular phone technology, allowing users to interact with networked information from remote locations. Wireless networks are not site specific. As the user moves between geographic areas standards may be incompatible.
Wireless networks face many challenges. One is speed. Regardless of the type of wireless network (personal, local, or wide area) the speed of interaction between the device and the network is much slower than on most wired networks. Although wireless network security is improving it is still an issue for confidential, sensitive information. Another challenge is the plethora of standards and protocols for wireless networks. There are a number of incompatible technologies the industry is trying to address. Web design can pose problems for hand-held devices accessing the Internet. Gadget-friendly Web sites have simpler designs, without lots of color, graphics, and java scripting.
Wireless technology is developing and improving at an amazing rate. With the development of third-generation networks, wireless speed will increase fivefold and enable high-bandwidth applications like streaming video. The promise of wireless is exciting: the ability to seamlessly communicate and access information via hand-held device regardless of location or network.
Gadgets Applied
Gadgets expand the power and reach of the intranet. Information professionals can take an active role by establishing a strategic plan for introducing the workplace to gadgets. Opportunities include the following:
• one-on-one and small group training
• licensing and providing access to databases and services for handhelds
• creating an awareness of and evaluation of products
• and defining customer needs
Strategic plans are important in deciding what gadgets to purchase for a community. Planners should consider an organization's needs and determine retrieval procedures. Plan for the constantly changing nature of technology. The following are some factors to include:
• gadget benefits and disadvantages
• associated prices for gadgets plus additional hardware, software, and implementation costs
• user training
• applications support • and lock-in and future migration needs
Gadgets have the ability to change peoples' knowledge of how to gain access to and use information. When gadgets are used in conjunction with an intranet, people benefit from the ease and efficiency of seamlessly integrated information. Gadgets help information professionals better provide information continuously and instantaneously. While there are challenges, security concerns, and hassles, overall gadgets bring new meaning and value to digital information.