GPS

Why I Still Love The Palm Treo 650
As you know, we *heart* nice, new shiny gadgets and we love to sit on the (sometimes uncomfortable) cutting edge of technology.
So when it comes to smartphones, we’re only going to be interested in strutting around with the very latest, gizmo-stuffed, state of the art model, right?
Wrong. In fact, my favourite phone remains the comparatively ancient Palm Treo 650 which, at nearly three years old, probably makes it the oldest piece of technology we’re still using!
So why have I gone backwards when there’s so many new, all-singing, all-dancing smartphones about?
The answer is simplicity.
The Palm platform may not be basking in the white heat of technology, but sometimes it’s more comfortable to hang out in the more temperate margins where things don’t get so sticky.
With the Treo just about everything works.
Unlike every Windows Mobile device we’ve tried, it feels like a proper smartphone rather than a phone bolted on to a PDA (or vice versa).
Based on the mature (some may suggest over-ripe) Palm OS, the Treo provides an intuitive and stable interface, with the five way controller and tightly integrated software ensuring that the stylus stays docked in the silo for most everyday tasks.
When there’s a need to input some text, the Treo has one of the best small keyboards in the business, with its brightly illuminated QWERTY keypad perfect for short emails and text messages.
Moreover, the interface is fast and responsive and although Palm’s idea of multi-tasking is simply to close down whatever you’re doing and start up the next program (while remembering all the settings) it doesn’t suffer from the gradual slowdown to a crawl that constantly blighted our Windows experience.
While there’s a good argument that Palm OS is in danger of becoming woefully outdated, it still does the job jus’ dandy and with the deft addition of a few third party programs, you can end up with a flexible device that can hold its own against everything else out there.
In part two, i’ll explain why I find the Palm interface and aesthetics to be some of the best in the business, but for those who love to peruse spec sheets, here’s the basics:
Palm Treo 650
wireless radio: GSM/GPRS/EDGE model: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz world phone. GPRS class 10B
processor: Intel™ PXA270 312 MHz processor
memory: 21MB user available stored non-volatile memory.
battery: Removable rechargeable lithium ion battery
talk time: Up to 6 hours talk time and up to 12.5 days standby time
operating system: Palm OS 5.4
size: 4.4 x 2.3 x 0.9 inches (11.3 x 5.9 x 2.3 cm)
weight: 6.3 oz. / 178 grams
display: Colour TFT touch-screen, 320 x 320 resolution, 16-bit colour (displays over 65,000 colours)
expansion: Supports SD, SDIO and MultiMediaCards
audio: RealPlayer included – requires SD memory card, sold separately
camera: VGA with 640×480 (0.3 megapixels) resolution and automatic light balancing, 2x zoom, captures video
Treo 650
30 June, 2006
Palm OS Treo 700p US Launch
Palm have announced the successor to their hugely successful Palm OS-powered Treo 650 smartphone, the Treo 700p.
Although more of a refinement that a full-on product upgrade, the 700p retains the same winning form factor that convinced many people that the Treo 650 was the best smartphone around.
After Palm released its Windows Mobile-powered Treo 700w in January this year, some Palm OS aficionados feared it might mark the end of their favourite operating system, but the 700p sees the company sticking with the highly capable – if rather elderly – Palm OS 5.4.9 OS.
With a feature set marrying up with the Windows version, the 700p comes with EV-DO, a 312MHz Xscale CPU processor, beefed-up 128MB flash memory (60MB usable), streaming audio/video, an upgraded 1.3 megapixel camera, Bluetooth and a SDIO slot.
Unlike the smaller-screened Windows version, the 700p serves up a bright, crisp 320 x 320 pixel, 65,536-colour display, with the chunky antennae (much loved by Americans, apparently) remaining in situ.
Bundled with the phone is DataViz’ Documents To Go for reading and editing Microsoft Office files, a PDF viewer and an email client that works with Exchange Server 2003 via ActiveSync, plus POP and IMAP accounts.
Yahoo!, AOL and Gmail accounts are also supported.
Wherefore art thou Wi-Fi?
Way back in the midst of time, a Palm executive faithfully promised us that the Treo 650 would support SDIO wi-fi cards, but the long, long wait for the (non-existent) Palm Wi Fi card to materialise saw us shift over to the Windows mobile platform.
Our experience with the i-mate JAM phone wasn’t entirely pleasurable, and after getting fed up with its ‘undocumented features’ we recently took the unheard of step of buying technology over a year old(!), in the shape of a Treo 650 scooped off eBay for £185.
After a year fumbling about with fiddly Windows interface and the stylus-reliant functionality of the JAM, we soon found the ease-of-use, one-handed ergonomics and all-round design features of the Treo to be an absolute revelation.
So much so that we’re even prepared to forgive the omission of Wi-Fi in the latest Treo (Palm in the US insist that EV-DO should be enough.)
Many will disagree, but since we moved over to T-Mobile’s unlimited data usage miserable time battling with Skype for Pocket PC.
The Treo 650 still floats our boat
With the new Palm 700p offering few real benefits over the 650 – and the very real possibility that the phone may not appear in the UK for some considerable time – we’d still recommend picking up a Treo 650, especially if the prices start to drop.
In fact, it’s still our number one all-round smartphone choice – an opinion shared by PC World, who recently put the Treo 650 at the top of the pile in a comparison against smartphone big hitters like the T-Mobile MDA, Nokia 9200 and Blackberry 8700c.
Specifications:
Operating System: Palm OS® 5.4.9
Memory: 128MB (60MB user accessible) non-volatile
Processor: Intel® XScale™ 312MHz processor
Screen: 320 x 320 color TFT touchscreen display 16-bit color displays displays up to 65,536 colors
Wireless:
CDMA 800/1900MHz digital dual-band
CDMA2000 EvDO network-backwards compatible with 1xRTT and IS95 networks
Bluetooth® 1.2 wireless support
Phone Features:
Personal speakerphone
Hands-free headset jack
Microphone mute option
TTY/TDD compatibility
3-way calling
Digital Camera:
1.3 megapixels with 1280×1024 resolution
Automatic light balance
2x digital zoom
Integrated self-portrait mirror
Video capture with 352 x 288 resolution
Audio:
2.5mm headset jack is stereo headset compatible-requires a stereo headset adapter
Speaker
Polyphonic MIDI, MP3, WAV & video ringtones
External ringer on/off switch w/ vibrate mode
Keyboard:
Full QWERTY key layout with backlighting
Integrated number dial pad
Keyguard feature
Other:
Support for MultiMediaCard, SD & SDIO cards
Expansion Slot
Removable, rechargeable lithium-ion battery
Talk time: up to 4.5 hours
Standby time: up to 300 hours
Battery
Multi-connector on device
USB sync cable
AC adapter (108-132 VAC/60Hz)
Power/Sync
Size
2.28″ W x 5.08″ H (excluding antenna) x 0.89″ D
58mm W x 129mm H x 58mm D
6.4 ounces / 180 grams
Palm Treo 700p
Treo 700p/700w/650 comparison
16 May, 2006
A Gadget Lover’s Day Out In The Countryside
With the weather warming up and the great outdoors beckoning, here’s our selection of must-have gadgets for technology addicts heading off for a day strolling over heath and heather.
Snapping the scenery: Ricoh GR Digital
Fast, pocketable and with enough controls to grab perfect exposures in the trickiest of conditions, the Ricoh GR is our fave take-anywhere camera.
With its panoramic 28mm, f2.4 lens this small, rugged and highly versatile beauty is perfect for capturing dramatic, sweeping landscapes.
Attach the optional 21mm superwide angle lens for capturing the ~~entire pub interior~~ majestic mountain vista with one shot or get up close to weird crawly things and strange flower-like growths using its 1cm macro lens.
Ricoh GR
Smartphone: Treo 650
The Palm Treo packs in enough functionality to keep you in touch with the cricket scores, send off emails, write texts and perhaps pen a short, moving poem to the Great Outdoors using its WYSIWYG keyboard.
If you prefer strutting to the sounds of Wolfmother rather than hearing the gentle rustle of Mother Nature, you can slap in a MP3-stuffed 2GB card and rock your way through the countryside.
And if the weather turns bad, you can shelter under a tree and pass away the hours playing the annoyingly addictive BeJeweled game.
Palm Treo 650
Where the chuffin’ ‘eck am I? GPS and Memory-Map
Although an Ordnance Survey map and a trusty compass are more than ample for finding your way around, that’s clearly waaaay too lo-tech a solution for a full-on gadget freak.
Gizmo-lovers should instead load up their GPS-enabled Pocket PC PDAs with Memory-Map and head to the hills.
This mapping software uses real OS colour maps and offers waypoint-to-waypoint directions, bearing and distance indicators, real-time positioning and a tracklog to see how far you’ve shuffled.
There’s also a velocity vector for projecting your current course/speed so you can work out how far it is to the nearest boozer.
www.memory-map.co.uk
Keeping track of time: Suunto X6 Pro
Naturally, when it comes to watches, a mere pair of hands giving you the time won’t be enough for hard core tech heads, so we recommend the Suunto X6.
With this baby strapped on your arm you’ll have no need to look at the countryside around you, as the display offers a far more interesting display including an altimeter, barometer, thermometer and compass.
Suunto X6 Pro
Armed with all the kit above (and suitable weatherproof clothing and boots, natch) you should be ready for anything the countryside can throw at you.
Just don’t forget spare batteries for your bag full o’gadgets and your bus fare in case you get tired lugging all those gizmos about.
5 May, 2006
OpenStreetMap To Free The Isle of Wight (Map)
OpenStreetMap, an organisation that is using consumer technology to create copyright-free maps, is meeting this weekend (5-7 May) on the Isle of Wight – to map the whole Island and give the data away under a Creative Commons license.
Driven by a united belief that mapping information should be free, the thirty plus volunteers gathered from the Isle of Wight, the wider UK, Germany and nine from Norway will be gathering their GPS kits, and taking themselves around the Island. They’ll be heading out in cars, on bicycles and on foot to explore the diamond-shaped, 22 x 14 mile island, covering the 147 square miles (381 square km).
“The Isle of Wight is a manageable size, one we believe can be mapped over the space of a weekend,” said Nick Black one of the co-ordinators, “Not only will the roads be covered, but the walkers plan to get as many of the footpaths mapped as possible too. This is a group effort.”
Once the GPS data is combined with notes of road names taken via audio recordings or even notebooks (shock horror), accurate mapping data will be put into the OpenStreetMap system for all to share. Quite different to the huge cost that the Ordnance Survey (OS) is asking for similar data.
Why so expensive?
We’ve always been unsure why the cost of licensing the maps of the UK is so prohibitory expensive. How much? Well according to the BBC TV show QI, the full Ordnance Survey (OS) map data of 2002, the most detailed map of Great Britain, sells for £30,000 for every town, or £4,099,000 for the whole country” (ref). Ouch!
Let’s be clear about this, UK tax payers money has been and is being used to collect and collate this data, but UK citizens and businesses are charged to use it. The Ordnance Survey argument is that it needs the money to maintain its high standards of mapping, employing around 350 surveyors as they do.
Strange, but we’ve not noticed the UK randomly shifting around during the night, so they’re clearly not remapping daily. What they are doing is seeking to obtain a 20cm absolute accuracy for their large-scale data. This will then be sold on to those who can afford it.
It’s not just commercial organisations that have to pay for accessing such information. On a parallel track, look at postcode and address information. As Charles Arthur and Michael Cross pointed out in their article in the Guardian, local authorities often collect much of this information and then have to pay to access that self, same information.
A local authority such as Swindon has to pay OS £38,000 a year to use its addresses and geographical data. It also has to pay the Royal Mail £3,000 for every website that includes the facility for people to look up their postcodes. Yet it was local authorities, which have a statutory duty to collect street addresses, that collected much of this data.
If you’re not submerged in this world, it may surprise you to find out that the United States actually gives its mapping data away for free. So through agents like Navtec, and Teleatlas, it ends up on applications like Yahoo & Google maps. Innovation like that isn’t possible in the UK as it falls at the first hurdle – that of huge expense.
We’re proud that we’d been knocking the same Isle of Wight idea around the Digital-Lifestyles offices for a while now. Our thinking, it’s such a perfect, containable location for technology experiments. It’s an area where trials can be carried out, proven, then expanded to wider areas.
Wake up and smell the technology
Here’s the stark reality – technology in the hands of enthused members of the public is changing for ever the business models in many areas. Movements like OpenStreetMap will succeed in mapping the UK.
Not only that but access to their data will be better that the current the OS offering. It will include additional information that the public has contributed such as photo’s, audio recordings, text descriptions, etc.
Organisation like the OS who do not let their data free will be be left clutching hold of something whose value has been severely diminished, if not zero’d.
Come and join in
Previously thought of as a sleepy backwater, the Isle of Wight is under going a renaissance, with an explosion of musical and artistic talent in wide abundance, much of it concentrated on a Victorian town called Ventnor (disclosure: We love Ventnor).
We’re going to be there and if you fancy a weekend travelling around a beautiful Island, then get in touch with OpenStreetMap via their wiki. There’s still time to get yourselves there and help change the world (a little) for the better – one step at a time.
OpenStreetMap, Isle of Wight Workshop
OpenStreetMap
OneMap – Norwegian project
The Isle of Wight
3 May, 2006
M.A.G.I.C Windows Smartphone Has Everything!
Currently hovering betwixt prototype and retail status, Advance Tech Communications new Windows Mobile smartphone market looks hot! hot! hot!
The MAGIC (Mobile Advanced Global Integrated Communicator) comes stuffed to the gills with connectivity and multimedia options, and is powered by a beefy Intel Xscale 624 MHz CPU with graphic accelerator 2700G3 and Video RaM – fast enough to leave all current Windows Mobile phones coughing in the dust.
The 10.5 ounce (300 g) Windows Mobile 5.0 device comes with more connections than a street spiv, offering GSM quad band, GPRS, Wi-Fi 802.11b, EDGE, Bluetooth 2.0, IrDA FIR 4 and, of course, USB.
There’s also a built-in Global Positioning System( GPS) and, apparently, a Biometric Sensor.
On board storage is taken care of courtesy of a generous 8GB hard disk, backed up by 512MB RAM and 512MB ROM, with a micro-SD expansion card slot.
There’s two 2.8″ QVGA (320×240 pixels) displays onboard and – you’ve guessed it – there’s also two cameras, both offering a healthy 2 megapixel resolution.
Wrapping up the extensive feature set is a very useful VGA Out port and a small QWERTY keyboard for the tippity-tap action.
With all this functionality crammed in to the phone, it seems that Advance Tech felt that describing the ultra-premium device as a ‘smartphone’ would be like calling a Leica camera a point’n’shooter.
Instead, the company are proclaiming their new device to be a “laptop computer miniaturised to the size of a handheld device,” which perhaps isn’t the snappiest description they could have come up with.
With its ten-mile long spec sheet, it’s not surprising to find both price and physical size are going to be on the b-i-g side, with the MAGIC measuring up at 125 x 70 x 32 mm and the price hovering around the high end $1,000 mark (£575, €838) .
The MAGIC is expected to roll out next quarter.
www.advancetc.com/
9 March, 2006
Globalsat GH-601/602 Wrist GPS For Sporty Types
Jogging geeksters! Set your wallets to ‘buy’ as GlobalSat are set to release a wrist-type GPS Receiver aimed at sporty types who get their kicks from running around all over the place on foot, bike, board or ski.
The Globalsat GH-601 is a fully-sealed, waterproof box of gizmos that comes with a GPS training system capable of locating and tracking points on the map.
Calling it wristwatch-sized would be pushing a bit, but the chunky device certainly straps on the wrists of sweaty outdoor types and comes with a variety of modes to keep them moving.
The Globalsat has a large 80 x 120 pixel monochrome LCD readout and employs a SiRF Star III high performance GPS chipset and omni-directional GPS antenna.
The GPS functions let users map a location, mark a trace point, find a marked point and comes with backtrack mode and Ahead / North Direction.
A ‘coach mode’ nags users to keep up to predefined performance targets while ‘workout projects’ offer a variety of ways to keep the perspiration flowing.
Flagging, flailing users failing to meet targets can expect to be alerted by the device to get a move on, and knackered users can be reminded of their crap performance thanks to the unit’s built in history.
Session information can be downloadable to PCs via a Mini-USB port, letting others laugh at your failure.
Training projects and analysis come with the bundled Windows-compatible “professional self-training” package, but Apple users can stay at home because we couldn’t find any mention of Mac support.
The 602 Series also offers an electronic compass (resolution 0.6uT/count) and a barometric altimeter (15~115 kPa), and both devices can be used as GPS receiver on PCs through the USB interface.
Powered by a rechargeable lithium-ion cell, battery life is claimed at 16 hours with GPS on, and the thing comes in a variety of ‘outdoor’ colours for cutting a dash on the slopes.
Specifications:
Item: GH-601, GH-602
Number of Waypoints: 100
Display Size: 24.9 x 39.88 (H x W in mm.)
Display type: Black & White LCD
Pixels (H x W): 80 x 120
Unit Weight: 72.87g
Waterproof Standard: IPX7
Unit Size: 46 x 82.5 x 18.5 (H x W x D in mm.)
Backlit Display:Single level
Operating temperature: -20 °C to 60 °C
Humidity: 5% to 95% Non-condensing
Voltage: 3.7V for a rechargeable battery, 5V for charging input
Charging connector: DC 5V
Battery: Rechargeable 1600mAh Li-ion battery
Battery life: 16 hours (GPS turn-on; Compass and Altimeter turn-off)70 hours (GPS, Compass and Altimeter turn-off)
Connect to PC Interface: Mini-USB port
Electrical compass: GH-601, no; GH-602, yes
Barometric Altimeter: GH-601, no; GH-602, yes
GPS Parameters
GPS Chipset: SiRF Star III
Frequency: L1, 1575.42 MHz
C/A code: 1.023 MHz chip rate
Channels: 20 channel all-in-view tracking
Antenna Type: Built-in patch antenna
Position: 10 meters, 2D RMS 5 meters, 2D RMS, WAAS enabled
Velocity: 0.1 m/s
Time:1 us synchronized to GPS time
Default datum: WGS-84
Reacquisition: 0.1 sec., average
Hot start: 1 sec., average
Warm start: 38 sec., average
Cold start: 42 sec., average
Altitude: 18,000 meters (60,000 feet) max.
Velocity: 515 meters/ second (1000 knots) max.
Acceleration: Less than 4g
Jerk: 20 m/sec3
Physical properties
Top Cover: PC with TPR
Bottom Cover: PC
Wrist Strap: Weaved cloth
Waterproof Stopper: TPEE
LCD Faceplate: Acrylic
GlobalSat
23 February, 2006
i-mate PDA-N GPS Pocket PC
They’ve been bustier than Jock McHasty in a rush at i-mate, as the PDA/smartphone vendor releases another addition to their range, the i-mate PDA-N – the company’s first GPS PDA.
Aimed at swivel-action business types and people who sit in cars all day (sorry, “road warriors”), the PDA-N positively bristles with connectivity, including built in GPS, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi.
The units come with Skype pre-installed, letting users make free VoIP calls over wireless connections.
Running on Windows Mobile 5 Pocket PC Edition, the PDA-N comes bundled with the full Office Mobile suite and runs on a 300MHz Samsung processor.
The front of the slim device is dominated by a 2.83″ 240×320 pixels transmissive TFT-LCD screen supporting 64k colours, with a row of four buttons and a joystick below.
Unusually, there’s no camera onboard (least not one we could see), but there’s a fair range of multimedia support onboard, with the device able to play back WAV, WMA, AMR, and MP3 music files, as well as M-JPEG/WMV video files.
Onboard memory is a bit skimpier than we would have liked – just 128MB of ROM and 32MB of RAM – but there is a SDIO/MMC expansion slot available.
According to I-mate, the PDA-N notches up a rated battery life of 5 hours in GPS mode and 8 hours playing a looped video.
The PDA is scheduled for release in April.
Specs:
Dimensions: 109.7mm(H) x 59.4mm(W) x 17.6mm(T) (same as i-mate JAM)
Weight: 126g w/ battery
Processor: Samsung SC32442X33 300Mhz
Memory: 128MB embedded Flash ROM, 64MB embedded SDRAM
Screen: 2.83″ 240×320 pixels, 64K – colors Transmissive TFT-LCD
Interface: SDIO/MMC card slot, One Audio jack (3.5), MiniUSB connector
GPS: Embedded GPS antenna,Support NMEA 0183 version 3.0 or above, WAAS-enabled, 12 parallel channel GPS receiver:
Acquisition time
Hot start: 8 seconds, typical TTFF
Warm start: 60 seconds, typical TTFF
Cold start: 120 seconds, typical TTFF
GPS Accuracy:
Position: < 15 meters, 95% typical
Velocity: 0.05 meter/sec steady state
WAAS Accuracy:
Position: < 5 meters, 95% typical
Velocity: 0.05 meter/sec steady state
Battery: Removable rechargeable Lithium-Ion battery, 1,100mAH
GPS mode: > 5 hrs
Standby time: > 200 hrs
WMV playback: 8 hrs
WMA playback: 12 hrs
Connectivity: Infrared IrDA SIR, Bluetooth v1.2, WiFi 802.11b
i-mate
1 February, 2006
XRoad GPS System Offers World Spanning Maps
International men of mystery, jet setters, globe-trotters and drug smugglers might just be the niche group targeted by Carpoint’s world-spanning navigation system.
As far as we know, this is the world’s first car (or mobile) GPS system with the capability to guide users through a huge variety of countries and continents, with the attractive looking device loaded with a total of 24 maps covering the USA, Europe, Australia and – naturally – Korea.
Called the XRoad Paris (but, thankfully, no relation to the cash-rich, time-rich airhead of the same name) the device can guide users through nation after nation in a choice of seven languages.
The $600 XRoad GPS system comes in a rugged-looking silver case with two buttons either side of the LCD screen offering access to power on/off, menu (on the left side) and zoom in/out (on the right side).
We assume the two chunky buttons each side of the screen are for making onscreen selections and scrolling through the map, but seeing as babelfish packed up mid-way through our attempt at a Korean translation, I guess we’ll never know.
We can tell you, however, that there’s also a windscreen/dashboard kit available for unit.
We can’t think of any over-riding reason why anyone would need a GPS unit stuffed full with half the world’s maps, but it’s certainly a well styled model and its encyclopedic knowledge of the world’s cities might come in useful in a pub quiz at the very least.
Seeing as we can’t understand a word of Korean, we haven’t a clue about availability or pricing at the moment.
Carpoint
1 February, 2006
Traffic Vizzion Streams Traffic Cameras To Smartphones
US firm Vizzion have announced the introduction of their innovative traffic-watching system “Traffic Vizzion” to eleven areas in the UK.
The system streams roadside and traffic camera videos to smartphones, letting drivers check the route ahead for congestion or other problems.
Users can browse cameras by region, and those with a Bluetooth enabled cell phone and GPS can use the “Watch Road Ahead” feature in Traffic Vizzion to monitor cameras directly ahead.
The display continuously updates to show the next camera up ahead, with no button presses or scrolling required.
GPS users can also call up a “Find Nearby Cameras” function to list cameras close to their current location, and then select and view any camera from the list in the hope of finding the best way out of a jam.
Insisting that Vizzion is in fact pronounced ‘vision’, the company’s cheap’n’cheerful Website lists the 11 locations across the UK where the system will initially be available:
Berkshire: Reading area
Glamorgan: Cardiff, Swansea areas
Greater London: 9 London areas
Hampshire: Southampton, Winchester areas
Lanarkshire: Glasgow area
Midlothian: Edinburgh area
Monmouthshire: Newport area
Nottinghamshire: Nottingham area
South Yorkshire: Sheffield area
Traffic Vizzion runs on Windows Mobile 2003 for Smartphones, and relies on a working Internet connection (e.g. GPRS), with a Bluetooth GPS device required for the added features.
There’s a free two week trial available from their website, with the regular subscription costing $5 (£3) per month, billable to MasterCard or Visa.
Naturally, you’d also have to add on any data transfer fees from your network provider.
Traffic Vizzion
11 January, 2006
Boomerang Box Offers High Accuracy UK Tracking System
Cambridge outfit, HD Positions, have launched their ‘Boomerang Box’ device, a new low cost, high accuracy positioning system which locates vehicles and other valuable assets.
The Boomerang Box is a robustly constructed device with two year battery life and low installation cost, and it can be bolted into vehicles or containers or just slapped in the drivers seat.
Powered by Cambridge Positioning Systems (CPS) Matrix technology, the system uses the Orange UK network and provides coverage all over the UK – including inside buildings and containers – with a claimed accuracy of less than 100m.
Back in Febuary this year, we covered CPS’s work with Nokia to bring their mPosition System to market.
There’s a growing demand for location based services letting companies keep a watchful eye on the whereabouts of valuable moveable assets like trailers, cars, motorcycles, caravans etc (maybe they’ll stick them on employees soon so they know when they’re skiving off in the boozer?).
The service works by HD Positions supplying the interface to Matrix, facilitating related Machine to Machine (M2M) services, including network connectivity, billing and support.
Nigel Chadwick, director of HD Positions commented that the market for high accuracy positioning systems has been held back by a number of factors including poor area coverage, prohibitive purchase, fitting and operating costs, power consumption, and slow and inconsistent location reporting.
Clearly chuffed with his new product, he continued, “The Matrix system, combined with the latest devices now appearing on the market provide consistent and high accuracy positioning with high speed reporting at low cost, and as such are increasingly deemed by management teams as an essential and viable element of asset management and risk reduction.”
We tried to find a picture of the actual Boomerang Box, hopeful that it would be an amusing looking thing that would spice up this rather dull report, but there was nothing to be found on their Website.
So here’s a picture of a frankly disturbing fluffy cat called ‘boomerang’ that we found on the Web instead.
Retreve
19 December, 2005