Juniper Systems announced the Mesa Rugged Notepad with Android (AOSP) 2.3 operating system. In a partnership with Pennsylvania-based SDG Systems, the RAMPAGE 6 will be distributed exclusively through SDG Systems.
I have long been an advocate of signal diversity as a solution to many of the ills that plague the GPS user, especially outdated user equipment. The best equipment, if it were available today, would be the PHGPST or Perfect Handheld GPS Transceiver. I cannot count the thousands of letters and emails from warfighters, first responders, and civil users who immediately see the value of software-defined receivers and want to know where to purchase the PHGPST. For now, some early GPS software-defined user equipment does exist, but to reach the goal of the PHGPST receiver manufacturers must first be able to accurately and reliably simulate/generate all the diverse PNT (position, navigation and timing) signals available, which include some signals not ordinarily categorized as PNT signals today. Certainly not an easy task; however, there is hope. Recently I heard about a small GNSS/INS simulation company that may be paving the way to the PHGPST — CAST Navigation in Tewksbury, Massachusetts.
F4Devices, a subsidiary of F4 Tech and strategic partner with BAP Precisions, Taiwan, has introduced a new generation of high-precision GNSS devices for GIS field applications, the Flint rugged handheld. With the new Flint handheld, field workers requiring a rugged mobile handheld device have a unit that is lightweight, compact, rugged, and cost-effective, the company said. The Flint fits well into GIS field data collection markets such as municipalities, oil and gas and forestry, F4Devices said.
I brushed the snow from my keyboard and in my mind I could hear the neighbors whispering, “Call the men in white coats, there he goes again.” They may have cause for concern, as I am sitting on my deck during a lull in a major blizzard, typing on a laptop computer half buried in snow. My warfighter correspondence indicates that some war tasks call out for a rugged laptop rather than a rugged handheld device; thus, this cold warrior test of a device with embedded GPS capability.
I have long advocated that our warfighters and first responders deserve the best equipment available so they can answer the basic question, “Where Am I?” quickly and with complete certainty. Or, “Where am I now and how do I get to someplace of relative safety quickly?” Unfortunately, government-furnished equipment (GFE), in this case the GPS handheld equipment we supply our warfighters, does not do a good or even adequate job of answering that question.
Many of you may remember my one and only software review of a product called Touch Inspect back in December 2009, by a Denver, Colorado (Aurora)-based company called Mobile Epiphany. At the time I promised an in-depth review the software “real soon.” Well, real soon has turned into 16 months, and not a single week has gone by that I have not received several e-mails wanting to know more about the software and asking when the next review would be published. So for all of you who have been waiting, this is the promised in-depth review of Touch Inspect version 2.0, which the company now promotes as customizable software tools under the more apt heading of “Mobile Business Process Software.” But the base program is still known as Touch Inspect.
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