PDAs in Spaaaaaaaacccce!
PDAs have been cropping up in all sorts of exiting places, from Traffic Wardens, to Estate Agents and even Civil Engineers… OK I may have picked some bad examples. But you’ve got to admit that Space does count as an exciting place, and Astronauts on the International Space Station have been using them for work and pleasure
Up until late 2006, PDAs had been used on board the International Space Station (ISS) mainly as personal computing or entertainment platforms. In the near future, PDAs will start being used as integrated components of real applications.
For example, on the space station there is an application called the Inventory Management System (IMS) that is responsible for keeping track of the location of all items stored on board. This application is based on the use of barcode labels. Starting in March 2007, the old barcode reader terminals will be replaced by PDAs. These PDAs will be equipped with a barcode reader and will be connected to the IMS via a wireless network.
A special application, known as the PDA Depressurisation Program (PDP) and conceived by the astronaut Thomas Reiter, has been developed by ESA to compute the ‘egress time’, – the time that is left before having to abandon the ISS in the event of depressurisation.
Wonder if Astraware have considered an Astronaut’s Discount?????
Source: ZDnet
Written by PsionAndy · Filed Under General
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