February 2010

Microsoft announces Windows 7 Phone Series
At the Mobile World Congress 2010 in Barcelona, Microsoft unveiled the consumer-oriented Windows Phone 7 Series. It uses a tiles-based interface and includes Xbox LIVE games, Zune music and video, Bing Search and automatically synchronizes photos to PCs and photo sites on the Internet. There's Microsoft Office software and a variety of other personal productivity features. Microsoft claims it went back to the drawing board with a complete redesign of Windows Mobile and that it is more than a new user interface, allowing users to take advantage of converging technologies and online services from their mobile phone. The "live" tiles act as doorways to more detailed "hub" pages that connect to Web services, applications, contacts and other items. There will be some more standardization in hardware: all Windows 7 Phone Series devices will share the same three hardware buttons and use capacitive mulit-touch screens However, the first Windows Phone 7 Series devices will not be available until the 2010 holidays. [See Windows Phone 7 Series at Microsoft, and the Microsoft press release] -- Posted Monday, February 15, 2010 by chb

First ruggedized WinMo 6.5 PDA
Pharos Science and Applications announced that they have begun shipment of the world's first ruggedized PDA based on Windows Mobile 6.5. The US$529 Pharos 565 has built-in GPS, a 3.5-inch QVGA touchscreen, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, IrDA in a ruggedized Windows Mobile 6.5 PDA with a full QWERTY keyboard. The device is based on the 624MHz Marvell PXA310 chip, has 512 MB Flash ROM, and 256 MB DDR SDRAM, carries IP54 sealing and a 5 feet drop spec. [See Pharos 565] -- Posted Friday, February 12, 2010 by chb

Intermec, HealthWyse and Data Capture Solutions partner to improve Point-of-Care
Intermec announced its partnership with HealthWyse and Data Capture Solutions to provide healthcare professionals with access to electronic medical records anytime, anywhere. According to Intermec, using their CN3 ruggedized handheld computers combined with Healthwyse's mobile clinical software and Data Capture Solutions' support has saved customers, like Caritas Home Care, an average of 98 hours of total annual time per healthcare professional (see Caritas case study). -- Posted Friday, February 12, 2010 by chb