What’s Hot in the PDA Industry
Personal Digital Assistants, or PDAs, have been around for over 20 years. Thanks to that, they've largely settled down into comfortable niches, but the story is far from over. The PDA market still throws us an exciting new curve ball every once in a while, just to keep us on our toes. Here, a selection of recent developments of more or less import in the PDA industry.
Special Purpose PDAs
Since PDAs appeal more to niche markets and special-case uses, why not customize the software just for them? One company, Compia, is already doing this, offering a special PDA software setup for stock traders. It acts like a virtual scrolling stock exchange ticker in your hip pocket, with controls to buy, sell, and otherwise manage a portfolio. We can see other custom purposes for PDAs in the near future - a musical PDA for mix artists, or a classroom PDA where teachers can grade their student's homework...
Flexible Displays
Now that we've been struggling to make PDAs more durable for a while, maybe it's time we acknowledged that the way to make something more shock-resistant is to make it softer? Flexible PDAs with rubber hinges and plastic displays that bend instead of breaking are becoming more popular, such as the Flexi PDA. Granted, if you've seen the prototype for that particular model, it isn't winning any beauty contests. But it would be worth it for some if we could get a device that bounces back instead of shattering.
PDAs for the Blind
You have to wonder why they didn't think of it sooner, but at least one company, GW Micro, is coming out with PDAs for the sight-impaired. They have both voice simulation and recognition, an internal microphone, and keys for braille input - only nine keys required for this! Even the sighted might be able to make some use of this. Just learn the key input, and you, too, can write a novel in increments during your morning jog.
Combination GPS-PDA-SmartPhone
Of course, it's been thought of before. And when it does happen, we're betting that the form factor will look a lot like a UMPC. But DigiTimes magazine has reported that both TomTom and Garmin have announced plans to release such a device soon. There's speculation that HP and HTC would follow suit. A smartphone and PDA combo with a built-in mapping device would of course be bang-up handy, and would combine three main features that almost everybody these days seems to want.
Fuel Cells for PDAs?
For all of us who've said, "You know what? I'm sick of recharging batteries! I want my portable computer to burn something for fuel and be done with it!" At least one manufacturer, Hitachi, has announced that they're exploring the possibility of a fuel-cell for a PDA. The fuel cell would make a methanol solution, and generate electricity by mixing the methanol solution and air directly to the electrode. The "exhaust" that this would produce? Water! Plain old water vapor would be produced as a side effect, nothing more. We admit, this is far-fetched, but the idea is worth blogging for prosperity. We're pretty sure that some people out there would be happy to burn lumps of coal in their PDA, if it meant never having to look at a blinking dead battery indicator again. And remember, we have to burn fuel to generate electricity anyway, then burn more energy to manufacture all those batteries.
Filed Under: PDAs
