CanalPDA

War is a dirty business, but sometimes, military-use technology can be quite amazing. From a hammer-proof handheld to laptops you can wash with a hose, these all-terrain gadgets make civilian versions look like children’s toys.

(este artículo también está disponible en español)

by Darío Pescador

War is not as it used to be. The nasty part of death and destruction remains, but technology makes easier destroying enemy targets, thus removing most of the thrill.

On the other hand, that very same military technology streamlines the evacuation of civilians or the dispatching of medical staff. We must not forget that a military invention, the GPS, helps men all over the world to avoid the embarassment of asking for directions. Pocket computers that can be inmersed in mud can be very useful in a mine or an oil rig, and who knows if they will become trendy gadgets among clumsy businessmen.

Shotgun, water bottle, and a PDA?

In many Vietnam-era movies, Marines end up taking friendly fire from their own planes. In theory, that could be avoided now. Scouting parties are equipped with a PFED (Pocket-sized Forward Entry Device), containing a PDA, a GPS receiver with military accuracy and a satellite-radio link. When a target is located using laser binoculars, the GPS system calculates its exact position and sends the coordinates to the artillery, choppers or bombers that will remove it.

The PFED is based on HP’s Series 5500 iPAQ, but it’s bulkier, heavier and, of course, in khaki. It’s rugged enough to be stepped on with boots or to be submerged in water without any damage, and the batteries last for a full week. It is manufactured by Talla-Tech in Tallahassee, Florida, and it costs around $2,500.

From PDA to CDA

Leading troops into battle is like managing a company on fast forward. If the information stops flowing, disaster looms. The US Army has a project for digitizing all those communications, called FBCB2, that combines GPS positioning and encrypted messages. Previously, the system ran on vehicle-mounted, armored laptops. Now, foot soldiers are also connected via similar units.

The device is called CDA (Commander’s Digital Assistant). It’s not confirmed, but apparently the army discarded Windows CE a couple of years ago to embrace Linux in new devices, citing stability issues. Encore, the Indian manufacturer of the Simputer, has a similar model, the SATHI, also with a low cost.

Will you please break up

Among military PDAs there are also other less bloody applications. The best-known is the Phraselator, the PDA used by the Marines as a pocket interpreter in Afghanistan and Iraq. It is developed by Voxtec, and it used to be an uni-directional device: the Marine spoke English and the unit translated the sentence into Arabic or Pashtun.

The new P2 model is a bi-directional translator, like the ones in Star Trek. Uisng a “progressive phonetical analysis” it can recognize entire sentences and translate them into the other language in fractions of a second. The voices are recorded, not synthesized, so the communication is more natural. It is powered by Intel’s XScalePXA 255 processor and a Windows CE operating system. On the outside, an abuse-resistant case.

Sentence dictionaries are installed via simple memory cards, available in exotic languages such as Tagalog and Urdu, with situation-specific sentence sets for interrogation, disaster areas, medical applications and more. For $2,300, it is a bit expensive for backpack tourists.

Tough laptops

Using a portable computer is quite stressing. Just dropping from our lap and there goes abruptly with its life. That could not happen to Panasonic’s Toughbook laptops. These computers meet the US’ Department of Defense MIL-STD-810F standard, that includes dropping it (26 times!) from 3-feet high on a concrete floor, heating it up to +158ºF, cooling it down to -58ºF and some other outrageous handling.

The casing is made of a magnesium alloy, the hard disk drive is protected by its own shock-absorbing case, and when the unit is dirty, you simply wash it with a hose.

Panasonic has competition. During the Iraq invasion, another war erupted between the PR agencies of Panasonic and Itronix, maker of the GoBook laptop, about their relative toughness. Even today, they are still releasing competitive reports about it.

Itronix makes also an interesting armored Tablet PC. The Duo-Touch weighs less than 4,5 pounds and has a touchscreen, 128MB of RAM, a Centrino 733 processor, GPS receiver, Bluetooth, WiFi, and EVDO/GPRS/EDGE, for connecting to anything, from anywhere. The case is made of magnesium and the unit keeps working at -4ºF, thanks to the built-in heating of the hard disk drive. Just $3,200, please.

The accessories, too

Besides portable devices, there are armored versions of all kinds of peripherals. With prices between $500 and $2,000, Littlepc has stainless-steel keyboards and mouse, submersible, dust-resistant and even able to take the odd brick hit. Cortron makes backlighted keyboards for all kinds of environments, able to stand the US Navy “barge test”, where 66 pounds of explosive are detonated under the equipment.

Even if not strictly military, soldiers seem to be using Otterbox’s products in the field, such as this protective case for Apple’s iPod Mini, including an actual quote from a serviceman. The company also offers water- and shock-proof protectors for all kinds of handhelds.

Making durable electronics goes against the current trend of disposable devices, but there will always be special customers who need instant messaging in the middle of the jungle or listening to MP3 in a mud pit… as well as many others who believe they do. Look what happened with SUVs.

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