Verizon Wireless has annouced a new initiative to allow any application and any device to use its networks by 2008.  The devices will have to be qualified in their labs, and details are still preliminary.

Microsoft has followed up with a statement of support.

This seems like a good development for mobile data collection, although applications running on Windows Mobile can use the Verizon Network now.  In fact ITScriptNet Omni, running on a Verizon Windows Mobile device such as the vx7600, works great over a Verizon Wireless data connection.

Have you seen the mobile device slated for use by the U.S. Census Bereau in 2010?

The device has Windows Mobile 5, an SD card slot, and a Fingerprint reader.  It appears to be more rugged than a consumer device, but probably not as much as an industrial data collector.  It also has a wireless modem on the Sprint network, and a dial-up modem built in for areas with no wireless. 

It looks quite capable by todays standards, but I wonder what we'll think of it in two years.

Intermec has just announced the CN3e, an extension of the CN3 with larger keys and optional integrated GPS.

Assuming that it is software compatible with the CN3, then our existing ITScriptNet client will work on this device. 

Here is some more information about Windows CE 6.0 R2, announced at the Embedded Technology Conference in Japan.  The release notes from Microsoft are here.

While there are many incremental changes over CE 6.0, and the addition of VOIP technologies, we don't really see many new features that will affect Data Collection devices.

Microsoft has released an update to Windows CE 6, called Windows CE 6.0 R2.  The official announcement is supposed to be Thursday at Embeded Technology World in Japan.

We should start seeing device with Windows CE 6 before too long!

HandHeld Products has updated the Dolphin 7600.  There are several new features available:

• Alpha keypad.  This is in addition to the standard Numeric keypad.
• Firmware update to 11.36
• Devicescape supplicant for WiFi
• Serial Homebase in addition to the standard USB homebase.

These items are listed in the Data Sheet for the device.

Google has announced the formation of a new alliance of hardware and software makers with the intention of creating a new mobile phone OS, caled Android.  Of course, our first reaction is to wonder whether any portable data collection device manufacturers will use this operating system on their terminals.  Motorola is listed as one of the participating companies, which could mean support on Symbol devices, but nothing has been officially announced at this time.

We'll keep you posted as this interesting project develops!

This is finally the weekend for the switch back from Daylight Savings Time to Standard Time here in the United States.  We've discussed how to update your PCs and Windows Mobile devices before, but how does the transition affect you?  Dr. Sydney Spiesel discusses this in Slate Magazine.

Not too surprisingly, it turns out that people are affected by the time change, and that people are affected in different ways.  It is interesting that for some, the disruption of sleep/wake cycles can last the entire summer, resetting again on the change back to Standard Time!

Dr. Spiesel was also on line for a chat about the article.

We're starting to see some information about the new Microsoft System Center Mobile Device Manager 2008, announced last week at CTIA.

Here is Microsoft's official product homepage, and here is a brief overview describing how it will all work.

We are also starting to see device manufacturers announce support, including HP and Intermec.

It's still unclear whether this product will be useful for small and medium size companies, or just larger enterprises.  It's also not clear whether this is targeted primarily at Smartphone users, or if it will be useful for Data Collection devices inside a business.

AIM Global has announced the development of a new, royalty free Dot Code symbology.  This code was developed by Dr. Andy Longacre at Hand Held Products, and is a 2-D symbology intended for high-speed production line use.  It is capable of being printed by in-line inkjet printers since it does not require continous lines to be printed.

Due to the new Daylight Savings Time rules, this past weekend was NOT the shift back from Daylight Savings time to Standard Time in the United States.  However, if you did not apply the Daylight Savings Time patches to your mobile devices, they may have set their clocks back automatically.  Make sure you check to prevent your collected data from carrying the wrong timestamp!

The correct time change will be this coming weekend, November 4th at 2:00am.

Here is another press release about the Dolphin 7900 with integrated GPS.

Also, GPS is now listed as a feature on the 7900 product page at HandHeld.com.

Update: Here is the press release directly from Hand Held Products

Today at CTIA, Microsoft announced System Center Mobile Device Manager 2008.  This is an Enterprise-wide system for managing Windows Mobile devices.  It provides a centralized mechanism for security, device management and data access control.

Recently we mentioned that UnIQue ID was supplying a GPS radio for the Dolphin 7900.  Now we find this article suggesting that Hand Held Products is making a GPS-enabled 7900 generally available.  No word on whether this is worldwide or limited to Europe.

Several Windows Mobile 5 devices are also coming with integrated GPS, including the MC35 and MC70, and generic Windows Mobile devices.  We are taking a look at adding GPS support to ITScriptNet in the near future.

We have added a Knowledge Base article about creating index files for large validation files.  When we created index file support several years ago, storage space on devices was always at a premium.  In order to save some space, we used a 3-byte file pointer for the index entries.  This saved space, but limited the size of a validation file that could be indexed to 16MB.  At that time, no device had a 16MB storage area.

Now, however, many device have storage areas much larger than 16MB, so we are removing that restriction by moving to a 4-byte file pointer.  This allows a validation file size up to 4GB.  This update will be available with the release of ITScriptNet 2.4.

We have received several Datalogic devices, including the Jet, Memor, and Skorpio, and we have been adding support for these devices into our next release.  At this point, we are planning support for all of the CE 5.0 devices.  There are some older CE 4.2 devices, but we are not intending to support them at this time.

Look for this release in the next few weeks!

Microsoft released a new version of Live Search for Windows Mobile today.  This new version has Gas Prices, as well as a beta of Voice Search.  If you have not use Live Search before, try it out!

This news just came across the wire:

Honeywell to purchase Hand Held Products