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Handhelds Hardware

Handheld Dispatches From (Towards) The North Pole 78

Posted by timothy from the not-just-morse-code-any-more dept.
David D'Angelo writes: "Thomas and Tina Sjogren have take the IPAQ to a new level. You may have read about them on Slashdot in February as they successfully made it to the South Pole. After that they recuperated for two weeks and have been skiing towards the North Pole for over two months and publishing daily dispatches with pictures straight to the web with the help of a Compaq IPAQ and an Iridium Sat phone. They are currently using their backup system as Tina fell through the ice into Arctic waters and damaged one IPAQ. The IPAQs are 3870s with Ericsson Bluetooth technology built in. This communication package is the only system of its type out there. Despite failing upon being submersed, the first unit was able to withstand temperatures well below -30 degrees Centigrade. Check them out as they are now skiing over 10 hours racing the melting ice to the Pole."
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Handheld Dispatches From (Towards) The North Pole More

Handheld Dispatches From (Towards) The North Pole

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  • Free advertising for Compaq (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Sweet! How much are they funnelling back to VA, anyways?
    • Course speaking as an ex-Compaq employee who supported these

      it should be noted its free advertising for HP.. the ones who laid us off.

      wich is odd... because HP is keeping the CPQ IpaQ line, but canceling there own HP Jornada line of handhelds.. oh well.
    • hey, they've got a product that survives 40 degrees below zero. The guys also use Ericsson phones that survive just as much abuse. (I don't work for either company)

      I don't mind hearing about a cool gadget that survives in extreme conditions against all odds - that's just impressive.

      Hey, if Microsoft sends a small rover on Mars powered by CE, and this thing survives for a week (there is nobody to push "Reset" buttons up there...) - I'll be impressed with them too.

      Now I will let the /. audience punish me for what I have just said...

  • Crazy. (Score:2, Funny)

    by TheDick ( 453572 )
    Someone falls through the ice, and they are worried about an iPaq? Well at last they have their priorities straight. No way Tina was running any sort of Linux distro.
  • "Thomas and Tina Sjogren have take the IPAQ to a new level."

    And you have taken grammar to a new level. (I'll let you guess whether that level is up or down...)

  • You could have a StrongArm 333 Mhz chip! For just $19,995 you and a loved one can fly to the north pole and run your PDA at blazingly fast speeds! Play solitaire like you've never experienced before. (or, if you have TWO iPaqs, PocketQuake [pocketmatrix.com])

  • if I understand correctly... (Score:4, Funny)

    by dario_moreno ( 263767 ) on Monday May 27, 2002 @02:54PM (#3591908) Journal
    after two weeks of rest, they began
    skiing from the south pole to the north ?
    Impressive indeed. No wonder the IPAQ
    got wet in the process.

  • Bahh, who cares about the water... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Hodr ( 219920 ) on Monday May 27, 2002 @02:55PM (#3591916) Homepage
    I think what everyone really wants to know is exactly how far can you overclock an IPAQ when all the components are at -30 C.

    • I think what everyone really wants to know is exactly how far can you overclock an IPAQ when all the components are at -30 C.

      I thought along the same line, it may be the penultimate* cooling system for your overclocked PC to move to the north/south pole.

      *The ultimate cooling system being liquid helium or whatever other element is closest to 0Kwhen liquid.

  • ..Despite failing upon being submersed, the first unit was able to withstand temperatures well below -30 degrees Centigrade.

    Great, so we can use those here in Finland also..

  • Waterproof (Score:2, Informative)

    by Triskaidekaphobia ( 580254 )
    They should've taken these [ndirect.co.uk] as well.

  • make em waterproof, dammit! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by func ( 183330 ) on Monday May 27, 2002 @03:19PM (#3592038) Homepage
    rant/

    This just underscores a long time bitch of mine - when the heck are we going to see reasonably tough electronics? Every watch I've ever owned has been waterproof; why the heck can't they start building other stuff that way?

    I understand that a PDA is a bit tougher to waterproof than a watch (I design waterproof electronics for a day job), but it's about time somebody made an attempt. I've just started using my Palm as a flight log for my paragliding - my old logbook was stolen along with my truck; the advantage with the palm is that it gets backed up all the time. And it's smaller than my old logbook. Plus a whole lot of other good stuff - navigational programs, books to read while I'm waiting for conditions to improve, etc. I use an aluminum case, and it has survived several violent crashes so far (no paragliding related ones yet!), but it certainly wouldn't have surved a drop in the creek I had to ford last weekend.

    So come on guys, get with the program. Not every pda user lives in a cube.

    /rant
    • You might want to check out this company http://www.aquaman.co.uk Or just stick you PDA in a strong ziploc bag.. Its clear, waterproof and you can still press the buttons and write on the screen. If you combine one with your aluminum case (In side it) it should be both durable and waterproof.
    • At around the same time we see reasonably tough nerds to use them. :)
    • a waterproof/shockproof palm is mind numbingly easy to do... there just inst a market for it otherwise they'd make one.

      aluminum case wrapped in shock adsorbing rubber, high vibration/wide temperateure extreme LCD, and all buttons simply magnetic so the button diesnt even need to actually go throught the water seal barrier. Touchscreen? you'll have to abandon that and replace it with the RF feedback type of pen so we can seal that, or just live with a fragile LCD...

      Batteries, rechargable inside the sealed section with magnetic induction charging (like your cordless toothbrush) add to it everyones beloved bluetooth and you are finished...

      Problem #1... will you pay $800.00 for a palm M105 that is that rugged? or would you just buy 8 palm m-105's for the same money and just topss em when you destroy it.

      Me? I'll just buy the cheapies and keep replacing them... Just like I'refuse to buy a Kirby vaccuum... only an idiot would spend over a grand on a vaccuum, just like the dummie that will spend tons of cash for ruggedized electronics that are dirt cheap in the non-rugged state.
    • It's called the Amaga.
      Raytheon (the missile producer) is working on this ruggedized version of the iPaq. I saw a prototye being dropped from 2 meters on a floor. No problems ;-).
      [airforce-technology.com]
      http://www.airforce-technology.com/contractors/s of tware/raytheon/

  • They must have a neato solar charger or something... where can I buy one?
  • Was anyone else disturbed my the "melting ice" portion of this? Is the ice supposed to be melting that far up??? I know that it's summer and it's getting sunlight 24/7, but I didn't think it had that great of an effect on the ice! Can anyone here enlighten me?

    Also, I read a while back that (as usual) the north pole is moving...south-west, I believe it was. I wonder if future expeditions will have to take this into account...though I'd assume that the pole moves incredibly slowly...but would a voyage to the "north pole" mean to the magnetic north, or to the top-most point on the planet?

  • Brrr... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by RetroGeek ( 206522 )
    the first unit was able to withstand temperatures well below -30 degrees Centigrade

    It withstood the temperature, but it did not run at that temperature. Most chip have an upper and lower operating temperature. -30C is too cold to run at.

    I once built a curcuit that operated my headlights (fog lamps, running lamps, ...). I would start the car when it was -25C, then ran back inside the house. The headlights would NOT work. When the car warmed up, the circuit would warm up, and the headlights would go on. Really handy :-)
    • You keep the unit inside your duvet jacket until you need it. It takes a few minutes to cool down. The only problem is the LCD freezing. The Li-Ion battery won't hold charge for long at that temperature, but again, if the unit stays warm, no problem.
  • What the hell. These people can trek across the two poles and have internet connectivity, yet I'm tied to my house every time I go on-call. There's just something insane about this.

    If there were only wireless enable starbucks on every street corner.
    • You can have the very same anywhrere on the planet Internet access that they have.

      Read the damn article. They used an Iridium phone. It's off-the shelf technology....readily available.

      Just as soon as you have something important enough to do on the Internet that you'll blow $4.00 a minute, you let us all know.
      • You just answered your own question. That's the whole point!! If they can pay $4.00 a minute for internet access in the arctic, persumably and proportionally, in downdown san francisco (for example) it should cost considerably less given all the infrastructure.

        In short: bring back ricochet! Or . . . hold out for GSM technologies, look for starbucks on every corner or just pray for open 802.11b access points!

  • Bah. Newtons were doing this in 1997. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by CrezzyMan ( 4386 ) on Monday May 27, 2002 @03:28PM (#3592075) Homepage
    Chris Bonington took a Newton 130, an Agfa ePhoto 307 camera, and a satellite uplink up a Tibetan mountain in 1997:

    http://www.bonington.com/piclib/life_5.htm [bonington.com]

    The team uploaded photos and text reports to the website using some custom Newton software. And all that was on a 20Mhz ARM 610.

  • Does anyone know how water proof zip-lock bags really are? The question is very relavent, as one solution to preventing this sort of problem ( getting water damage ) could be carrying the iPaq, or any other PDA, around in a zip-lock bag and keeping it in there while scribbling down notes. Sure it doesn't look very 'cool', but I am sure the temperature is the only thing that needs to be cool in that sort of environment ;-)

  • Practical applications of bluetoth. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by mindstrm ( 20013 ) on Monday May 27, 2002 @04:00PM (#3592199)
    I'm curious. I know what bluetooth is and how it works, and what it was designed for.

    But...

    Can anyone point to any actual useful uses it's been put to so far?

    Note: Internet access for a laptop is NOT a useful purpose. 802.11 is much better suited for such things. The same goes for handhelds.

    I mean uses like your cellphone talking to your pda talking to your laptop; pdas able to exchange information just by being in the vacinity of each other, etctera.

    A cordless mouse that uses bluetooth is not useful. We could do this without bluetooth.

    Same goes for keyboards.

    Anyone?
    • I also have the iPAQ mentioned in the article, the 3870.

      I got the bluetooth model for two reasons:

      1. My mobile phone (cellular for you Americans) also has a bluetooth chip on it (It's an Ericsson T39) and it communicates flawlessly with my iPAQ. With my GPRS subscription I can use my PDA to surf wirelessly, anywhere with mobile phone coverage, at dial-up modem speeds (w00t).

      2. There are bluetooth headphones finally coming out (not the crummy headsets, which are just one-ear jobbies. I use it to listen to music while my iPAQ sits in my pocket (yes, it plays MP3s and has 64mb of on-board RAM)

      ... that's what I use bluetooth for :)
    • I think the point is to standardize all the different types of wireless device communications so that PCs and other multi-pupose devices don't have to understand every single device's protocol. Think of it as the DirectX/OpenGL of wireless stuff.
    • >Can anyone point to any actual useful uses it's been put to so far?

      yep. sonyericsson t68 [sonyericsson.com] plus any bluetooth laptop [google.com] or palmtop [handhelds.org] means you can do sync/ Net/ data stuff with no cable, line of sight, etc.

      yeah 802 is cool, but yeck it's expensive plus new Europe cellphones don't come with it as standard.

      You don't need to worry about getting your 802 connected, you can roam with no worries about local datacentres..It's not competing, just different.
      • I never said it was competing. I understand exactly what both technologies are.

        802.11 would not be for cellphones. I know they are totally different things.

        My point was whether or not there were any innovtive new uses of bluetooth out there, and that I don't consider ethernet access via bluetooth or wireless mice innovative.

        YEs, cellphone to bluetooth pda/laptop is great. So far, that's the only useful one I've hard.
    • i) cheaper than 802.11b to produce. there was a guestimate that the chip would cost $5 in bulk. Far cry from 11b I'm sure.

      ii) Suppose to use less power!!!! That's a big one. If you ever used an 11b enabled pda, then you know what I mean.

      there are proper other reasons I can't think of right now.
    • Ok, here you go...

      First of all, let me challenge some of your "non-useful" assumptions:

      Bluetooth was designed so that the Bluetooth device (read: network adapter) could be very small and use as little power as possible. This effectively means that YES, it is useful for internet access from your laptop, because your cell-phone is not going to be doing battery-powered 802.11 for a couple of hours in the near future. It's not about what the laptop can do, it's about what the internet access device can do.

      Of course, since your cellphone has bluetooth, if your PDA has it, you can go on the net with it (and edit your dial list, and dial straight from your PDA, etc).

      And if your laptop has both bluetooth and 802.11, it can be usead as a bridge to let your PDA talk to your 802.11 network, and so on.

      And, of course, it makes sense to use bluetooth for mouse/keyboard/whatever, since you have on all your devices anyway. Why bother with another radio protocol? Besides, you can now use the keyboard to type into your PDA if you want to, no cables involved, no adapter needed on the PDA.

      Now for the creative usages:

      Redefining "phone": Your phone can now be just a black box that sits in your pocket/briefcase/backpack. Your phonebook is in your PDA, of course, and you talk into a wireless lightweight earset/mic combo. The phone is nothing but a relay station and gateway to the cell network.

      Ubiquity:Bluetooth adapters are cheaper and smaller, which means they can be embedded into mostly whatever you want. Your camera will have it, so you can send pictures immediately to your PDA and even store them there instead of in the camera. And you can even print them from your PDA, all you have to do is go near a printer.

      Information Exchange:Yes, you will be able to exchange information with other people using bluetooth from your PDA/cellphone/laptop/whatever, even if it's a different brand. More, you will be able to go to a museum and download info and a set of links about a particular piece on show. Or get detailed specs about a video camera you see on a radio shack shelf.

      The uses for any technology are unlimited, as long as standards exist. Standards are the basis for interoperability, and that in itself is the basis for competitionand innovation, which in turn stems progress.

      If one takes the "oh, we already have a protocol for that, I don't care if it's proprietary" approach, we would never have had TCP/IP and would be stuck inside millions of little islands running OSI and SNA. Or, god forbid, NetBEUI.

  • I highly doubt that the Ipaq is kept outside the clothing dangling un-insulated in the cold. the LCD will freeze and crack at temperates well above the -40. Keeping on the person inside the coat and using it for 5 minutes in the open air WILL NOT get the lcd down to even near freezing from the balmy 60-70degrees it enjoys inside the coat.

    Leave one outside the tent overnight tied to a pole so snow cant cover it and insulate it... then I'll be impressed.

  • You may have read about them on Slashdot in February as they successfully made it to the South Pole. After that they recuperated for two weeks and have been skiing towards the North Pole for over two months

    I bet they have some problems skiing in Peru...

  • Here's the link to see Tina Sjogren [thepoles.com].

    For the link wary: http://www.thepoles.com/images/661EvTi.jpg

    I thought she was all fat and clumsy since the web site talks about her falling into the water a few times already. Suprisingly, she looks better and is probably in a better shape than any of the slashdot readers.

    Besides that I think that any of the less good-looking slashdot readers would be very unimpressed with her ability to handle high-tech gadgets.

    It should have been either her or IPAQ in the water, but apparently she went for both. DOH!

  • This system is not one of a kind, and it has been implemented since several months before the iPAQ was available commercially. The iPAQ/Iridium combination is fairly standard. In case you are wondering....yes there are iPAQs in hardened/waterproof green cases with break-resistent screens.
  • Similar story about a British explorer who didn't make it to the Pole but emailed a picture of his location to get himself rescued. ( articles are a bit low on techie detail)

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273 ,4 417717,00.html

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273 ,4 422721,00.html

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