Evolution and Competition in the Market for Handheld Computers

Since the early 1990s, electronic organisers or electronic agendas have been evolving towards fully fledged, but miniature, computers. This paper is a case study about this market. Uniquely, and reminiscent of the home computer market in the 1980s, this is a market for personal computers not dominated by Microsoft. Or at least, not yet. In tracking the evolution of this market, the paper points especially to the importance of networking and standardization. The market for handheld computers is a small market, compared to the units shipped in the market for PCs. Nevertheless a surprisingly large number of vendors has been and still is active in this market. During the short history of this market, there have been several periods where technological breakthroughs created expectations of huge growth, with entry by new suppliers as a result. As the dust settled, the losers either changed strategy, or left the market altogether. The paper will argue that standardization and networking are major factors in explaining competitive success and the recent growth of the industry.industrial organization ;

Report : enabling team collaboration with pervasive and mobile computing : a review of existing mobile computing technologies

The application of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in construction industry has been recognised widely by some practitioners and researchers for the last several years. During the 1990s the international construction industry started using with the increasing confidence information and communication technology. The use of e-mail became usual and web-sites were established for marketing purposes. Intranets and extranets were also established to facilitate communication within companies and throughout their branches. One of the important applications of the ICT in construction industry was the use of mobile computing devices to achieve better communication and data transmission between construction sites and offices

Mobile Tour Assistant for Malaysia

Malaysia's tourism industry has seen a rapid growth rate for the past years, and played a significant role in the development of the country's economy. 2007 is a special year for Malaysian tourism since it is called the "Visit Malaysia" year in celebration of 50 years of Independence. Information Technology has made remarkable contributions to the growth of tourism industry in Malaysia. Its efforts to promote tourism range from websites providing information to systems to service tourists. However, while countries with well-developed tourism industry like France and Hong Kong have developed comprehensive tour assistant packages for tourists, Malaysia is yet to do so. Thus, a comprehensive mobile tour package is needed for Malaysia. The objective of the project is to develop a well-designed tour assistant running on PDAs which makes use of current trends in mobile applications such as the adoption of AI technique in scheduling. Due to time and resource constraints, the project focuses on areas within and around Kuala Lumpur and targets on short-stay and transit tourists. Going through a thorough literature review and following the waterfall methodology, the project has successfully developed a full package of mobile tour assistant including the back end and front end. The project also makes contribution to creatively applying Genetic Algorithm, an AI technique in plan auto-scheduling. The author hopes that the package will be of high commercial value and contribute significantly to boosting Malaysia's tourism

ACUTA Journal of Telecommunications in Higher Education

In This Issue Wireless Andrew Colleges Take to the Air Wireless LANs: Coming to a Campus Near You? Going Wireless for Last-Mile Connectivity Cutting the Wires: Wireless Research at Michigan Tech Communicating on a Beam of Light Remote Access at Amherst College Institutional Excellence Award: Michigan Technological University Interview Profile Columns Book Revie

Multi-server collaboration system for disaster relief mission planning

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, 2001.Includes bibliographical references (p. 123-125).by Chang Kuang.S.M

An application service provider infrastructure for shared workspaces in Internet-based collaborative design

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture; and, (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, 2000.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 103-107).For architectural, engineering and construction projects involving transient 'virtual organizations' composed of non-collocated team-members, the adoption of concurrent design principles is seen as vital. An important aspect of concurrent design is the need for an effective communications infrastructure between team members. Traditionally, such communication has been handled through person-to-person meetings, however the complexity of modern projects has grown and as a result, reliance on new information and communications technologies is becoming increasingly necessary. Hence, within a concurrent design setting, there is the need for an integrated information and collaboration environment that will create a persistent shared workspace to support interaction between project personnel throughout all phases of the project. This research explores computer-supported mechanisms for enhancing distributed design collaboration. The goal of this thesis is to develop a set of requirements, system architecture and an early system prototype to facilitate computer-supported collaboration among distributed teams. The prototype will consist of a persistent shared workspace system built from the integration of complementary collaborative applications. These applications are the CAIRO system, developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the VNC system developed at the Olivetti Research Laboratory.by Jaime Solari.S.M