To address this critical mandate and in order to avoid paying hefty fees that can stack up to millions of dollars, utilities need to keep trees away from the right-of-ways. They also must have timely and clear insight into records and arborists’ activities along their powerlines, all with an ultimate goal of keeping the lights on for their residential and business customers. In a number of instances, utilities outsource such jobs and duties to third-party contractors.

ArborMetrics Solution is a U.S.-based vegetation management company that provides contract personnel to perform such tasks on behalf of utilities. In order to move away from a pen-and-paper process and streamline their reporting internally as well as to their utility customers, the team needed to deploy wirelessly-enabled mobile computers, hardened enough to withstand extreme weather conditions and rough terrains in often quite remote areas of the country. The company deployed our fully-rugged Toughbook 19 convertible laptops, equipped with embedded wireless broadband modems that connect to Verizon Wireless for seamless, always-on Internet connection to the home offices as well as their customers.

Take a look at the video of ArborMetrics’ mobility success story and please read through their implementation story, as published in Integrated Solutions earlier this year, here.

If you have a compelling story to share with us as well, we invite you to please leave us a comment. We would love to hear from you.

For example, the “office tools and suites” section of the site includes word processing and spreadsheet applications. The “surveys” section contains applications which offer employees the ability to gather feedback to improve services. The site even contains applications for collaboration, meetings and conferencing, designed to help users conduct meetings and presentations over the Web.

The shift toward Web-based applications for government workers is not limited to the federal government. The New York Times reported earlier this year on the growing trend of police departments to integrate customized social-networking platforms with their traditional crime-fighting tactics.

Government agencies are also attracted to the security benefits of cloud computing and Web-based applications. A recent article from Computerworld illustrated the CIA’s adoption of this approach, while specifying that classified data will be hosted within the agency’s firewalls rather than Apps.gov.

To ensure reliable access to Web services wherever someone’s work takes them, embedded mobile broadband modems are now a must-have feature for professionals’ laptops in both the public and private sector. Embedded modems provide better wireless signals than external cards, and also provide an added layer of reliability by avoiding loss, theft or damage.

It will be interesting to see how quickly the government workforce adapts to these changes, and which Internet applications become the most popular. We’ll be following it closely and continue enhancing our products to meet this growing need.

It’s great to know that house calls, a healthcare service reminiscent of the 1950’s, is coming back to practice. Doctors agree that seeing people in their environment allows them to get a better grasp of what their lives are like; and therefore, can assess their progress more accurately.

Whether it’s an increase in the number of mobile healthcare workers or clinicians working in multiple facilities, the healthcare industry is becoming increasingly mobile. And technology is the driving force that is letting this happen. According to the Journal of the American Medical Association, advancements in portable medical devices, information technology, point-of-service laboratory tests, and handheld computers all have attributed to the comeback of home health visits.

Mobile technology provides clinicians with the gift of flexibility and versatility, allowing them to be freed from their traditional environments and into real-world clinical settings without compromising access to critical patient information at the point of care. From a patient perspective, mobile technology is providing them with greater independence and quality of life. Patients such as the elderly and the chronically ill, for example, who are too sick to leave their homes and disabled can be easily monitored and cared for from the comfort of their own environment.

Clinicians have been adopting mobile technology solutions in their practice for decades, but they’ve had their clear limitations. The COW (computer on wheels) was introduced as a way for clinicians to bring computers closer to the bedside, but its size actually hindered mobility and cluttered hallways. Business-centric laptops were also introduced, but clinicians soon realized that they were a unique breed of user and needed a technology solution that was better suited for healthcare applications. Also, tablet computers were widely adopted but users found that they weren’t very comfortable to hold, lacked durability and had an unsatisfactory battery life.

So what are the elements that clinicians and healthcare facilities should look for when equipping highly mobile professionals?

• Mobile, durable, and rugged computing devices – The mobile technology solution must be able to withstand the drops, spills and blows associated with being a mobile worker. Whether it’s a home care nurse leaving the laptop in a sweltering car or a doctor dropping the device when traveling to and from a patient’s home, the mobile technology solution must be able to keep up with the demands of the application.
• An ergonomic and light-weight design – If mobile healthcare workers are expected to rely on mobile technology, the device should be comfortable to hold, light-weight and have a portable design. Otherwise, it will become a nuisance and hinder the efficiency of day to day clinical activities.
• Advanced wireless technology – Advancements in wireless technology has enhanced mobility in both facilities and in-home environments. Especially, in the area of embedded wireless wide-area networking (WWAN) as they offer healthcare workers new and higher levels of functionality and flexibility.
• Long battery life – Not only must the mobile technology solution have a long battery life, it must also be appropriate for the healthcare industry. A device with a typical four-hour battery life is inadequate in mobile healthcare applications where clinicians work long hours often away from plugs and power sources.

Those in the healthcare industry should take a moment to understand the powers of information technology, and the benefits it provides to clinical workload, business and most importantly patient safety. The healthcare market is experiencing major challenges right now, including nursing shortages, an aging workforce, greater demand for healthcare services, to name a few, and the fact that technology advancements are able to initiate a shift in the way healthcare is being delivered, in an effort to better serve patients, is remarkable.

In a sense, technology is bringing back clinicians to their roots – patient care. Home doctor’s visits, a thing of the past and the epitome of patient care, can be reinstated thanks to the advancements in today’s technology.

I strongly believe this is the year of embedded wireless devices, which makes for a very exciting time here at Panasonic.  Please take a few minutes to listen to this engaging conversation and watch the slides. Let us know your thoughts and we would love to answer any questions you may have, right here, on our blog.

I wanted to give you some information about Gobi, the first multi-mode embedded wireless solution for mobile computers. It brings two incompatible 3G wireless technologies – CDMA2000 EV-DO Rev. A and W-CDMA/HSPA – together in one software-defined configuration that enables users to connect to the best available wireless network. With their Gobi-enabled mobile computers, individuals can now have virtually instant wireless broadband internet access almost anywhere on Earth.

In addition to enabling mobile workforces to remain connected regardless of their geographical location, Gobi also eases IT administrators’ pain. Before Gobi, IT managers had to deal with multiple SKUs and complex inventory, which was quite difficult to manage. Now, they can have single notebook SKU for all regions, lowering IT procurement, qualification, support and management costs. This, in turn, provides increased flexibility and employee productivity, as well as significant cost-efficiencies over previously-available modems.

For more information on Gobi, check out the following articles:

• CRN
• EE Times
• PC Today

Currently, all major U.S. wireless carriers offer 3G data access for mobile computers. Available using external PCMCIA cards, USB devices or as embedded (also called integrated) wireless modems, these offer very different experiences for both users and their IT managers.

The downside to external cards and USB-based modems is that they deliver reduced performance and reliability. First, users need to insert a device into their notebook—anytime a user is required to do something to their technology, a risk is introduced. Also, as an added on component, these cards are prone to loss, theft or damage; they become a drain on a device’s battery power; they don’t achieve the same rates of connection speed and throughput—all factors that reduce worker productivity and introduce cost-centers for IT.

While external modems are not optimized to work within a specific device, reducing their effectiveness in attaining and maintaining a network connection, embedded modules are engineered and tested to work as an integrated part of the notebook and designed to ensure optimal performance. This is especially important in fringe areas, which can be field-based or less obvious settings, such as meeting rooms or airport gates. It is also important to note that, as an integrated component, these modems are protected under the notebook warranty.

Recently, we partnered with Larstan Business Reports to develop a whitepaper that clearly outlines the benefits of embedded wireless broadband modems over external solutions. Take a minute and read through “The Business Case for Embedded Wireless Technologies in Mobile Enterprise Strategies.” In addition to outlining benefits of embedded modems, the whitepaper also includes in-depth, real-world usage scenarios that you might find beneficial.