The Toughbook 33 Works for Me: Why first responders are lining up for the new Toughbook

The Toughbook 33 Works for Me: Why first responders are lining up for the new Toughbook

Marc Taylor

 

While developing the new Panasonic Toughbook 33, the next chapter in the Panasonic Toughbook story, we worked closely with first responders to help ensure we were delivering solutions that matched the way they work. One of the organizations we worked with was the Santa Barbara County Fire Department. With more than 25 years of IT implementation, Andre Monostori, the department's IT manager, has a unique perspective on how technology can help or hurt first responders on the job. We recently caught up with him to hear what his team thought of their time testing out the new Toughbook 33.

Q: Why

was your team interested in testing out the new Toughbook 2-in-1 laptop?

A:We've been using the Toughbook 19 laptops now for more than five years, and while they have served us very well, the nature of our jobs have been changing and we want to ensure we're equipping our first responders with the best technology tools available for today's work. For modern first responders, real-time digital communication is crucial to preparing for and adapting to dynamic, complex fire events, and powerful technology makes that information sharing possible. We anticipated that the Toughbook 33 would be faster and more responsive and that the 2-in-1 convertible design would provide our team with greater flexibility in the field. That was all confirmed as true as soon as we started using the new detachable laptop during our daily routine.

Q: The CF-33 is the first Toughbook with a larger 3:2 screen ratio. Did that influence your experience?

A: Absolutely. During our initial procurement process, we looked at number of other laptops with the more traditional 16:9 aspect ratio, but the screens simply weren't tall enough and our existing applications became warped. After hearing about the Toughbook 33's taller screen, we held off our procurement for a year just to test it out.

When we gave the Toughbook 33s to our team, they were ecstatic – they loved the size and functionality of the device. A lot of our captains, who ride in the passenger seat on the way to fire events and use the computers to manage the operations, had difficulty navigating all the information on the smaller screens – especially in a bumpy firetruck that's hurtling through traffic. The new screen size enlarges our software applications, making interacting with the device far more stable. A 3:2 aspect ratio will also help us cut cost and protect our legacy IT systems by enabling us to modernize our mobile technology with newer, faster devices that still work well with existing software applications.

Along with the larger size, the screen was also much more responsive; on previous devices, we would have to use a stylus for fine data entry. With the new devices, we found that we could accomplish the same digital tasks with just our fingertips, eliminating an extra level of operational complexity.

Q: Did the team encounter any surprises when taking the Toughbook 33 for a test run?

A: One unexpected new feature that really helped our team in the field is the Toughbook's new Night Mode. Previous devices, which were mounted in the cabin of our firetrucks, worked just fine during the day. At night, though, those same screens shined dangerously into the eyes of the driver as they navigated through traffic – the device that was supposed to be very helpful was now a real distraction. On the new Toughbook 33, with one click of a button, Night Mode is activated and the screen dims considerably. The driver and passengers can still visualize the information but the unsafe glare was eliminated.

The new 2-in-1 convertible design also helped our team accomplish more during each response. Previous laptops were confined to the mount in the truck; after the team arrived at the site, the computer stayed tethered to the vehicle until the event was concluded. With the new design of the Toughbook 33, we can now seamlessly pop off the screen to use as a tablet, enabling us to gather more information at each incident directly at the event.

Out team has relied on Panasonic Toughbooks for years because of their ability to stand up to even the harshest working environment. The Toughbook 33 continues that legacy of rugged durability, but the new 3:2 screen, more powerful processor and added tablet functionality are why my team will be equipped with these computers in order to best serve the citizens of Santa Barbara County.

The new Toughbook 33 is available today – visit us online to learn more about how the rugged device can help first responders do their jobs more effectively every day.

The Internet of Vehicles

the-internet-of-vehicles

The Internet of Vehicles

3 minutes

As innovation accelerates, it isn’t hard to imagine a world where cars drive themselves, or even fly. But cars that talk and think? You might be shaking your head, but that’s exactly where mobility is headed.

At ITS World Congress that starts in mid-September in Copenhagen, Panasonic’s Jarrett Wendt will offer ideas on the connected vehicle ecosystem enabling cars to communicate with each other and the road around them. If your travels don’t include Denmark in September, here are a few highlights.

The world is changing at hyper speed

As anyone in the tech world understands, disruption is the new normal. Constant innovation is now the price of entry, and the rate of change is increasing exponentially. Adoption rates have also accelerated dramatically. As inventor and futurist and Ray Kurzweil noted, we won’t experience 100 years of progress in this century – at today’s accelerated pace, it will be more like 20,000 years worth.

In our recent “Moving Forward,” research series, Panasonic Corp. of North America assesses how senior technology decision makers in industries including automotive view the technologies they see driving us forward, and the impact of these technologies on future plans. By 2025, 10 disruptive technologies are expected to generate trillions of dollars of economic impact. Our new research reveals that tech decision makers in automotive, avionics industries and related government agencies say their companies have already adopted five of these technologies on average. And four have risen to the top of their innovation agendas – energy storage, autonomous vehicles, artificial intelligence and sustainable energy. Panasonic is deeply engaged in all of them.

The future of transportation is integrated

There has been a great deal of prototyping and testing of Intelligent Transportation Systems, but working with the Colorado Dept. of Transportation, Panasonic has developed a phased approach that will allow DOTs to effectively deploy these technologies at scale. Not just a system for main highways and thoroughfares, but for all roadways and arteries throughout an entire state or region.

Our role? A technology-agnostic strategic consultant, general contractor and solution integrator.

We’re one year into our real-world deployment along a particularly challenging 90 mile stretch of I-70 in Colorado, connecting Denver to Vail, where Coloradans face steep grades, severe curves, often-extreme weather, visibility and congestion difficulties. This is a 5-year, $72 million V2X program featuring a road-operator managed data platform deployed on active, open roadways.

Data has the power to drive safety

With our Intelligent Transportation solution, we’re talking about empowering DOTs with the ability to analyze everything from speed and heading, to windshield wiper and traction control status – providing valuable context on road conditions.

Suddenly, a roadway operator can receive this data and make up-to-the-minute decisions about deploying snowplows during winter storms – or optimize how traffic flows through the city in real time.

This technology can also communicate instantly about emergency braking and crashes, and enables customized alerts to be sent to cars in specific locations instantaneously.

Imagine driving along the highway in the mountains and a crash occurs 1,000 feet down the road and around a blind turn. V2X will enable our vehicles to warn us or even react on our behalf – to prevent us from becoming a part of the incident even before the compromised vehicle is visible. And emergency services can be deployed more expeditiously, and more cost-effectively, than ever before.

Talking cars can reduce traffic

Connected vehicle technology will save lives through a significant reduction in the number of non-impaired crashes – estimates are as high as 80%. CDOT estimates as much as a 400% increase in roadway efficiency with wide scale deployment of connected vehicle technology – without the expense of widening roadways and adding lanes. The system is also expected to reduce the amount of time people spend in traffic and lessen the environmental impact of idling cars by mitigating congestion.

Read more about how disruptive technology is impacting transportation in The Year of the Smart Highway.

Authors
Tom Gebhardt - Chairman and CEO, Panasonic Corporation of North America

Building a wireless future that is far-reaching and accessible

Future of Bluetooth Mesh Networks

Building a wireless future that is far-reaching and accessible

4 minutes

The most inspiring example of the power of mesh networks, a distributed communication system, where each device acts as a node that can relay data to the others, lies in the island of Puerto Rico. That’s where a couple of volunteers with antennas, wireless mesh devices and solar panels helped to restore communications for relief effort coordinators in Barranquitas, a city battered by Hurricane Maria. “Within three days, volunteers were using both technologies to more effectively coordinate the delivery of food and medicine,” according to an article in Quartz.

Disaster management and public safety is one reason for the strong growth forecast for the global wireless mesh network market, but not the only one, according to a new report by Zion Market Research. Its study finds that the global wireless mesh network market was valued at $3.84 billion in 2017 and is expected to reach around $9.08 billion by 2024. The oil & gas Industry, video streaming and surveillance, smart mobility and smart city applications are among the biggest drivers of growth of mesh networking thanks to its promise of low-cost access to broadband services.

Bluetooth 5.0 was officially deployed in 2016 with a focus on enhancing the range, speed and data capacity for the connections. It also had another promising role: IoT connectivity. Where Bluetooth had previously been thought of as a 1-to-1 connection between devices, this concentration on IoT tech allows for the connection of multiple devices and, ultimately, the cloud.

Recent research on disruptive technology by Panasonic shows that many companies have adopted mobile devices, apps and commerce and the cloud, and three in five have adopted the Internet of Things (IoT). Senior tech decision makers believe these technologies are critical to their future success, according to our research. Clearly developments, such as mesh networking, that yield fruitful deployments of disruptive technology are important to these decision makers.

Wide-ranging applications

Bluetooth mesh network represents a major step towards a more accessible and wide-ranging wireless future. It allows for multiple devices to connect to the same network and all communicate seamlessly and in real time. A standard Bluetooth network is similar to a speaker presenting to an audience. The speaker may address the entire audience or individual members and audience members may address a question to the speaker, but audience members don’t communicate among themselves. In a Bluetooth mesh network audience members may address one another. This topology has two advantages. First, since a single message may travel along many routes to its destination, this dramatically increases the probability that the message arrives. The second advantage is the increased distance a message may travel – like one audience member speaking to another.

While standard Bluetooth recently upgraded its range in the Bluetooth 5.0 update, mesh networking hypothetically allows for infinite range if the proper chain links are in place.

Mesh networks in healthcare

There are pioneering Bluetooth mesh network examples in healthcare. Hospitals are using Bluetooth beacons to monitor and track equipment. But helping nurses locate equipment is just the surface of Bluetooth’s capabilities in the health system. Using this tech, doctors and nurses could monitor patients from anywhere, significantly reducing the need for hospital visits. These visits are both costly and potentially dangerous due to the risk of things like contagious diseases and infection. Not only would a doctor or nurse be able to monitor patients wirelessly, but a patient’s devices at home could do things like monitor temperature through biometric sensors and automatically notify the drug store to deliver medicine if the patient got a fever.

Benefits to manufacturing

There are also clear benefits from the Bluetooth mesh network in the manufacturing sector, especially where multiple machines operate simultaneously on the plant floor. Previously, if two devices situated beyond the range of a Bluetooth device needed to communicate, it would require either a wired connection or gateway that could connect to the cloud. This cloud connection requires Wi-Fi, which uses significantly more energy. Now with the mesh network, every single device in the entire factory can connect to each other via Bluetooth, and even the ones farthest away can communicate if necessary by bouncing the signal through other devices on the way.

Bluetooth mesh networking is just one piece of the wireless future that is to come. Read more in our Future of Wireless Everything series. 

Authors
Jeff Howell - President of Panasonic Industrial Devices Sales Company of America