Pocket PCs, planes and panels

Computerworld - PHOENIX -- Gee whiz! Though there wasn't as much of this sentiment as in previous years, some distinctly original concepts and products were shown at the Demo 2002 conference.

The REAL Pocket PC

The most intriguing device was the prototype Metapad from IBM's Watson Research Laboratory in Yorktown Heights, N.Y. Ken Ocheltree, exploratory devices manager, explained that IBM had separated the computer into two parts: the core computing and storage function and all the interactive I/O elements that relate to that core (see story).

The Metapad has an 800MHz TransMeta Corp. processor, 128MB of memory, a 5GB (to be 10GB by the time this report appears) hard drive, and video and sound circuitry. It's the size of a pack of 3-by-5-inch cards just three-quarters of an inch thick, with but one connector on it. (And this is a prototype. If it becomes a product, it would likely be smaller yet.)

So what do you add to this Metapad? One device was a small touch screen that became a powerful handheld personal digital assistant. Another was a simple and inexpensive desktop dock with keyboard, display and network connections. A third was a laptop (screen, keyboard, battery) into which the Metapad could be inserted. Other potential devices using the Metapad could be built into a car, for example.

But perhaps the most appealing idea about this device was this: Instead of lugging home your laptop for the evening or weekend, you just take the Metapad and stick it into your shirt pocket.

Look -- Up in the Sky -- It's a Whole Bunch of Airplanes!

The story of the U.S.'s antiquated air-traffic control system and the difficulties involved with upgrading it has been told many times. Now, some real progress is being made, and the ideas are coming from the NASA.

Thomas Edwards, chief of NASA's aviation systems division, showed a graphic representation of a typical day's air traffic over the entire U.S. for a 24-hour period. It clearly pointed out both the incredible congestion over the entire northeastern U.S. and the rather large amounts of unused airspace. This day included some 40,000 scheduled flights, with up to 5,000 aircraft in the air at any one time. The presentation was enough to make one swear off air travel.

But the good news is that NASA has a number of systems under development, with some currently being tested and deployed, to ease air-traffic controllers' jobs and reduce air congestion, all with the intent of making travel safer and more automated.

One program reroutes