Brainy Radio

[Janak Parekh]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.wirelessnewsfactor.com/perl/story/20731.html' target='_blank'>http://www.wirelessnewsfactor.com/p...tory/20731.html</a><br /><br /></div>Imagine the following scenario, if you will --<br /><br />"A personal digital assistant (PDA) falls from its owner's pocket during lunch. After a little while on the restaurant floor, it awakens, calls home, and notifies its owner that it has been left behind. That's all in a day's work for a 'cognitive radio,' a wireless device that's aware of its environment and learns from its user. <br /><br />Cognitive radios don't exist yet. But Joseph Mitola, a computer scientist at Mitre, in Bedford, MA, aims to make them a reality by exploiting the added processing power that will be built into tomorrow's wireless devices. Mitola is one of the pioneers of 'software radio,' which gives users of cell phones and other two-way radios the ability to use a single device to communicate over a range of frequencies."<br /><br />There's a lot of <a href="http://www.darpa.mil/body/NewsItems/pdf/iptorelease.pdf">DARPA research</a> being done in cognitive technologies, and it seems handheld devices will be a central part of it. Preference management is another exciting field for cognitive PDAs. What do <i>you</i> want your PDA to do for you? Or do you find this too scary?

[vincentsiaw]

Imagine the following scenario, if you will --

"A personal digital assistant (PDA) falls from its owner's pocket during lunch. After a little while on the restaurant floor, it awakens, calls home, and notifies its owner that it has been left behind. That's all in a day's work for a 'cognitive radio,' a wireless device that's aware of its environment and learns from its user.

if this happens in new york, I think your pda already have a new master before it's even able to call home :lol:

[Jimmy Dodd]

I need one that calls me and says "I'm in your red jacket in the closet" or "I'm in your briefcase in the trunk of your wife's car."

[R K]

Bluetooth should be able to do this already.
Since it draws only somewhat minimal battery life, you could theoretically program a small locator device which attaches to a piece of clothing.
Whenever the main PDA goes out of 10m or 30ft range, the locator device would start beeping until the PDA is back in range again.

The only problem is that you'd have to keep the PDA on in order for this to work, or they would have to integrated BT into a Pocket PC very similarly to how PPCPE works, with a BT radio unit that stays on even when the PPC is put to sleep.

If you were very serious about this, you could also attach a GPS unit to the PDA as well. This way you'd be able to track your PDA down in case you ever lose it or in case it ever gets stolen. Of course, you'd need a GPS that doesn't require a visible sky in order to function.

[Pat Logsdon]

My wife needs something like this for her keys. And her purse. And her sunglasses. And loose change. :D

Personally, I'd like my PDA to be able to transmit data wirelessly, at any time, almost anywhere. At high speed, cheap. Like souped up Nextel for data.

And I want a pony.

[felixdd]

I'd like for it to give me two weeks of advance notice of a severe crash that requires a hard reset -- so that I have time to backup the files.

That and tell me where my keys, scarf, wallet, and gloves are.

[ctmagnus]

If you were very serious about this, you could also attach a GPS unit to the PDA as well. This way you'd be able to track your PDA down in case you ever lose it or in case it ever gets stolen. Of course, you'd need a GPS that doesn't require a visible sky in order to function.

Apparently, the US govt is considering restoring the intentional error in GPS signals that was shutdown in May 2000. So if that and the cognitive radio thing go through, you'd only be able to tell where your PDA was in a ~two block radius.

[targetdrone]

[quote="ctmagnus
Apparently, the US govt is considering restoring the intentional error in GPS signals that was shutdown in May 2000. So if that and the cognitive radio thing go through, you'd only be able to tell where your PDA was in a ~two block radius.[/quote]

It will not happen. It is now relied upon too much. Airlines use it. Paramedics and rescue units use it. And police and government agencies use it. Recinding the order to offset the signal was the best thing Clinton did while in office.

For a long debate of this very subject, check the forums at www.geocaching.com For those who don't know what geocaching is, it's a hide and seek type game using a GPS unit.