The coolest new public-sector tech at FOSE
- May 15, 2013
Once authenticated, the IronKey Workspace W-500 runs a full version of Windows from the key drive, without leaving anything behind on a hosting computer. It will be available in about a month for $175.
The runner up for mobile is the Seido OBEX waterproof case and holder. Made to fit just about any smart phone, it actually can take a non-rugged device and make it able to pass the military specification for rugged testing. And it goes beyond that, giving any mobile phone an IP rating of 68, which means it can operate underwater constantly. Seido officials even said they’ve tossed normal phones protected with the case off of three-story buildings onto concrete with no ill effects. They had a Samsung Galaxy phone running a movie inside a fish tank at the show.
The unofficial special judges award this year, for a transformational product that’s filling an interesting niche or need for government, goes to nextScan. The nextScan device is built in the United States and enables government agencies to take microfilm or microfiche, which is rapidly starting to degrade, and automatically scan it into an electronic format.
On the FOSE show floor, the nextScan unit was busily scanning in a long roll of old microfilm documents. The film passes through a red light strobe to have its image captured. Software that comes with the unit then records each frame of the film as a document and allows adjustments in brightness and contrast to be made to help with readability.