Re: hand-held computers Re: Electronic commerce has long way to go

[Bill Stewart <stewarts@ix.netcom.com>]

At 11:54 AM 7/15/97 -0700, Steve Schear wrote:
>For those outside of Metricom's coverage areas, NovaTel Wireless
>http://www.novatelwireless.com is introducing a CDPD modem specifically
>designed for the Pilot.  Their Minstrel modem offers TCP/IP data rates up
>to 19.2 kbps over analog cellular.  Coverage in most US metropolitan areas

On the other hand, CDPD is relatively expensive; Metricom charges flat rate,
while CDPD is generally some pennies per KB, which may be more or less
expensive than circuit-switched modem connections over cellular voice
depending on your usage patterns.  But it's widely available.

There are also services like ARDIS and RadioMail, and PCMCIA pager cards
offer some interesting options for sending encrypted messages to PDAs
even if it's just one-way.

Hand-helds are gradually adopting infrared ports, and I gather they're
even gradually standardizing on what kind.  My Psion is the earlier model
that uses wires for communication, as are some (all?) Pilots, but a 
friend who has the newer Psion3C connects its RS232 to a Metricom,
and uses Infrared to talk to his laser printer.  Back when Newtons were
the only PDA in town, two of them could talk IR to each other, and
there were some Cypherpunks discussions about how this would be nice
for ecash applications.  (The Psion also has audio input and output,
and there's a program that lets two Psions transfer data by growling
at each other, probably at 300bps.)

#			Thanks;  Bill
# Bill Stewart, +1-415-442-2215 stewarts@ix.netcom.com
# You can get PGP outside the US at ftp.ox.ac.uk/pub/crypto/pgp
#   (If this is a mailing list or news, please Cc: me on replies.  Thanks.)