Just as Desert Hurricane boosted the sales of Hummers and GPS handhelds, Gulf War II will spawn its own crossover hits, pieces of army apparatus that become civilian fetish objects. A prophecy : One of the war’s enormous winners will be Itronix’s GoBook MAX, a type of Windows computer on steroids. The GoBook MAX has been spotted in video from the front, and Air Force fire fighters employed in Turkey have them. If Gulf War II is the 1st Net war, then a P. C. Should be its first piece of army stylish. No wider than an entry-level ThinkPad but much thicker and heftier, the $4,500 GoBook MAX is a water-resistant, vaporproof, shockproof piece of field kit. “We drop every one 54 times from one meter, bake it in a cooker, chill it in a refrigerator, vibrate it, and submit it to a shower of hurricane proportions,” crows the GoBook’s leaflet.
Unlike most computer makers, Itronix focuses on handheld gadgets for hardhats, not wussy desktop Computers . The GoBook MAX is designed for civilian emergency-response teams and squaddies in the field. In my hands-on tests, it simply survived some tosses across the floor of a local Starbucksplus a spill of my 3rd double espresso onto its keyboard.
Itronix says the maximum is huge among FBI bomb squads and NYPD anti-terrorist units. For regime buyers, the maximum comes bundled with a prohibited software package called CoBRA ( or Chemical Biological Reply helper ), a search engine that will identify some sixty thousand chemical agents, and a few dozen biological threats.
Select the indicators of victims at a disaster scene, and CoBRA will tell you how long you have before your hazmat suit craps out. For non combatants, the maximum offers features to rival new Centrino-powered portables. Its seven hundred MHz CPU isn’t the swiftest, but built-in Cisco Wi-Fi and an industrial quality antenna are available as factory options. Twin USB jacks and a PCMCIA slot, guarded by robust latches, are standard.
CoBRA sales reps claim 8 hours of work time from one charge to its military grade ( and just plain heavy ) battery. Finally, a computer deserving of the term “toddler-proof.” No disastrous crashes to the kitchen floor.
No months of information lost to a situation with the sippy cup. Dangerous materials? Chuck it in the dishwasher.
Need to get out of the house? The handle flips back to mount the maximum open across the wheel of an SUV for mobile use. There’s even an add-on DVD drive for films. With the quantity of money office employees spend on their automobiles alone, a pair thousand greenbacks more for a droppable, dishwasher-safe computer is visible bargain in total price of possession. The GoBook MAX gives new meaning to the phrase “homeland security”.
