From everyone at Codegate may we wish you and yours a healthy, happy and peaceful New Year. If the pundits are to be believed 2012 will see the full effect of government cut backs, tax increases and higher commodity prices taking money away from the pockets of the consumer. At least inflation is predicted to [...]

I know the clever, organised ones amongst you will have already purchased and wrapped all your loved ones gifts for the coming festive season, but some of us haven’t been quite so ‘on the ball’. Fortunately for us there are many on-line retailers able to supply gifts right up to the eve of Christmas Eve. [...]

You’d have to be living on another planet to miss the launch of Apple’s latest iPhone the 4S, but have you spotted ‘Siri’ the personal assistant and voice recognition application? This is, in my opinion, the most exciting development to hit computing since the microchip!

Are smartphones and tablets changing the way we input data into rugged mobile computers? Back in the bad old days, we entered everything through the keyboard, and on hand held rugged devices it was tough, sometimes involving three key depressions to input one alpha character. Then came a mini version of Microsoft Windows complete with [...]

In the Auto-ID industry there is no bigger hardware manufacturer of rugged mobile devices than Motorola Solutions Inc (MSI), a spin off from Motorola Inc. MSI’s business is split into two main segments Government, including sales of two-way radios and public safety systems and Enterprise which markets Auto-ID products including bar code scanners, mobile computers, [...]

The concept isn’t new but is brilliant! Everything will have an Internet Protocol (IP) address, every fridge, kettle, painting, sofa, livestock animal, vehicle, you name it – everything. OK, more specifically, everything that can be uniquely identified by an RFID or NFC tag, (or even a 2d bar code) which when you think in Auto-ID [...]

Both Google and Apple are being grilled by the Senate Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology and the Law in the United States, about how they protect data of individual customers, specifically location data. Closer to home a European data protection advisory panel has suggested to the EU that the location information which both platforms capture should [...]

Our employers have a duty of care to ensure we are all safe in the work environment. But how do employers keep you safe if you’re working alone and away from the office, or if you come into contact with the public. I’ve often written about protecting workers ‘in the field’, providing them with remote [...]

Vehicle Fleet Managers have a tough job. Packed roads causing traffic delays, pressure to meet delivery deadlines and to reduce both Co2 emissions and fuel consumption, while managing the endless paper trail caused by random roadside inspections by the Vehicle and Operator Services Agency (VOSA), or other incidents on the road. So how can Auto-ID [...]

All tier 1 manufacturers in the Auto-ID industry, e.g. Motorola, Intermec, Honeywell, etc., promote their products with Windows Mobile 6 or 6.5 as the de-facto Operating System (OS), but are times changing? The Smartphone market has split into four camps, Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7, Apple’s iOS, HP’s Palm Web OS and Google’s Android, with the [...]