Personal digital assistant
Personal digital assistants (PDAs) are handheld devices that were originally designed as personal organizers, but became much more versatile over the years. A basic PDA usually includes a clock, date book, address book, task list, memo pad and a simple calculator. One major advantage of using PDAs is their ability to synchronize data with desktop, notebook and desknote computers.
Overview
The term "personal digital assistant" was coined on 7 January 1992 by John Sculley at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada, referring to the Apple Newton. Earlier devices like the Psion and Sharp Wizard have the functionality to be considered PDAs, however.
The currently major PDA operating systems are PalmSource's Palm OS, Pocket PC (Windows CE) from Microsoft, BlackBerry from Research In Motion, Linux, and Symbian OS (formerly EPOC)
According to a Gartner market study, the overall market has shrunk by 5% in the first quarter (Q1) of 2004, compared to Q1 2003, and the shares are:
- Palm OS - 40.7% (stable)
- Pocket PC - 40.2% (slightly increasing)
- BlackBerry - 14.8% (strongly increasing)
- Linux - 1.9% (stable)
- Other - 2.4% (strongly decreasing)
The usually cited reason for this decline are the growing capabilities of communicators — mobile phones with PDA-like communication functions.
Popular PDAs
- BlackBerry
- hp iPAQ Pocket PC (Originally Compaq iPAQ until HP merger in 2002)
- Nokia Series60 Cellular Communicators
- Palm Pilot, Tungsten, Treo and Zire
- Sharp Wizard and Zaurus
- Sony CLIÉ
- Tapwave Zodiac
- AlphaSmart Dana
- Dell's Axim
You can download Wikipedia to your PDA: Wikipedia:TomeRaider_database
See also
- Ebook
- Information Appliance
- Laptop
- Microbrowser
- Personal area network
- Personal Information Manager
- Smartphone
- Sub-notebook
- Toothing
- Wearable computer
External links
- port of Linux for the Nintendo DS (http://dslinux.com/)
- PDA Hotspots (http://www.wacklepedia.com/pdahotspots/pda_hotspots.htm) Sites suitable for small screen PDA's
- Linux on PDAs (http://tuxmobil.org/)
- Repair and upgrade instructions for PDAs (http://tuxmobil.org/disassembly_pda.html)
- medPDA.net Medical application reviews, news, discussions. (http://medpda.net)
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