Census Bureau to use HTC handhelds in 2010

For the first census of the 21st Century, the US Census Bureau is finally entering the 20th. In 2010, when the next census is conducted, the agency will use handheld computers, rather than relying on notepads for door-to-door visits. The agency says the plan will keep costs down as well as making the count more accurate. The handhelds will be made by smartphone manufacturer HTC, and will run a version of Windows Mobile. Concerned Census Bureau officials have been assured that the HTC units won't replace their BlackBerrys, and will be used solely for data collection, not as smartphones (despite the fact that, coming from HTC, they'll probably be very capable smartphones with messaging and calling functions turned off for this project). The equipment is expected to be deployed this year or next by Florida-based Harris Corp., which won a $600 million contract to run the field operation. According to Census Bureau officials, the switch from paper to PDA will save money, though the total cost for the 2010 census is still expected to be as much as $12 billion, double that of 2000.

[apeguero @ Apr 4th 2006 5:53PM]

"According to Census Bureau officials, the switch from paper to PDA will save money, though the total cost for the 2010 census is still expected to be as much as $12 million, double that of 2000."

Looks like "fuzzy math" to me :) Or at least they determined it to cost less before they determined it to cost more...ala some other Prez candidate who voted for a bill before he voted against it...

Typical Government crap. Just what I wanted to hear as I'm doing my 2005 taxes.

[Razib Ahmed @ Apr 4th 2006 6:16PM]

This is a very smart move by Census Bureau. Other countries should follow this. Switching from paper to PDA will make the process much more accurate and the analysis of the data will become easier too.

[Joe Taylor @ Apr 4th 2006 6:22PM]

Why wouldnt they just use Axims? I guess they want the keyboard that badly.

[blah @ Apr 4th 2006 6:27PM]

Ha! Harris Corp, a massive defense contractor responsible for about 70% of my school's engineering program and for 50% of the cost of our third engineering building, among other things

Yes, that is at the University of Central Florida

[kenny @ Apr 4th 2006 6:31PM]

Yes, heaven forbid they listen to the Crackberry fanatics and force the tax payers to pay for two devices capable of the same function.

[Shmoe @ Apr 4th 2006 6:35PM]

Why not ditch the stupid crackberries altogether? The HTC is better anyway.

[H @ Apr 4th 2006 6:40PM]

i believe you mean $6 Billion

[E-Rock @ Apr 4th 2006 6:57PM]

The Windows Mobile is not better than the blackberry, no matter which device you're talking about. The blackberry does one thing and it does it very well. We hope that the latest patch to WM5 makes them at least comparable to the blackberry for messaging, but currently they are but a pale shadow.

[Jose @ Apr 4th 2006 6:59PM]

The Colombian census bureau already used pocket pc's in the 2005 census here. (That's in latin america)

[Spyvie @ Apr 4th 2006 7:08PM]

My first IT job was working for a gubiment agency back in the early nineties. A whole bunch of proprietary Harris/Lanier passive backplane 286s on a token ring network running 3270 emulation. I almost forgot about that company� maybe it was a repressed memory.

[EyePAQ @ Apr 4th 2006 7:48PM]

That's about $40 a person to count each and every one of us. Does anyone else think that's excessive? Your tax dollars hard at work...

[jfb3 @ Apr 4th 2006 7:56PM]

Paper?

A Census Bureau worker interviewed me for over an hour a 3 weeks ago and didn't use any paper forms. She was filling in forms on a sleek little IBM/Lenova laptop.

[tom @ Apr 4th 2006 8:08PM]

I don't see how these two numbers can fit together:

"Harris Corp., which won a $600 million contract to run the field operation."

"the total cost for the 2010 census is still expected to be as much as $12 million"

Is there a typo somewhere?

[Britney @ Apr 4th 2006 8:11PM]

Should be interesting ot see if those numbers are anywhere near the real use level by that time!

[Malia @ Apr 4th 2006 8:15PM]

Why are they buying them "this year or next" when the census isn't until 2010? Do they really need 3 years to train, as the technology is getting cheaper and more dated?

[Shena Ni @ Apr 4th 2006 8:21PM]

Yah, Razib, digital rather than paper will be more accurate since it removes the data entry aspect, but what are they going to use for a check/balance system? Wouldn't being purely digital make the data easy to manipulate...like, say, voting ballots?

[EyePAQ @ Apr 4th 2006 8:23PM]

Malia - two words: "Government Program"

[Czo @ Apr 4th 2006 8:46PM]

EyePaq, How is either $12 million or $600 million equate to $40 per person when there is over 250 million people in the US? Am I missing something or misunderstanding you?
-Czo

[EyePAQ @ Apr 4th 2006 8:59PM]

Czo, The Yahoo article cited said the total cost of the program was $12 billion. I think the cost of the PDAs alone is $12 million. I took $12 billion, divided by 300 million peeps in the US = $40.

[TN @ Apr 4th 2006 9:53PM]

Actually, the GAO estimates that it'll cost the Census Bureau $72 to count each person in 2010.

[doug @ Apr 4th 2006 10:00PM]

I worked on the 1990 census and if experience holds, the problem there was the quality of the people we could get out there counting noses. There was a basic aptitude test, and I am talking BASIC. Like, on the right-hand side of the street, what is the address between 1212 and 1216? To fill the slots, we were hiring people who had answered fewer than 50% of those sorts of questions correctly. Turns out, if the economy is going well, few capable people want temporary, full-time jobs. And we weren't allowed to hire people part time. When they announced the results, I was not at all surprised that it was FUBAR.

In summation, unless things have changed structurally, I have little confidence that high-tech can actually improve things.

[geary @ Apr 4th 2006 10:02PM]

tom--you're right about the typo. the total est. cost for the 2010 census is now over $11 billion.

jfb3--you were participating in one of the many surveys the census conducts throughout the decade, the american community survey. census has transitioned away from paper acs questionnaires for many years now.

[TheMovieGoer @ Apr 5th 2006 4:18AM]

The 2000 Population Census was done with laptops, as has every other census survey since then.

First were Hitachi, then Toshiba.

Handhelds are definitely an improvement though.

[Johnasp @ Apr 5th 2006 6:30AM]

In this information age is it still necessary to manually go out and count people?

[DJ @ Apr 5th 2006 8:11AM]

Why in the hell is the government buying technology in 2006 for 2010 that will be 3 or 4 generations removed by 2008? Kinda like the Space Shuttle's computers, which many are the equivalent of an IBM PC AT with 256mb floppy drives.....

[Harris Sux @ Apr 5th 2006 5:02PM]

Too bad Harris absolutely sucks as an employer. I left there just under a month ago from their Palm Bay facility. They will piss away millions on pipe dream projects but they do not reinvest into themselves. God forbid they give their employee's a bonus but the execs have gotten rather large sums and they have donated over 10 million to alocal crappy college this year alone. Also...they will piss away over $100k renting tents for cookouts every four months but they refuse to buy the tents for less than 100k....senseless.

[psp boy @ Apr 6th 2006 11:23AM]

Would love to pick up one of those babies when they sell them as used / discounted.

[Nishu @ Apr 3rd 2007 11:05PM]

"Its never to be late than ever."
http://www.cellphonezone.org/