BTW, there's a mistake in the review:

"SPOT Satellite Messenger uses its internal antenna to receive GPS signals and transmit L-band over the Globalstar Simplex data network. This provides 2-way communication with the device, even in areas with no cellular coverage."

As the name implies, the "Globalstar Simplex data network" is just that ... simplex... meaning it only goes one way, it only sends, it doesn't receive anything. So it's not "2-way communication with the device" and it's also the reason why the unit is unable to show if the message has been received or not... it simply doesn't have a return path to receive the confirmation.

That's a Hitachi Maxell DP-201 pen, based on Anoto technology (www.anoto.com). This map to GPS navigator interaction is something I've been dreaming to do for a few years now but never got around to actually implement it. But it's nice to see someone has finally done it.

Razvan

BTW, the 9502 seems to officially have HSUPA capabilities (not HSDPA, but HSUPA - high speed uploads). The Kaiser/Tilt was rumored to have HSUPA too but for some reason that feature didn't make it into the final device.

BTW, their privacy policy page is copied word for word from Apple's (http://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/) and the funniest thing was the way they simply replaced "apple" with "medison" in the end, where it links to the page for updating the personal info. Apple's is www.apple.com/contact/myinfo and theirs is www.medison.com/contact/myinfo (although the medison.com domain is not even theirs :) ).

Does anyone still think this is legit?

For a Swedish startup, they have a suprisingly _non-existent_ page in their native language... check out www.medison.se and try to click on the top link that says "SE". It's the only link that doesn't even link to an "Under construction" page. The only other language that actually works is Brasilian (actually Portugese).

Another fun fact: go to www.medisoncelebrity.com/index.php . That seems to be a leftover from their hosting providers, www.surftown.com. For a company that opened an entire laptop-making plant in Brasil, they don't seem to pay much attention to their website and they also host on the cheap :).

R.

If you check out their corporate website (www.medison.se), you'll see that their HQ is not in Sweden, but in the UK:

Medison Europe Limited
27 Ruffets Wood
Gravesend, Kent
DA12 5JQ England

So if any of you guys are in the area, you might pay them a visit in person :).

BTW, on the corporate website they brag about having their own plant in Brazil and assembling their laptops there. But the website (just like the product website) is a mess... so I think I'll hold until someone actually confirms to have seen (and operated) one of these wonder laptops :).

Razvan

According to http://www.gpspassion.com/forumsen/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=23286, their chip is actually less sensitive than SiRFStarIII, they just use dBW instead of dBm for the measurement. SiRFStarIII is -159dBm (-189dBW) and QinetiQ Q20 is -155dBm (-185dBW).

I can see a few obvious problems with this system: how do they differentiate between various types of vehicles? Ok, if you're on a highway you're probably not on a bike but to do traffic management in urban areas you would need to somehow identify the types of vehicles and classify them by speed and traffic patterns (e.g. taxis go fast but sometimes stop to pick up fares or wait for a client, bikes go slow but that's not a sign of congestion, pedestrians go even slower but that again is no sign of congestion. If I park my car and start walking, how do they tell that I got out of the car and it's not my car moving at 1mph? In an urban environment there might be more pedestrians than cars in certain areas and I doubt their system is accurate enough to detect that they are on the sidewalk and not on the actual street. But I guess I'll just wait and see, maybe they've already considered these issues.