And you know, the article actually states that it can’t count the number of people in a household.

I always tell them that my handheld is scanning for unregistered firearms.

She told me last night that users must have two different fingerprints recognized by the system, so they can still get into the unit in case one of their fingers get chopped off. Ugh!

Only one of these words is pertinent to the performance of the tool, and judging by comments from actual users of the device, not entirely accurate. The rest are hyperbole or subjective.

This project started years ago, before you could get a PDA with a GPS built-in. The government does NOT want to take a “the consumer market will built just what we need when we need it” approach. If the technology is not off-the-shelf (and it wasn’t at the time), they will build it.

Also keep in mind that it is just not about providing a solution. I do not know the details about this device in particular, but governments run on paperwork. There were specifications that Harris had to meet. I would not be surprised if the specifications changed on a weekly basis. This thing probably had to be waterproof, drop-proof, and secure.

Hind-sight is always 20/20. It is easy to say now that the iPhone is out and would fit the needs perfectly, but who knew exactly what an iPhone was four years ago? They also started coding this years ago. Which language do they use? C++? Won’t work on an iPhone. If they pick a language, they have to stick to it, or go through the pain of porting. Same for the OS on the phone. Who could predict exactly what the software environment would look like in three years? If you make your own, you have control over these types of things.

Any government contractor will want a good excuse for price gouging – so expensive solutions mean complex things that break all the time (those helpdesk calls are a source of income for someone).

Actually having it being a better solution than a paper map and a clipboard probably wasn’t part of the tender, and probably wasn’t evaluated by anyone competent.

@Monopole – if this did what it was supposed to do, and was half as robust as the FedEx doodads, my guess is that most BBers would be saying WANT! (the rest would need a steam gauge added).

HHC? The hand strap was a nice touch. My crew lost two of these $1000 units by using them to break a fall while clumping around in the wilderness. Well, they did save a scraped up hand.

I haven’t researched how address canvassing was achieved 10 years ago, so don’t know if the HHC made things easier or not. There were problems other than the HHC of course, but the job was completed ahead of schedule. Most of the field problems were solved by the enumerators themselves with good ole yankee ingenuity.

The HHC will not be reused next year for enumeration. The sole purpose of the HHC is to canvass addresses. The actual counting would be paper based.

The real shame here is Harris taking so many years to build such a crap device. But hey, from Halliburton-style companies I don’t expect anything better — they don’t really care about satisfying the customer, as competition in the sector is ridiculously small anyway, the only thing that matters is getting as much taxpayer money as possible in the less accountable way as possible.

I’m not sure who won in your story, but in a real life battle I’d put my money on the side with the better tech.

Second, the problems with the long transmission times referred to in #20 has been fixed. It was not inherent to the hand held computers; it resulted from problems synchronizing the databases in the fielded handhelds to the servers in the Data Processing Center.

Third, the Census Bureau is way ahead of schedule on the Address Canvassing operation. They expected to be able to canvass 1.5 million addresses a day, but have achieved 9 million.

Fourth, the maps are provided by the Government. The handhelds can only display the maps provided. The handheld apps do allow the canvassers to add/delete houses/streets/neighborhoods accurately using the GPS capability and a simple touchscreen operation.

Finally, the Census is far more than counting the people in households. When you get your Census form to fill out, you will be surprised how long the form is. The canvassers also have to count people in jails, retirement homes, homeless communities in the woods, etc.

What the handheld looks like is absolutely meaningless in a project of this size. Tell us again how two hacks could put this system together in 6 months.

An informed reader.

The main problem I have with the HHC could be fixed very easily. I work in a rural state and deal with AAs (Assigned Areas) that are sometimes upwards of 60 square miles with dozens of Census Blocks included in the AA. I start at a specific address that the HHC has selected and either accept or reject what the Address Canvasser has entered and then proceed to check that next address as the original canvasser would have done. Once the HHC tells me that the entire AA has paased quality control check, I have to then go to each block that has duplicates or deletes. The HHC tells me (in text), what blocks need to be checked. The problem is that the blocks on the map are not marked with the block numbers making it hard to find all of the blocks that need checking. You can go to the map and hit an I (Identification button) and tap a block to find the block numbber, but with so many blocks needing checks, this is not a good way to figure out where to start and where to go next.

Solution: Simply change all the blocks that need to be checked to a different color. This would make it easy to find the blocks and plan an efficient route to do the checks. Adding the block number to the map would be gravy.

Currently, I use Google maps to print out the large AAs, usually in 2 or more sheets. I then use the HHC and fill in block numbers on the paper maps. Clunky, but I think I do a more efficient job.