There is currently a need in cochlear implants to develop speech coding algorithms that provide better access to pitch cues, known to be critical for music perception. Such algorithms require an estimate of the fundamental frequency (FO). This paper presents the implementation of a real-time pitch (FO) detector on a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA). The pitch detection algorithm is based on the autocorrelation function and is implemented real-time on a Dell AXIM Pocket PC. Its performance, in terms of FO accuracy, is compared against that obtained by the pitch detection algorithm used in STRAIGHT. The implementation details and real-time performance measurements are also provided.

In this paper the authors describe a vision system based on combining a mobile autonomous robot and a hand-held Personal Data Assistant (PDA). All computation for control of the robot and vision are done on the robot and PDA. The TJ Pro can be outfitted with a HandSpring PDA and a digital camera to create a powerful vision equipped robot. Previously, outfitting a robot with vision required a large platform or off-robot computing power. With the vision and processing power of PDAs, low cost Mekatronix robots can perform complex vision functions at a fraction of the cost of current robots.

This paper looks at protecting PDA data from the consumer perspective by comparing five different third party security software packages for PDA’s. After analyzing those, it looks at what the original operating system on the PDA does for security. Last, the paper looks at the business perspective of the PDA, and different theories on the famous convenience versus security question.

The authors developed two browsers to support large personal photo collections on PDAs. The first browser is based on a traditional, folder-based layout that utilizes either the user’s manually created organization structure, or a system-generated structure. The second browser uses a novel interface that is based on a vertical, zoom able timeline. This timeline browser does not require users to organize their photos, but instead, relies solely on system generated structure. The system creates a hierarchical structure of the user’s photos by applying time-based clustering to identify subsets of photos that are likely to be related. In a user experiment, the authors compared users’ searching and browsing performance across these browsers, using each user’s own photo collection.

This paper presents the work carried on to adapt a Basque language Text-To-Speech (TTS) system into a mobile device of limited resources. The aim is to make possible the use of the AhoTTS conversion system of the UPV/EHU´s Aholab group, in a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA), and to test the system performance in several aspects, such as sound sample generation times. The selected PDA is a Pocket PC under the Windows CE operating system. The converter has been compiled in a library which provides an Application Programming Interface (API) to the applications. Some applications that use the created API are also described.

The authors’ demonstrated improvement of SCC skills by third-year medical students using a workshop combined with a supplemental reference tool. However, a PDA-based tool did not increase key SCC behaviors compared with a paper-based reminder. For a PDA intervention to be effective in this setting the tool must be simplified and additional training provided. This study aimed to determine if a personal digital assistant (PDA)-based SCC tool can improve medical student SCC.