Ricoh's eWriter Combo Solution Automates Knowledge Management

The "eQuill" secure, WiFi enabled, digital clipboard interface [ctrl-click image to launch demo video]. Image Credit: Ricoh eWriter Solutions

Ricoh's eWriter Combo Solution Automates Knowledge Management

We scan in thousands of paper pages to memory, index the images so that we can locate them in a relevant search, have special permissions and authorizations captured on paper and wish to have these added to our digital Knowledge Management/Information Technology (KM/IT) process environment. Locating, tracking, utilizing, capturing, and just general Information Technology process could drive the average, yet intelligent person to be completely lost without a process handbook. Being able complete a task could take an incredible amount of time and direct knowledge about the transaction map in order to receive the desired result.

Having a heads up display, just as pilots have in order to know what is going on with the craft they are flying, would be nice to have in order to be able to deal with the demands and transactions that occur in a typical corporate KM/IT environment.

Head's Up! - Ricoh's eWriter Solutions combination for a paperless transaction, and more efficient KW/IT world. Image Credit: Ricoh eWriter Solutions

Enter Ricoh and the eWriter Solutions "eQuill" WiFi-enabled control tablet that can be used as a digital clipboard combined with Ricoh's cloud services enterprise software to bring a head's up mentality or focus to the KM/IT processes and workflow one encounters on a daily basis. The eWriter Solutions eQuill eliminates paper as it automates capture, storage, and maintenance of a KM/IT environment from point-of-capture to point-of-audit.

The Ricoh eWriter Solutions system improves business efficiencies by moving paper processes ... online. The tablet control interface delivers all the qualities of paper by bringing all that people like about working with paper ... to the eQuill digital clipboard.

The Ricoh eWriter Solutions system embodies all the advantages of business-class KM/IT by extending secure KM/IT services to the edges of any organization. The eQuill interface automates IT without altering the current workflow used today. Use the tablet interface as one would a clipboard and achieve accurate, lower cost, and higher quality barrier-breaking results over traditional, non-online, paper-based approaches.

The Ricoh eQuill system solution allows one to reduce the paper in a process from a typical workflow from a possible eight (8) steps to just two (2).

TYPICAL Paper-Based Process:

Image Credit: Ricoh eWriter Solutions


Ricoh eWriter Solutions eQuill digital clipboard system:

Image Credit: Ricoh eWriter Solutions

Image Credit: Ricoh eWriter Solutions


Depending on the Knowledge Management/Information Technology environment, the advantages of barrier-breaking results are almost boundless. At Ricoh, the eWriter Solutions eQuill system solution is all about workflow automation and bridging the "paper gaps" that exist in every KM/IT critical communications workflow process.

What do the "paper gaps" (leakage) cost an average business? Well, in most cases the Ricoh eWriter Solutions eQuill paperless approach delivers a Return-On-Investment of around six (6) months. When most business operations consider a good decision is one that can deliver cost advantage benefits within a two (2) year ROI timeframe ... a six month ROI decision becomes a no-brainer.

Who needs an eQuill digital clipboard for secure, paperless communications? Image Credit: Ricoh eWriter Solutions

So, if your Health Care, Document Management, Mobile, Field Service, Product Delivery, On-Site Construction, Factory Floor, and etc. Workforce could use a tool as revolutionary as a pilot's head's up display, like an online, digital clipboard combined with cloud services management [complete with routing simplification, audit intelligence, tamper proof, evidence ready, standards compliant (HIPAA, FIPS Validated, SAS 70 Audited), functionality], then Ricoh's eWriter Solutions eQuill digital clipboard system solution is ready to work for your Knowledge Management/Information Technology, secure paper functions, of your business.

Released in the United States on June 1, 2011 with the rest of the world to follow soon.

Google's Blogger Down For Over 24 Hours!

Blogger Logo - Image Credit: Blogger.com

Google's Blogger Down For Over 24 Hours!

Blogger ... Google's web log hosting portal, has been down for a full 24 hours at the time of this posting.

This seems like a modern era record for this usually very reliable communications service and personal publishing arm of the giant search powerhouse, Google.

With all of the push Google has been putting in on Chrome, one has to ask - Is Blogger now becoming just an ugly stepchild to the array of focused services that Google has to offer? What - isn't Blogger sexy enough for Google to keep outages down to a minimum?

If this is the case, Google's shine is losing its luster.

This excerpted from Blogger's Status Link:

Push-Button Publishing

Blogger Status

Friday, May 13, 2011

We’ve started restoring the posts that were temporarily removed and expect Blogger to be back to normal soon.

Posted by at 06:07 PDT

To get Blogger back to normal, all posts since 7:37am PDT on Weds, 5/11 have been temporarily removed. We expect everything to be back to normal soon. Sorry for the delay.

Posted by at 04:25 PDT

----

UPDATE May 13, 2011 - 9:50am PT:

Blogger back online after nearly 30 hours of non-service.

Thanks, Google ... but we will be keeping an eye on you.

Intel Goes 3-D On Transistor Design Concept

In the three-dimensional tri-gate transistor, there's a lot of gate surface area in contact with the semiconductor material, so there's a lot more of the tiny strip of semiconductor material (pictured as the blue inversion layer) for current to flow through. This makes the difference between the transistor's "on" and "off" states much larger, which means that the transistor can switch between states much faster while still producing a clear string of ons and offs. Image Credit: Intel

Intel Goes 3-D On Transistor Design Concept

This month will go down in electronics history as the time marked as the advent of transistor design going three dimensional (3-D).

Intel has been exploring this new 22nm "tri-gate" transistor for over a decade, and the company first announced a significant breakthrough with the design in 2002. A trickle of announcements followed over the years, as the new transistor progressed from being one possible direction among many to its newly crowned status as the official future of Intel's entire product line.

This approach is significant primarily because it improves the core function of a computer to process data via the transistor switch. The transistor's substrate is sort of like a magic wire that can either conduct electricity or not, and the gate is the switch that controls whether the wire will conduct or not.

When a voltage is applied to the metal plate that forms the transistor's gate, a tiny strip of semiconductor material between the source and the drain changes from an insulator into a conductor, thereby turning the switch "on" and allowing current to flow from the source to the drain. When the voltage is removed, current stops flowing ... or, at least, current is supposed to stop flowing when the switch is off. In reality, trace amounts of current will constantly flow between the source and the drain. This so-called "leakage current" wastes precious power and becomes even more of a problem as transistors get smaller and more numerous.

Standard transistor gate design (note: blue layer functions as the switch). Image Credit: Intel

In the three-dimensional tri-gate transistor, there's a lot of gate surface area in contact with the semiconductor material, so there's a lot more of the tiny strip of (magic wire) semiconductor material (pictured as the blue inversion layer) for current to flow through. This makes the difference between the transistor's "on" and "off" states much larger, which means that the transistor can switch between states much faster while still producing a clear string of ons and offs.

Planar transistor vs Tri-Gate transistor. Image Credit: Intel

Another advantage relates to reducing its power consumption. One could take advantage of this new structure by applying less voltage to the gate. Sure, the blue inversion layer adjacent to the gate would be less conductive, but there's more of it available to carry electrons, so one can still let the same amount of current through when the switch is on.

The middle part that sticks up there is called a "fin." If Intel wants to stretch the gate and inversion layer sizes out even further, its approach lets it add multiple fins under a single gate, for boosts in performance and/or power at the expense of transistor density.

Ultimately, the advantage of stretching the gate out into the third dimension are that one can much more easily either boost the chip's frequency or reduce its power, or some mix of the two.

Graph shows advantages of new 22nm 3-D design over 32nm Standard gate design in transistors. Image Credit: Intel

Intel claims that the 22nm tri-gate transistors switch between 18 and 37 percent faster than the 32nm planar type (depending on the voltage level). Or, looked at from the voltage side, the new design can reduce active power by up to 50 percent.

These design advantages deliver very significant jumps in performance and efficiency, and these 3-D transistors will go a long way toward making Intel's "x86 in smartphones at 22nm" dreams come true.
(ht: Ars Technica)

Additional resource reading

• Intel's tri-gate page (intel.com)
• A tri-gate press briefing from 2006 (download.intel.com)
• Another good Intel tri-gate explainer (intel.com)
• Intel press backgrounder on tri-gate. (newsroom.intel.com)
• Intel's announcement (newsroom.intel.com)
• RWT on challenges at 22nm (realworldtech.com)