Understanding the risks of using commercial off-theshelf (COTS) electronic components, specifically laptop computers, in a non-commercial environment is critical to designers of military systems. The environment studied in this paper is that of an unpressurized aircraft cockpit operating at 35,000 feet. During operation in this environment, COTS may be exposed to low atmospheric pressure and ma...

The Carnegie Mellon Laptop Orchestra (CMLO) is a collection of computers that communicate through a wireless network and collaborate to generate music. The CMLO is the culmination of a course on Computer Music Systems and Information Processing, where students learn and apply techniques for audio and MIDI programming, real-time synchronization and scheduling, music representation, and music inf...

The Carnegie Mellon Laptop Orchestra (CMLO) is a collection of computers that communicate through a wireless network and collaborate to generate music. The CMLO is the culmination of a course on Computer Music Systems and Information Processing, where students learn and apply techniques for audio and MIDI programming, real-time synchronization and scheduling, music representation, and music inf...

This study provides an in-depth description of adult learners’ perceptions and experiences using laptop computers in higher education institutions. The study also examines the influence on human beings’ cognitive activity by using laptops. The results are organized into seven themes and four classifications: usage, benefits, limitations, and cognitive impacts.

A touchpad is a common input device for notebook computers. However, pointing performance is poor in comparison with a mouse. This research is motivated by the need to improve the touchpad as an input device -to bring it closer to a mouse in pointing performance. To learn how users operate the touchpad during pointing tasks, we measured the force applied to the touchpad. We also measured the fo...

OBJECTIVE To ascertain young people's perceptions of an adolescent health survey when administered by multimedia computer assisted self-administered Interview (M-CASI) through analysis of (1) questionnaire item responses and (2) focus group interviews. METHODOLOGY SETTING Auckland, New Zealand, 1999. STUDY TYPE Pilot testing of a 488-item branching questionnaire delivered using a youth-o...

Vol. 9 No. 3 1997 An advanced product development effort undertaken by graphics engineers in the DIGITAL Workstations Group led to the creation of a new software application called Shared Desktop. One project goal was to enable collaboration among users of three-dimensional (3-D) graphics workstations that run either the UNIX or the Windows NT operating system. Another goal was to allow these u...