Philips unveils the Cliniscape medical tablet PC

Philips unveils the Cliniscape medical tablet PC

Posted by Nilay Patel

Although the tablet form factor hasn't exactly taken the consumer market by storm, they're ideal for specialized applications like medicine, and Philips' Cliniscape "Mobile Clinical Assistant" is the latest device to target the hospitals. Designed by Intel's Digital Health Group, the Cliniscape features a 10.4-inch touch screen, a custom installation of Vista Business running on a Core Solo processor with 1GB of RAM, a 60GB disk, 802.11n, RFID and Bluetooth radios, barcode scanner, a 2 megapixel camera, 3.5-hour battery and a single USB port, all contained in a sealed "medical-grade" enclosure that can be wiped clean with disinfectant and withstand a 1 meter drop. When docked in the "grab-and-go" base station, the Cliniscape can be used as a desktop machine with three additional USB ports and an Ethernet jack. Philips says software vendors are working to optimize their patient-care apps for the MCA platform, and that the Cliniscape should be on sale in Spring 2008.