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Panasonic releases a zany superhero comic to promote Toughpad FZ-E1

A meek I.T guy (why are I.T. guys always presented as meek weirdos?) saves the day using his Toughphone Toughpad (which is definitely not a phone) when the superhero team he works gets themselves in a pickle. Supposedly this is only the first in a series of Panasonic comic books (Panacomics?)

Yeah, it's an advertisement, but at least it's a fun advertisement.

Read the first issue of "Unbreakable Valor" here.

Be careful with that caps lock key, boys and girls.

Building a better doorstop: The Jammer

Christine, a friend of the Johnson family, comes with us every year to the Police Security Expo in Atlantic City. It's a free trip for her and an extra hand for us. Provided her hands are operational.

Before the show opens, vendors file in and out of the convention center hauling giant display setups like ants carrying picnic scraps ten times their body weight back to the colony. Doors swing open and shut in constant flux at every threshold. The exhibitors are focused on the task at hand, tired and determined to collapse into their hotel rooms. In such an environment, it's easy to lose track of your surroundings, the people around you, someone's hand wrapped around the edge of one double door as you shove the other one open. Mistakes happen.

A few conventions ago, Christine was helping carry our gear into the center, fumbling with three large banners rolled up and stacked like logs. Holding the load between one arm and her chin, she snatched the side of the door with her free hand just before it swung closed behind the tactical flashlight sellers in front of her. If her fingers had been any less slender, she wouldn't have made it. At the same moment, a man from an EMS supply booth was heading out through the opposing door. When he pushed his door open, the gap between doors narrowed and snagged Christine's fingers, crushing them like coffee beans in a burr grinder. The guy felt so awful about it that he stopped by our booth regularly throughout the next two days to check up on her and tend to her injuries. It was sweet, really. Fast forward to today, and now they're married!

OK, that last part isn't true. That would be a good story, though. One for the grand kids.

If only there were some device that could stop a door from closing. Prop it open with a flowerpot full of dirt? That's a mess just waiting to happen. Remove it from its hinges? Too much work, plus we're not paying to heat/cool the outdoors! Wedge it open with a piece of wood on the floor? Oh. I've just described a doorstop.

Though I'm being a bit facetious, let's bear in mind that traditional doorstops suck. People kick them loose, they slide around on tile floors and always seem to disappear, integrating themselves into some child's building blocks. Not every new product has to be some fancy gizmo with a wireless internet connection and a flux capacitor. Sometimes we just need a better solution to a common problem, like that famous Ralph Waldo Emerson quote about building a better mousetrap (to paraphrase): "Someone oughta build a better mousetrap. My house is infested with mice."

Sometimes a solution to a problem is so simple and elegant that it seems obvious in hindsight. "Problem solved," it seems to say. "Next problem, please." Case in point, one of my favorite items from this year's Police Security Expo: the Jammer. It's a candy cane-shaped piece of plastic, available in black or high visibility yellow. Hang it over a door hinge to prevent the door from closing behind you, potentially locking you in or crushing someone's fingers. The bright yellow color makes it easy to mark where you've been, an effective way to communicate that a room has been cleared. You can carry a bunch of them around with you in your pocket, hooked onto a belt loop, dangled from your ears (for fashion), or tucked into your vest. At his booth, Jammer creator Tom Surowiec showed me a chunk of wood with a bent nail sticking out of it, his inspiration. "Firefighters use these," he said. "They're a resourceful bunch."

"That," I said, "is brilliant."

Jeff Gordon and Panasonic confirm Toughbook-branded #24 car

It's confirmed.

Will Jeff Gordon drive a Panasonic Toughbook-sponsored car in New Hampshire and Sonoma?

It looks like we might soon see Jeff Gordon tearing it up Toughbook style. According to Jayski, an ESPN-affiliated website for all things NASCAR, Panasonic could serve as the primary sponsor for Gordon's #24 car for two upcoming events this season:

Hearing that Panasonic, an associated sponsor / partner of Hendrick Motorsports will be the primary sponsor at Sonoma Raceway in June and/or New Hampshire in July. Supposedly the car will be blue and white and feature the Panasonic Toughbook mobile computers.

Cool beans.

Survivor Truck: How to make it through the apocalypse with Panasonic Toughbooks

Jim DeLozier is a security consultant by trade. We should all be so lucky to have a job that suits us so well. Jim DeLozier is really into safety, security and -- perhaps above all -- survival. His aptly named Survivor Truck, a ruggedized driving machine that combines the best aspects of military and emergency services vehicles with numerous added bells and whistles, pushes the boundaries for catastrophe preparedness. It can drive in virtually any terrain and sustain itself for days on end in the wilderness.

At the Survivor Truck's core is a Panasonic Toughbook CF-31 rugged laptop and a Toughpad FZ-G1 tablet. The CF-31 serves as the central element of the vehicle's command center. "One of the most important things about the Survivor Truck is the mobile technology," says DeLozier, moments before throwing his very expensive Toughpad FZ-G1 on the ground. He uses it for communication and camera operation, remotely keeping tabs on what's going on in and around his truck. "Before we had something like this," he says, "you basically had to be with the equipment. You couldn't operate it remotely, but now ... I can do everything that I can do in there, out there."

Cool. So this is a very practical piece of equipment that's presumably meant for military and disaster relief situations, right? Or maybe it's for one of those people who's getting ready for the apocalypse.



Did he, in passing, mention that it has a sniper platform? A tarp to hide from helicopter surveillance? If I ever find myself in a world where I, personally, need more ammunition on hand than a normal truck is capable of carrying, I'm not sure I want to make it. A long life of fending off mutants and cannibal hoards just ain't for me.

Still, it's a badass truck with badass Toughbooks.

3 of the most gloriously inane news stories from this week - Friday Link Roundup

Dog bites man

Because groundbreaking stories about Toughbooks are few and far between, I sometimes joke about all the non-news items that find their way into my Friday link dump. In journalism, they are called "dog bites man" stories (not to be confused with "man bites dog" stories, the classic aphorism stating that inversions of ordinary events are newsworthy). Anyway, a deputy in Georgia wanted to take a selfie with a police dog, so he crouched down, put his arm around the K-9's neck, and -- per all its training and instincts -- it bit him in the face. I just felt like that story belonged here. (The Daily Citizen via PoliceOne)

WSJ looks at a cop car

Last week I made fun of the Panasonic for Business blog for writing a story that essentially amounted to "Police use Toughbooks." It turns out even the Wall Street Journal sometimes struggles to find a story. In this piece, a Sioux Falls, South Dakota highway patrol officer talks about how he works in a police car and has a Toughbook in the police car and how he spends a lot of time in the police car. The article is scarce on details and includes a photo gallery of a few random aspects of the car. It's the journalistic equivalent of a shrug. It's hilarious. (Wall Street Journal)

Man throws traffic cones at people

On Monday, around 5:00 p.m., a California man left Kaiser Permanente Medical Center after two employees refused to hook him up with some painkillers. Around midnight, he returned, agitated and brandishing two traffic cones, which he proceeded to throw at the hospital workers before making his escape. (Please note that this was seven hours later, which means that throwing some traffic cones was a premeditated attack.) Authorities were called, and a plan was hatched. The wily police would place a phone call to the man and ask him to come to the police station. The man would come in, and they would arrest him. "That's so crazy it just might work," someone undoubtedly said. And you know what? It did work. (The Marin Independent Journal via EMS1)