A Personal Digital Assistant (PDA), also called a palmtop computer, is a handheld computer. Being the size of a palm, it is compact and easy to carry wherever one goes. It carries out all the basic functions of a computer also. It can be used as web browser, a media player and mobile phone. Availability of Wi-Fi or Wireless Wide-Area Networks allows many PDAs to access the Internet, extranets or intranet.
PDAs are deployed for various kinds of applications across businesses and government organizations. Some of the commonly found applications are package delivery and supply chain management in warehouses, medical treatment and record keeping in hospitals, facilities maintenance and management and ‘wireless waitress’ applications in restaurants and hospitality venues. It is also deployed in meter reading by utilities, route accounting, parking enforcement, capital asset maintenance, and access control and security. Automatic Identification and Data Capture (AIDC) devices such as Radio Frequency Identification (RFID), Smart Card Readers, Bar Code, magnetic stripes, voice recognition, biometrics and Optical Character Recognition (OCR) are being incorporated into the PDAs. This is to assist in identifying objects, collecting data about them as well as entering the data automatically.
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