The logical result of the technological evolution which originated with the smartphone, the CMC is a device that is ubiquitous in Highland civilization. The original Progressive Era smartphones typically contained various communication devices for connection to a mobile cell network, local wifi network, Bluetooth devices, GPS and even FM radio reception. They were fitted with an array of sensor devices to detect and many times record, video, sound, magnetic and motion detection. Most even contained an LED light that could be used as both a photographic flash and a torch (flashlight). Additional sensors for temperature, atmospheric pressure and a variety of other parameters soon followed, initially in connected devices and eventually in integrated form.
The standard CMC is composed of commodity hardware using a combination of commodity, proprietary and personally customized software. Most Legion, public safety, and technical field users have a ruggedized commodity version of the device.
Most users buy a CMC, which typically comes with rudimentary software that allows most of the hardware to be utilized to some extent. Typically the user will then purchase software to enhance the functionality they need. Professional users often get software packages optimized for the use of members of their profession. Public safety, Legion and Church users are typically provided packages with very sophisticated functionality by their organizations.
The CMC combines three separate devices into one. It joins a communicator to a multiscanner and a computer. The device's design allows the user to leverage the capabilities of each device with the others making a very powerful tool which is useful to almost everyone.
The most mundane use of the CMC is as a communication device utilizing the communication network ubiquitously installed on just about every modern world. This same data network allows text, video and general media communication via the interweb to any world on the vast Hypercable system. This capability allows access to the public data library available throughout the Grand Human Union.
Even the most backwater agricultural planet typically has a communication network, GPS system and library database.
The CMC can also be used to record both audio and video. This allows for both entertainment and the recording of personal records, which can then be offloaded to personal or public storage.
The multiscanner was first incorporated into the smartphone at TLC at the beginning of the twenty-third century, creating the first true CMC. Prior to that discrete multiscanner devices were used. Miniaturization and advances in computer processing power made the inclusion of a multiscanner device with a range in dozens of yards possible. By TLA range increased to tens of miles, under the right conditions, for many CMC sensors.
Sensors on a CMC can divided into active and passive sensors.
PESA sensors allow for the display and recording of visual EM radiation across a wide spectrum, allowing the capture of video, still pictures, IR and UV and combination of various wavelengths for real time processing by the CMC's computer processor. The Rad monitoring capability can detect different types of radiation, including gamma allowing the instrument to act as a radio direction finder and tactical display, with the proper software, of course.
Active sensors include bio, chem and grav scanners. CMCs still contain a light source that can be used as a torch, for both visible and hyperspectoral uses. At TLB CMCs started to incorporate miniholo projectors for enhanced display capabilities.
Table One illustrated the various modes which can be used. Commodity software typically requires that each mode be operated independently. More advanced software, such as that used the Legion, allows integrated use of the device's sensor systems. This allows a CMC to be used as a tactical display, using its grav scanner in imaging mode to scan inside a building and plotting the layout, both as a set of plans and a three dimensional “X-Ray” type graphic and then projecting life signs from the bioscanner, chemical makeup of walls and objects in the building interior using its chemscanner.
A CMC can both be used as a display device for another instrument and as a scanner displaying on a HUD or video glasses or contacts. Since it's scanning information can be routed through the device's communicator it can also be used as a remote sensor device allowing it's raw or processed sensor data to be sent to a mainframe to be further processed.
In urban or village settings the CMC connects to the local network. In frontier settings a TLA CMC has the range (10 miles) to connect to other CMCs and to planetary support craft which can then relay to orbit. GPS and emergency beacons have orbital range.
The greatest limit of the CMC is processing power. An unconnected CMC can easily pick a specific individual out of a small group using a combination of its bioscanner and chemscanner, provided identifying information on that individual is available in its on board library. Even a connected CMC would have a hard time picking out a specific individual in an urban setting containing thousands of individuals. A CMC would easily be able to find a single needle in a haystack, but locating a specific needle in a pile of needles would be much more difficult, possibly even impossible.
A CMC is also only as good as the information that is available to it's processes. On any planet with a magnetic field detecting magnetic north is simple. Without stored maps, or access to a networked library containing them, even the GPS function is of dubious use for anything beyond waypoint recording. So a CMC capabilities are usually leveraged against other computer resources. An away team to a primitive world will download planetary maps, obtain from ship's survey scans to increase their CMCs usefulness for navigation. A doctor will install a medical library and expert system to enhance her CMCs ability to act as a medical diagnostic device. A technician will install a library of standard calculations and scan profiles to allow his CMC to act as a better diagnostic device.
CMCs have generally achieved deep penetration into the Midlands, though many devices are old TLC and TLB devices which have been imported from inside the Highlands. Most software is strictly commodity level, though certain areas have developed their own custom software, most of which is inferior to that found within the Highlands. Generally speaking such obsolete devices are still interoperable with Highland systems, provided they have been updated to existing encryption software and com protocols. They may lack functionality in certain areas, for example, TLC CMCs lack holoprojector capability.
CMCs are typically monomorphic, that is they are key to only respond to a particular individual, typically their owner. Certain functions, such as emergency beacon activation, can be set to bypass this security measure.
No comments:
Post a Comment