The device is half full….and working

Posted By
Robert Peterson Sr. Product Manager

Welcome to the ‘new’ Windows Embedded Products and Services section of the Windows Embedded team blog.

As a quick introduction, I’m Robert Peterson, Sr. Product Manager in the Windows Embedded team. My team focuses on bringing new products and services to market around the world. This blog will cover the many ways our products and services are in the market.

Air travel can be great, well I am told it can be, and most of us have favorite stories about going through airports. Like you I often get frustrated at long lines and delays and try to avoid them. I thought about how I could have less hassle and realized there are lots of devices that make getting in and out of the airport so much smoother that we don’t even think about. On my last trip I decided to calculate how much time all those devices could save me:

I needed to check in (yes, I could have done this online but that would ruin the story); I used a Kiosk to check in at the entry of the airport as the lines were longer with the agents. If this Kiosk wasn’t working it would have taken me another 10 minutes to check in. Time saved: 10 min

I dropped off my bag (yes, there are fees and I am still waiting for a magic device to help me on that) and the bar code label on my luggage is used to automatically track my bag to the right plane….I hope.

Time saved: well no lost luggage is the norm, in the past it was over an hour to deal with lost luggage

With my boarding pass and after dealing with my friendly TSA agent, I looked for my flight on one of the many digital signs throughout the airport. Turns out my gate changed after I got my boarding pass. My new gate was in a different concourse, so I was able to go directly to the new gate saving me an extra trip. Time saved: 15 min

I was hungry so got a quick snack vs. the fine cuisine onboard (I believe ‘mystery box A’ was available for purchase on my flight), I was able to get my check and quickly pay as my server had a mobile POS device and could close out the tab right there. Time saved: 5 min (the server was good, nice tip)

Getting on the plane, the gate agent was able to quickly scan our boarding passes with fast bar code reader which really sped up the process. Having been in a few airports where they manually type in the boarding information this saves time and patience for everyone. Time saved: 10 min (I wasn’t in first class and had no stroller, middle of the line to get on the plane)

Imagine if all those devices weren’t up and running, our time to get through the airport and on the plane would be longer, in my case 40 minutes! I didn’t have any lost luggage (thank you) and I was excited to be back in sometimes sunny Seattle.

As you go through your daily routine, think about how much we rely on these various devices and how much time and trouble it would take to do the most routine things. One of the areas we are working on is how to keep all those devices up and running….