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course.”
    “What sort of power source? Double-A batteries?”
    “That glass wedge extending from the top is a solar cell that charges an ultra-capacitive barium-titanate based battery. It’s supposed to be able to out-perform traditional batteries by a factor of ten. The wedge also houses the antenna circuitry. For all the bleeding-edge technology TSO has packed into it, it’s amazingly small.”
    Alice shrugged acquiescence but continued with her critical examination. “Only one button—the power switch? Does the documentation give us more detail about the user interface?”
    “A little, but the LCD screen is a touch screen, so the functionality will be controlled by the software and the LCD will indicate where to touch, depending on the current application the device is running. And yes, the button is a power switch, or more accurately a stand-by switch, since the device is always on. The button just enables the touch screen and turns on the backlight. There’s a USB connector on the bottom, but that’s only for inputting maps and waypoints, and updating the firmware,” Adam explained. “It may be redundant, since it has its own proprietary communication protocols built-in. Firmware upgrades, waypoints, and overlay maps can be sent to the unit directly from TSO. In a terrestrial application, or anywhere you can access a communications satellite, it has sat-phone capabilities for voice and data, which is the reason for the speaker and microphone. You can even do SMS text messaging.”
    Alice snickered. “Handy. So astronauts can text each other while they’re flying between planets, huh? I can imagine the messages—OMG IM N SPACE RU2? Seriously, this unit looks like it’s permanently sealed. I take it we aren’t going to be doing any quality testing of the components or serviceability?”
    “No, we aren’t. We are doing field user application testing only, and recording our user experiences. Ed Odan supplied the testing scenario and wants some feedback on what might be causing the anomalies they’ve noticed, but other than that it’s all dumb-user testing. The technology is just barely beyond theory, so many of the components are proprietary. No established standards to test against.”
    “Usually that’s pretty boring stuff, just doing the UAT part. Since you took the job, I assume it’s not going to be typical end-user testing.”
    “It’s certainly going to be different than any other testing we’ve ever done. I already mentioned to you that we’ll be working in remote areas of the country; as you know, the scenario requires us to travel to Georgia. We’re going to be the first ever to use this device. It has the potential to replace nearly every current form of electronic navigation. This could be an opportunity to be part of something history-making, not to mention the marketing value it will give our testing services.”
    “Now you’re starting to sound like our old pal John Overton.” Alice smirked, anticipating Adam’s reaction to her jibe.
    He rose to the bait. “Don’t even go there. John would take on any project we could do for a buck. I’d like to grow the company for the benefit of us all, but there are limits. You know my philosophy is to offer a quality service that we can expect to charge for accordingly. I think this contract will give us the credibility to begin testing for more of the emerging technology companies, getting more interesting assignments rather than just testing to see if the next MP3 player is easy enough for junior to use. More of the stuff you, I, and the others really want to spend our time doing.”
    “I’m all for that,” Alice agreed. “It would be great to only work on the things we enjoy. Not sure if that’s possible, but it sounds great. It also suits me to be working outside for a while. Traipsing around in the mountains of Georgia instead of sitting in some cubicle or my home office sounds wonderful, almost more like a