38 AMERICANWAY
NOVEMBER 15 2008
T E C H N O L O G Y
and shock themachines ahead of time, the
laptopswouldbemore likely to fail after the
fact. And Toughbooks have a 2.5 percent
annual failure rate to maintain, compared
with an industry-wide failure rate for lap-
tops of 24percent.
ThE CoNE of sIlENCE
isn’t a cone but
another chamber with thick walls and an
equally thickdoor. Its interiorwallsarecov-
eredwithhundredsofblue foamfingers. It’s
true that they’re roughly conical.
And inside, it is silent—not just sound-
proof, though it isthat,butelectromagnetic-
wave-proof. This chamber is used to test
one of the Toughbook features Walls and
his colleagues like to tout: embeddedwire-
less, as in built-in connectivity to your
wireless carrier’s 3G network and toWi-Fi
and Bluetooth devices. To figure out just
how well this embedded capability works,
the engineers have to get it away from any
potential interference. “If we have an issue,
we can completely isolate it,”Estrada says.
Among all the foam, there’s an antenna
and a floor-mounted turntable. Rising
up from the turntable is a rotating arm,
where a Toughbook will be mounted. Can
the computer get a signal from the antenna
fromanywhere in the roomand inanyposi-
tion?That’s thequestion.
Isolating the laptops here, and in a
gymnasium-size silence cone in Kobe, has
allowed Panasonic engineers to fine-tune
reception to the point that when out in the
real, loud interference-filledworld, Tough-
books can pick up a signal in places where
otherdevices can’t.
Quiet seems to emanate from the coneof
silence.Lean inside itand theoutsideworld
starts to fade away. “It’s like a sensory-
deprivation chamber,”Wallsquips.
“If you locked yourself in, we wouldn’t
hearyou scream,”addsBobOsmond, oneof
Panasonic’smedia reps.
“You’dbe like a tree falling in the forest,”
Walls says.
I lean further, looking at the turntable
and theantenna, hearing the silence.
“Want togo inside?”Estradaasks.
“You cango inside,”Walls agrees.
No thanks.Norwould Iwant to sit inside
a 160-degree-Fahrenheit HALT chamber,
ordropmyselfoneveryedge from three feet
or higher, or lie prone while water or silica
flour sprays at me, trying to find an entry
point. Maxwell Smart might love discom-
fort, even danger, but I don’t. Good thing
I’mnot aToughbook.
Or another laptop, for that matter. As
we’re walking back to the engineering
department, Walls tells me potential cus-
tomers sometimes bring their current lap-
tops into theSecaucus building. Theywant
toplaya littleone-on-one.Theold “my lap-
top just might be as good as your laptop”
trick.
Sowhat happens?TheToughbooks keep
on spinning. Somewhere along the heat-
cold-thermal-shock, keyboard-pounding,
hinge-working line, theothers stop.
Missed it by thatmuch.
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