Well it looks like we are back to pencil and paper when it comes to doing a census count. The Federal government had contracted to a Florida company (yes Florida) to come up with a system to take the census on portable electonic devices. For a bill of anywhere from $600 million to $2 billion dollars. But low and behold a electronic counting system can be too complex and cumbersome, and yes this one is too. So for the 2010 US census they will be ditching the electronic system for pencil and paper. Of course now it will require more people to take the census (Why is beyond me. Maybe one to hold the paper and the other to hold the pencil! ) and may cost up to $3 billion dollars.
I am conviced that Apple could have adapted the iPhone to do this task for no more than $200 million, complete with iPhone hardware and Filemaker Pro and it would actually work. What a great advertisement for the iPhone that would be. But in Washington you help your friends with contracts where delivering a working product is not really necessary. Pay up America.
P.S: At the very least couldn't the census takers just take a laptop with them for the census? Why develop a system from scratch? Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
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1 comment:
Stitch, in America we must search for less cost effectiveness, and indeed I do believe we are successful a good part of the time!
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