'Repeatable Sanitization' is a Feature of PCs Now (theregister.co.uk) 90
HP has announced a trio of slightly-odd products intended for use in hospitals. From a report: The new HP EliteOne 800 G4 23.8 Healthcare Edition All-in-One PC and HP EliteBook 840 G5 Healthcare Edition Notebook are computers intended for use in the healthcare industry. The EliteBook will ship with software called "Easy Clean" that disables the keyboard, touchscreen and keypad "to facilitate cleaning with germicidal wipes while the device is still on." HP said it's scoured the market and thinks it is the only vendor on the planet with a laptop capable of handling "up to 10,000 wipes with germicidal towelettes over a 3-year period." The All-in-One boasts no antibacterial features, but does have both RFID and biometric authentication, handy features in an environment where PCs can't be left unlocked to preserve privacy. That requirement means PCs are logged on to many more times a day than the average machine, making the presence of Windows Hello facial recognition more than a gimmick. Oddly, both come with the disclaimer that they're "not intended for use in diagnosis, cure, treatment or prevention of disease or other medical conditions."
Re:Doge says (Score:4, Informative)
from the new-hot-trend dept.
More like the straight out of a press release department.
Keyboard (Score:2)
Re:Keyboard (Score:4, Funny)
There, you're welcome. HP can't market their way out of a wet paper bag.
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Have you ever tried one of those "rollable" silicone keyboards? Those are horrible to use. There is no stability in the keys, and when you try to press one it wants to move your finger to the side.
There are however also splash-proof keyboards where there is a regular keyboard underneath a flexible membrane. Those have much better feel and accuracy.
BTW, the keyboard that comes with this machine looks like a membrane keyboard, but I suspect that it could be a touch pad.
Re: Keyboard (Score:2)
There are also IP67 rated keyboards that can go in a dishwasher for cleaning purposes. Sure they are expensive, but a patient getting MRSA infection is a lot more expensive. Just have extra ones and go around swapping them out ince a week to go for a clean.
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I don't think I'd want hospitals relying on a dishwasher to keep things clean. My experience with those things is that they grow more fungus than a mushroom farm.
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All fine and good until you actually need the USB. Even if just for its final act running Deriks boot and nuke. Where the CD will need to plugged into the USB to run.
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Re: advertisement (Score:2)
Nope you plug it into a special ethernet port that will netboot anything on it into a program that will wipe every storage device attached. Booting from USB is not something you should be doing on a routine basis if you are remotely competent.
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Cleaning the computer is so low down the list of concerns for computers for healthcare.
Real issues...
1. Security: These devices need to be secure in many ways.
a. Physical Lock down, so they can't be taken away.
b. Data access ports should be locked into the pc's and free ports need to be disabled or blocked off.
c. Screen polarization. Only the person using the computer should see what is on the screen.
d. Fast authentication where the user can log-off an login easily and quickly to a system.
2. Networking: The
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Hopefully while it's still plugged in.
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While I wouldn't recommend it, There is a good chance the computer would survive it, while it may lower its life span, as parts may corrode more quickly.
The real things I would look out for are Electrolytic capacitors rupturing, solder joints melting. And the LCD Screen. But we have a good chance it will operate after being in the autoclave.
Dishwasher safe (Score:2)
Re: Dishwasher safe (Score:2)
Yeah thats unlikely to happen. Mind you have a bunch of floppy disks that need sanitizing before disposal? Stick then in the autoclave works a treat. Never tried it with tapes but I imagine it would work. Fifteen minutes at 120 Celsius steam knackers just about any electronics going.
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Panasonic Toughbook?
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Re:Dishwasher safe (Score:4, Funny)
I'm waiting for a laptop that is dishwasher safe.
They're all dishwasher safe. Give it a try. Your dishwasher will be fine.
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A new dishwasher, using distilled water and no detergents or other agents, would work just fine.
That's basically what gets done to remove the water-soluble flux after a reflow operation on a repair batch of boards, anyways.
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We did this with LCD panels, too, hard disks (helium ones) are sealed. Try actualy working repair depots before talking about that which you do not know.
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I'm waiting for reliable accurately voice recognition, kind of stops there, don't you know. Likely it will require user and computer training for better speed and accuracy and a new vocal interface.
Different sanitization? (Score:4, Interesting)
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Two decimal is just 10 in binary... So you will write all bits on and leave all but the first bit off (assuming the overflow goes back to the start).
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I was thinking the same thing. I had a few feature ideas come to mind:
Something like having the SSD which support the Secure Trim command (blkdiscard -s), where when the command is given, the trimmed pages are immediately cryptographically erased.
Tamper resistance -- if the machine is opened, the keys to the SSD are dumped, similar to the ORWL desktop computer.
A GPS/Wi-Fi system which would get the OS to suspend/hibernate if the machine is taken out of the medical area without an exception made, requiring
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Such "secure" solid state drives exist... But the way they work is that they require a decryption key be erased, rendering the data not immediately recoverable (you have to find the key first) followed by a full erase of all the storage done by the controller which will continue until it completes, even if the power is interrupted. It just restarts the wipe anytime the power is restored.
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Most SSDs support this, in fact. Encryption has been a standard feature for several years now. The secure erase command simply generates a new key, making the old data inaccessible.
Most use AES128. Drives that support OPALv2 let you pick your own encryption key, but virtually all SSDs on the market use an internally generated one if you don't.
We are finally starting to see really physically secure computers. AMD now supports encrypted RAM with very little performance loss (a few percent). Better IOMMUs prot
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I thought initially this would be about the ability to properly wipe the device's storage. Now that would have been useful...
Would not Bleach Bit serve both purposes?
"Just wipe it with a cloth and Bleach Bit!" (tm)...
disables the keyboard, touchscreen and keypad (Score:2)
But no, there is another "app for that".
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Or... just lock the machine?
Every time I need to clean the keyboard, I just lock the screen and then wipe away. Touch screen doesn't do anything useful, neither does the keyboard other than type garbage into the password box.
Sure if you're not careful you can still lock yourself out (but it's a lot harder to lock your account from the lock screen than from the login box).
If the machine isn't being used by someone, then
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If the machine isn't being used by someone, then it should be at the login screen and you can wipe away since you'd be entering junk into the login box instead.
When I hit Win+L, I go to a lock screen that requires me to press Ctrl-Alt-Del to access the "login box". Anything else I press does nothing; I'm not "entering junk" into anything. Is that not the norm?
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Windows 8 and later will wake up and prompt for a password on any keypress. You can still revert to the old behaviour by setting a GPO.
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Got it. I guess I'm behind the times.
You can still revert to the old behaviour by setting a GPO.
That seems like a better solution than installing special software for wipe-downs. I still don't get why this is useful.
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That seems like a better solution than installing special software for wipe-downs. I still don't get why this is useful.
Ctrl+Alt+Del is a special signal on Windows that only the kernel is allowed to intercept. This means that after pressing Ctrl+Alt+Del, you are guaranteed to be interacting with an interface presented by the kernel and not a userland application. This is supposed to prevent unprivileged applications from faking login prompts to steal credentials.
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We mixed signals. I understand the motivation of Ctrl-Alt-Del. I don't understand why HP's cleaning software is useful when forcing Ctrl-Alt-Del is an option. Is the convenience of a single-click login prompt really that important? Are we making sure that the hospital staff can log in one-handed?
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The point is you don't want to turn it off, or even lock it, because it's quite possibly monitoring something important, or at the very least has data up on screen you want to keep visible.. However the keyboard is covered in blood and you need to clean it off.
For the life of me I can't imagine why people are acting like this is some crazy requirement, it's literally just a switch that turns off the user inputs.
FDA Regulations (Score:3)
Oddly, both come with the disclaimer that they're "not intended for use in diagnosis, cure, treatment or prevention of disease or other medical conditions."
I bet without this disclaimer, the PC would be subject to FDA regulations, and require clinical trials.
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Japanese manufacturers have been offering something similar for years, and not just for computers. Even cheap desk calculators come with anti-bacterial easy-clean cases. Basic computer cleaning wipes often advertise anti-bacterial properties.
Probably not medical grade but great for people with a germ phobia.
If you've worked at my company (Score:2)
You'd want to put the keyboards into an autoclave. yeesh!
FYI: This is not new (Score:4, Interesting)
FYI: I work in the medical industry, and Advantech and Cybernet are two companies that make these types of all-in-one devices. The ones I have around me are at least IP65 rated and fanless. We actually do accelerated bleach tests on them because the screens on some older devices would fade to white since the touch-screens had a plastic covering.
10,000 wipes over a 3-year period (Score:2)
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vi (Score:2)
Eniroment to preserve privacy? (Score:2)
> handy features in an environment where PCs can't be left unlocked to preserve privacy.
Why would you leave a PC unlocked in order to preserve privacy? It seems like you would want to lock the PC to preserve privacy.
I suppose it is how you parse:
(PCs can't be left unlocked) to (preserve privacy).
PCs can't (be left unlocked to preserve privacy).
Antibacterial finish? (Score:2)
I would think the combination of an antibacterial finish, a sealed keyboard, and surface speakers (no grille required) would be vastly more effective.
Perhaps these have no speaker grills or other crevices that germs can settle in? Otherwise, the ability to use wipes on it is actually creating a danger - the danger that people may become complacent in a false belief that the device is sterile just because they constantly wipe it.
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Good question. I see microphones in widespread use for entering records and device control, but the device isn't talking back yet. And when it does, perhaps it could be routed to the communication earpieces they've started using now.
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As a medical health professional I usually tell people that talking to your computer doesn't mean you're crazy, it's when the computer starts talking back that you might have a problem.
Key Labels (Score:2)
Re: Key Labels (Score:2)
Laser etching, dye sublimation or best of all double shot moulding are the technologies of choice for a quality keyboard and have been for decades now. Sounds like you have only used cheap junk when it comes to a keyboard.
Wow! Inovation! (Score:2)
I've been doing this for years in Linux, I even have a shell script for it:
$ cat disable-laptop-keyboardmouse.sh
#!/bin/sh
xinput --disable 'AT Translated Set 2 keyboard'
xinput --disable 'SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad'
$ cat enable-laptop-keyboardmouse.sh
#!/bin/sh
xinput --enable 'AT Translated Set 2 keyboard'
xinput --enable 'SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad'
At cleaning time:
$ disable-laptop-keyboardmouse.sh; sleep 2m; enable-laptop-keyboardmouse.sh
Oh The Irony... (Score:2)
https://www.engadget.com/2017/... [engadget.com]
HP had to have that silly "not for treatment" note (Score:3)
otherwise, FDA might consider it a medical device, and 8 years of tests would follow. I'm serious.
HP innovates sanitation in Healthcare .. (Score:2)
What geniuses must HP possess that they came up with such innovation in 2018 - just kidding. Seriously, a couple of lines of BASH code would achieve the same effect. Seriously slashdot, is this the best you can find to fill a whole article.
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You want medical professionals running two lines of BASH on a hospital computer?
Better yet, you want the cleaners doing that?
Me, I think wrapping those two lines of BASH in a user friendly UI that lets people too stupid to realise how fucking shit they are at using computers safely interact with them is a pretty sensible move.
pissed (Score:2)
You must be so proud HP (Score:2)
They really couldn't just open notepad and maximize it or just lock the session before wiping?