TECHNOLOGY

MATERIAL CONVERSION

Electronic publishing is still in it's infancy especially when in comes to the electronic standards that exist, which range from unformatted text files to fully compliant XML.

MedHand International AB uses a data-driven approach and as a result, an XML standard for published information was developed. All material is analyzed by data experts for conversion into the XML standard. Various scripts are then produced to assist in the automation of the this process.

As updated material is provided from the publishers, conversion is performed within minutes and differential updates can be available within hours - providing the structure of the material does not change.

PATENT-PENDING

MedHand International AB uses a patent-pending presentation engine for displaying information - it's strength is that it ensures information is presented in the best possible manner and consistently on any electronic device.

The presentation engine can render:

• multiple font sizes
• enhanced textual elements
• complex tables
• full color high resolution images with zooming

Dr Companion internally generates what is displayed on the screen with no ties to the underlying platform - anything shown on a personal computer will be shown exactly the same way on a handheld computer.

Information is stored internally using a UNICODE utf-8 data stream. This ensures that all known character entities are correctly stored and displayed on every platform correctly - for example it is common to incorrectly display "µg" as "mg".

MULTI-PLATFORM

MedHand International AB's products are built on top of the SHARK multi-platform framework developed by mobility specialists Mobile Wizardry - which provides a device neutral application programming interface for the development of software.

This ensures the development team focuses on the application functionality, not the platforms being targeted. A single source code base is maintained which means when corrections are made or new features are developed, they are available simultaneously on all the supported platforms.

No matter what mobile devices are introduced to the market - as long as a native software development kit is made available - Dr Companion will be able to support it. There is no dependency on a single platform anymore.

DIGITAL RIGHTS MANAGEMENT

MedHand International AB uses an industry standard digital signature digital rights management system utilizing SHA-1 and RSA 1024-bit public key cryptography - to ensure the material is accessed only by those authorized.

Dr Companion is a subscription based service where the product automatically synchronizes with the web site to first ensure the subscription is valid and secondly ensure the latest material is available to the user.

In the event a digital signature fails verification or the user does not synchronize within the appropriate timeframe, access to the material will be revoked. Simply performing a synchronization will restore the services if the subscription is still valid.