RadioMail and the Embarc Pager
Tired of checking your e-mail account? Now there's a gadget that lets you grab your e-mail out of thin air, but it comes with a catch: to reply, you'll have to log on to a conventional online service.
Motorola's nationwide Embarc (Electronic Mail Broadcast to a Roaming Computer) paging system offers wireless delivery of electronic mail directly to notebook computers, palmtops, and pocket organizers like the Sharp Wizard.
A little larger than a pager, the Embarc unit attaches to your computer's serial port and alerts you when a message arrives. But to reply you must log on to Embarc's special mail service. That's a big disappointment - if you have to log on every time you want to send a message, why lug around another gizmo?
It isn't cheap either. In addition to the unit cost of $395, a $25 set- up fee, a $15-per-month subscription fee, and dial-in connect time at $12 per hour, there are per-message charges. For example, to send a 400 character message for delivery within 15 minutes costs $2.83.
Embarc's not cheap for interactive messaging, but it's excellent for broadcasting, especially given its deep discounts on messages sent to address groups. For example, sending a 1,200-character message to 100 people anywhere in the US costs only six cents per recipient. That'll keep your sales force informed.
Embarc includes free delivery of USA Today's basic news and weather briefs, and other news services are likely to be available soon. Motorola also offers interconnections to a few commercial e-mail services such as GE Information Services, the IBM Information Network and AT&T Mail, and plans connections with others, including MCI Mail.
Before you rush out and buy one, check out a two-way wireless service announced last fall by RadioMail Corp. in Menlo Park, Calif. The RadioMail unit is bigger than Motorola's (about the size of a small paperback book), the batteries last for a day instead of a month, and broadcasting to hundreds of users is more expensive, but it allows you to send your messages from wherever you are, without touching a phone.
Embarc Pager, 801-579-2748.
RadioMail, 415-349-5683.
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