2006 Product of the Year Awards and Design Contest Winners

The second NTB winner was Dewetron of Charles-town, RI, for its DA-130 rugged notebook computer that includes the company’s proprietary SideHAND® battery power system, allowing it to run indefinitely without any external power source. Batteries are hot-swappable, and can be exchanged even when the system is running off battery power. It has a full-length, full-size PCI slot, allowing virtually any PCI card to be installed.

Grant Smith, president of Dewetron, accepted the award, saying that, “We were amazed and gratfied to be selected as a Product of Month. But for a company with only 15 employees to win Product of the Year when so many contestants were billiondollar companies was just incredible.” He added, “I credit our customers, who feel passionately about their Dewetron products, and who must have voted for us in large numbers. We are still in shock and humbled to have won.”

For more information on Dewetron’s DA-130, click here.

The final NTB award went to Z Corporation of Burlington, MA, for the ZScanner‘ 700, a handheld, self-positioning 3D scanner that can digitize 3D surfaces in real time. The scanner is part-referenced, orienting itself to the target object, rather than to an external device. This eliminates the need for fixed-position tripods, mechanical arms, or other positioning devices.

Tracey Mulcahy, Marketing Manager, accepted the award. In a statement, Tom Clay, CEO, said “NASA Tech Briefs is a recognized authority in the engineering community, so we’re delighted that its highly informed readership appreciates the value of what the ZScanner 700 offers to the design engineering and manufacturing community and beyond.”

For more information on Z Corporation’s ZScanner 700, click here.