Hitachi, Ltd. today announced the release of "Partout," a position and condition recognition system 
to check one's position and condition on a PC from August 2 from its Information & 
Telecommunication Systems(President & Chief Executive Officer,: Toshihiko Odaka).
     
This system allows, in addition to position information of a user, detection of a user's condition 
(walking, running, stopping and falling) by a body motion sensor built into a dedicated terminal.  
"Partout" can be used in a variety of fields such as protection/ search of elderly people with 
symptoms of dementia, support for the handicapped when going out, and emergency assistance of      
the outdoor worker.
     
It is now estimated that the number elderly people with symptoms of dementia will reach 1.5 million     
in the year 2000.  Securing the safety for these elderly people, while relieving the spiritual/physical      
burden on the caregivers is an important task in today's society.  There have been cases where the      
elderly with symptoms of dementia travel by train to a town tens of kilometers away, making a 
search for them difficult. Its also provides relief to a caregiver to be able to monitor the location of      
a user, especially to determine the proximity of the person being monitored and whether that      
person is still walking, and to provide general protection to the person being monitored.
     
As this as our motivation, we developed a prototype position and condition recognition system in 
July, 1998.  A trial test using this search system for elderly people with symptoms of dementia was     
performed in Abiko City, Chiba from August, 1998 and Subo-Oshima, Yamaguchi in November of 
1988.  The trail test, taken with the consent of the family, was conducted in homes that cared for 
elderly people with symptoms of dementia.  The elderly person was fitted with a dedicated terminal 
for the position/condition recognition system developed by Hitachi to check his or her position and 
condition from a remote place during a 24-hour period.
     
The present release of "Partout" provides a system capable of recognizing the position and condition 
of a user via a dedicated terminal on a PC using dedicated .
     
The dedicated terminal combines a portable telephone and a GPS(*1), covering a wide area capable 
of detecting a user's position with precision from near and far distances.

In addition, Hitachi's original body motion sensor is designed to monitor, on a PC in real time,      
the condition of a user (walking, running, stopping and falling) fitted with a terminal.  Map data, "     
MapDK client map" made by IncrementP Co., Ltd. was used to map countrywide areas in 1/6250 
scale providing pinpoint information.
     
Furthermore, based on the results of the trial, we added light weight and power savings to the      
features.  Also we added programming functions to monitor conditions of "running", support 
functions to monitor the subject at regular-intervals, and a function to automatically notify the center      
in case of emergency and in the case when the subject falls.
     
This system can be used not only as a information support system to monitor the elderly with 
symptoms of dementia, but also for assisting in providing security to children and the handicapped.  
It can be used when going out, in times of emergency or for the worker outdoors.  On top of this 
monitoring of the transportation of valuables and so on are other obvious uses.  We expect to 
receive orders for 200 sets of the center system and 10,000 dedicated terminals by the end of 1999.  
Sales are being promoted mainly to local un-named sources, the police and security companies.
     
     
*1 GPS: Global Positioning System (a system for measuring position using electronic signals from     
32 satellites orbiting the earth.)
     
Major system configuration and release date of Position/Condition Recognition System "Partout"
     
Product name		Price (Yen)	Release date
Software "Partout"     	5,000,000      	August 1, 1999
Partout terminal       	248,000        	August 1, 1999
MapDK client map       	100,000        	Already released 
(made by IncrementP 
       Co., Ltd.)            
     

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