Briefcase

Strip to help protect emergency workers

A $15 strip of vinyl and paper that changes colors when exposed to nerve gas and other chemicals may protect emergency workers who rush unprotected into the heart of a disaster.

The HazMat Smart Strip, inspired by decades-old military technology, will go into production within weeks. Fire departments in New York and Florida already have ordered hundreds.

Mike Lucey, above, manager of the National Technology Transfer Center’s Emergency Response Technology program, holds one of the new HazMat Smart Strips at NTTC’s lab in Wheeling, W.Va.

Telecommunications: Mitel Networks to offer new Internet services

Hoping to capitalize on the promise of Internet-based phone services, a Canadian company is rolling out new devices for traveling workers to check voice mail and perform several other calling functions from their handheld computers.

The IP Appliance from Ottawa-based Mitel Networks Corp. looks like a regular high-end office phone but has space for docking a handheld computer.

Once situated in the phone, the handheld can display a list of voice mail messages, send files to other users on the network and facilitate complicated tasks like having calls from the boss routed to a home phone but calls from anyone else sent to voice mail.

These functions are possible because the phone uses Internet protocols.