A Census Bureau spokesman and officials at the project's prime contractor, Harris Corp., said this week that the handheld deployment, which was announced last April, is moving forward on schedule. The agency plans to eventually roll out 500,000 devices.

Harris demonstrated the handhelds to 50 Census Bureau officials on Dec. 14, transmitting data over a Sprint wireless network, said Mike Murray, vice president of census programs at the vendor's government communications systems division. Murray said that during May and June, the initial 1,400 handhelds to be delivered will be used in a dress rehearsal of address updates in two test markets.

As the rollout progresses, the devices will be used to update addresses nationwide in 2009 and will then be used in 2010 to input information during a canvass of homes whose residents fail to submit paper census surveys, according to Murray. In all, census takers equipped with the handhelds might visit 50 million homes, he said.

Census Bureau officials have been requesting changes in the functionality of the handhelds "almost daily," Murray said. For example, the plans for the Field Data Collection Automation project originally called for the use of fingerprint authentication only. But a second level of end-user authentication has since been added: passwords.

The handhelds will run Windows Mobile 5.0 on hardware made by High Tech Computer Corp. in Taiwan. The devices are based on consumer technology that has been customized and made semirugged. They have a 10-hour battery and a cellular data radio. A phone line port is also being built in for backup purposes if wireless connections aren't available.