The U.S. Census Bureau last week officially signed a deal to buy about 500,000 handhelds and related technology from a team of vendors led by Harris Corp. The five-year contract awarded to Harris and its partners covers all aspects of the Field Data Collection Automation Project, according to Census Bureau officials.

Despite the project's steep cost, the use of handhelds should save the government "millions of dollars" by reducing the time it takes census workers to gather data, improving the information's accuracy and minimizing the need to process paper census forms, said Edwin Wagner Jr., the Census Bureau's project manager.

The pocket-size handhelds will run Microsoft Corp.'s Windows Mobile 5.0 operating system and be made by High Tech Computer Corp., a hardware vendor in Taiwan, said Bruce Buckley, director of census-related business development at Harris.

The devices, which are still under development, will be based on consumer-grade handheld technology that has been customized and made semirugged, Buckley said. For example, the handhelds are designed to have a 10-hour battery life so census staffers can work all day, he said.

The devices will also include a cellular data radio for sending encrypted information to Census Bureau offices over a dedicated Sprint Nextel Corp. network. A traditional phone-line connection port will be custom-installed for backup purposes, Buckley said.