nads = hands

When are we going to get Ovi Suite for Mac? When are we going to get iSync to support N97? They still sell the N97 without even the first firmware upgrade, which means they don't work at all - and you need to have a PC to get your phone working. Or leave it to in the nads of Nokia Care for about a week... (this in Finland)

I'm afraid the same will happen with N900, they ship an unfinished product that I can't bring up to speed myself.

C'mon, get on with it, not ALL Mac-users want iPhones...

So, no crash testing on vehicles you like?

"Roadrunner is for military use only"

So, does playing Doom qualify as "military use"?

This is everything but stupid. This isn't just gaming gear, although of course that would be Engadget's angle to this, but a system for motion capture in general. The authors themselves envisage this to be used as a controller, but also see other potential uses. There's a lot of research in this field, everything from basic research in body dynamics to sports and music research.

One big problem is that the equipment is very expensive, one MoCap camera costs thousands of dollars and you usually need about 8-16 of them. And then you need to bolt them to the walls, so you can only study motion that can be produced in that space. This setting is portable (although that also creates a problem, it doesn't have a fixed reference point in space) so it can be used to study motion in everyday situations, such a driving a car, and in settings where MoCap usually is impossibe, such as skiing down a slope.

Also, as data collection with this system isn't tied to the lab, it allows new kinds of longitudinal designs and just collecting massive amounts of data. And all this for a few thousand bucks, I'd say that's very smart.

I always thought John McEnroe would be more in need of artificial nerves.

And they found yet another place to hide the on/off button, probably just to keep the uninitiated from using them... It's actually quite hilarious to observe non-mac users in computer rooms trying to switch on an iMac (any generation, really). No wonder many people still think they "can't use macs" even though for the basic user macs and pcs aren't that different anymore.

I think these little features form a big part of the mac-appeal, and I like them, too, but they have an air of exclusivity and even smugness to them.

Although I suppose you could harness steam to turn the crank of the machine, which I think he had planned to do. (Not sure, though, and the replica in London is hand-operated). But you're right, the actual operation was mechanical. Not to mention that Babbage never built full versions of any of his designs. The Science Museum in London has built a replica based on Babbage's drawings, though, and Babbage had a smaller "demo" version made of his first difference engine.

Also, I wouldn't call difference engine a computer, as it was only doing one thing. Babbage had plans for an "analytical engine" which would have been partly programmable general-purpose machine, thus meriting the title of a predecessor of a computer.

I find it amazing that at this day and age, these kinds of obviously impossible machines still get this much publicity, and that people take this seriously enough to turn up to the demo or write rebukes to papers etc.

Orbo does make a point. It's not about physics, though, but about the human nature.

Yeah, these are so-called "conventional trains", and not MAGLEV. Of course for a connection to be run at these speeds, the track needs to be top grade as well. They often run in concrete canyons (to prevent the above mentioned deer or anything else from coming to the tracks), have no level crossings and no slower (freight or passenger) traffic. In some places they use these tracks for freight traffic during night time, which you of course can't do with MAGLEV at all.

For most train connections the limitations in speed don't actually come from the engine, they come from other traffic and of course track conditions - for high speeds the curves must be tilted (although some fast trains have tilting bodies so that they can run faster on older tracks, and so that the track can be used on slow speeds for freight trains, that can't take too much tilt) and not too tight. In many places the main obstacle for faster train traffic are level crossings - substituting them with bridges or underpasses is costly and often impractical, yet they are a safety risk and a limiting factor to train speeds.