For perspective, the 1150 ft flight is almost 10 times as far as the first Kitty Hawk flights (though not as high).

Baby steps are the hallmark of thoughtful engineering, especially when expensive-ass prototypes are involved. Seeing the quick progression from runway tests to powered flight leads me to believe that further advancement will not be long in coming.

Hrm... According to the Datasheet: 4.8" x 16" x 13.23", and 14.57 lbs empty or 20lbs w/ 4 drives.

Not exactly portable...

For the same price, maybe I'll just get one of the Acer Revos and throw a bigger drive into it. Sure, I'll have to do more to configure the software, but at 7" square and

OK, for all the folks out there who are bagging on this one, help me find something similar that fills my needs:

I want a low-power single-drive NAS device with Gigabit ethernet that's relatively portable.

I already have a RAID NAS on the network that serves multiple machines. However RAID, as we are often reminded, is a hedge against the inevitable disk crash, NOT a backup solution. Therefore, I want a portable single-drive device that I can use to make weekly backups from the real NAS, then take offsite for storage elsewhere (my office @ work).

I really want a dedicated low-power device, not a removable drive tray in a linux box that I have to hang on the network with a 400W power supply humming away. Preferably, said device will also not be super expensive. If this Addonics thing had GigE, I'd be all over it.

Any ideas?

Two words: Lens size.

Higher telephoto zooms on cheap optics also result in narrow fields of view. This is is because the objective lenses are relatively small, and small aperture means not very much light gets in. You can have a very wide field of view AND have large magnification AND let in a lot of light, but the unit will be much bigger and be "all glass" as a camera guy would say, and be very expensive and heavy.

For anther analogy, take a look at a rifle scope. You can get cheap scopes with high magnification, or cheap scopes with wide fields of view, but a scope with both will cost 10x.

I have TWO Fujitsu P1120's, since the first one I bought turned out to be so completely awesome. (One XP, one Ubuntu). The fact that the P1120 is a TOUCHSCREEN subnotebook weighing under two pounds is cool. The fact that I bought it like SIX years ago, USED, is friggin amazing. The fact that the rest of the industry didn't copy the shit out of it is mind boggling.

These things rock. Its about time for me to get something with a bit more processor power (watching a DVD on the P1120 isn't smooth, for example), and I will absolutely be sticking with Fujitsu with another touchscreen netbook/subnotebook. (Even if I have to go used again!)

For reference, here's an evaluation of the new McMurdo Fast Find PLB that is about half the size and half the cost of my ACR MicrO-Fix:

http://equipped.org/McMurdoNewFastFind.htm

When the service life of my battery is up in another couple of years, I'll have to evaluate whether to have it replaced by ACR or to replace with something lighter. (Or maybe do both and use the McMurdo for hiking and loan out the ACR to friends/family doing car camping...)

The big selling point of the spot, and IMHO the thing that makes it a toy and not an emergency device, is that it lets you send location updates in a non-emergency fashion.

It would be great if you were through-hiking the PCT and wanted to let friends/family watch your progress every day. You could send a "here I am, alive and well" type message every evening, for example. They're definitely a neat device, just not emergency equipment in my mind.

I have the ACR MicrO-Fix, since that was the smallest/lightest available when we bought mine a few years ago. I do a lot of solo hiking and the wife felt much better knowing that if I snapped an ankle out on a trail somewhere it wouldn't be a death sentence.

They're all built to a standard, so any 406MHz beacon should work.

GPS is optional (the main locative technology is via doppler shift at the receiving satellites), but IMHO worth it since it can add accuracy to your beacon location, which is especially important if you're moving. (Not a good tactic if you're in an emergency on land, but unavoidable if you're at sea, so more accurate location data over time can help the rescuers more accurately predict your drift, etc.)

The cost difference is pretty small now. The latest generations of beacons cost like half of what I paid, and since there is NO FEE for a PLB beyond purchasing the device, they are actually cheaper in the long run vs. a subscription service like SPOT.

As I said, I prefer a real PLB over something that's privately serviced. If you forget to pay your bill, the SPOT people can just ignore your SOS, they're under no legal obligation to provide you service, unlike a cell phone that must always let you call 911 even if you don't have a valid account. If you trigger a 406MHz PLB, the alert goes directly to the Strategic Air and Space command (assuming you're in North America when the alert is triggered) and they will kick off the appropriate rescue from there. Range is also a big issue for some people. The SPOT system uses a private LEO constellation which only covers most of North America, but not the extremes like Alaska and Northern Canada, and doesn't cover massive chunks of the coastal waters or Central/South America. The rest of the world is completely out. In comparison, the PLB constellation is a mix of LEO and GeoStat birds that covers the entire planet. If your device is registered in North America but you trigger an alert while on vacation in Australia, there might be a small delay while they handoff the emergency to local authorities, but you know that the alert will be handled. And since the device is registered to an individual and the penalties for abuse are pretty stiff, there's no "false alarm" problem, every alert is treated as a Life and Death emergency.

Pass. I'll continue to carry my 406MHz PLB when I'm in the wilderness. I prefer knowing my SOS will be handled by the COSPAS/SARSAT network, not some private company in Texas...

More important than the size of the "SIM" itself is the ability to delete the very large pin contact and carrier assembly required for a removable card.

Along the same lines as companies moving to mini-USB then micro-USB connections, if you want to shrink the device you have to focus on the big chunky connectors and other such parts.