Well, color me impressed, the brilliant brits have found that 18" of sound proofing can block most sound waves. Amazing. Next up: rubber bullets stopped by several thick overcoats, tasers foiled by a sheets of syrofoam, and water hoses stopped dead in their tracks by the lowly brick wall.

Funny, my GPS has an accuracy of ~1-2 meters, the same accuracy that I'd have to pay the EU to use Galileo's more accurate signal (the free signal is has an accuracy of ~4 meters). The EU could have just complemented their system with something like WAAS for a very low cost, but they're in a pissing match with the US to prove they know how to invent stuff too. It seems like EU countries would do well to invent something that NO ELSE HAS THOUGHT OF instead of just copying stuff marginally better at a higher cost.

@Stevenfb Who you callin' noob? 'round here, them's fightin' words.
Never said I was using a 945 chipset to decode .mkv, never even said I had tried. The point of my post was that for anyone considering using this as a Media center PC, it's hard to get hardware decoding of mkv files in Vista Media center. Not impossible, just hard for the average user. Because mkv is a container, not a format, the codec used within that container will impact the efficacy of hardware decoding. The primary benefit of this board is the graphics card, my point was that using that graphics card won't always work with video, which is highlighted in the reviews when the system can't handle a youtube video in fullscreen. So, stfu

@blacky I struggle with a lot of what is labeled as anti-competitive these days. Are exclusivity contracts really illegal? I guess it might depend on the terms, but it's not like this was a one sided contract, both the hardware assembler, HP, Dell, etc, was better off through reduced pricing, and Intel benefited from higher volumes. I'm an IT consultant, and while I don't have an explicit exclusivity contract with my clients, I do offer discounts based on contract length. If I hinged that on being the exclusive provider of IT service for them, am I guilty of anti-competitiveness as well?

The problem with all of these atom based PC's is that it's darn hard to play 720p mkv files. Have you ever tried to get Vista Media center to hardware decode mkv? It's possible, but not easy, you have to use Media player home cinema edition and perform some codec voodoo.. Then, if you made a mistake in encoding your mkv, you're going to have to rely on the CPU to decode. Not gonna happen in an atom based system. I'd consider long and hard before trying to use a board like this in that application, you're likely to find the performance is close, but not quite there. However, for a car based PC, this looks like a winner. I might even pick one up to replace my aging CPC. The old sempron 1800 is just not cutting it anymore :(

No sure I'm seeing the innovation here. The real problem with robotic hands is handling the requirement of delicacy (seen here) and strength (not seen here). There's a complex process we use to gauge how hard to grasp an object, we can catch an egg thrown 20 feet away (ok, some of us can), but we can also hold up our entire body (ok, again, some of us). We sense how hard to grasp something based on a mental catalog of data we keep on objects around us, empty soda can, tennis ball, baseball bat, etc. It's a complex mix of visual and physical cues. Until a robot incorporates both visual recognition and complex touch sensors (ie, texture, pressure, viscosity, etc) we're never going to have a human hand analogue capable of replacing many of the menial, but hard to mechanize, human tasks.

I thought it was interesting that they are using a standard VIA motherboard for the system management, and if you look at the beginning, you'll see a windows! error on the left most screen. yikes. Also, a sleek, white airplane looking car needs LEDs so you can find it at night? Riiight, it's going to blend in among all the other aircraft in the parking lot. That said, I want one so bad, but I'm waiting fo the 2HE version. Looking forward to driving to Florida on $20 worth of gas :)

Soooo, it's a self balancing monorail? As soon as two trains pass each other at speed, whoosh, they're both blow over by the compression of air between them. Agree with others, this idea is just bad.

Agree as well. If you attached this to every source or water outflow in a city, you'd only recover the energy of the pump that fills the water tower(s). Also, the pressure loss would really suck. Remember people, THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS FREE ENERGY!

Agreed. At issue, in my mind at least, is the dual use nature of technology, and the growing awakening that we never "owned" the content we purchased. You have never bought a book (content) in your life, you've merely payed for certain rights pertaining the use of that book, and some dead trees. For hundreds of years, that was never in people's mind. Copyright was present, but easy to enforce, because violation involved the physical reproduction and transport of the product. Now, there is an exciting new way of connecting people to content, but one that is ludicrously easy and cheap to copy. Part of this is about money, after all, who wants their profitable business to become less profitable? But the other part is that publishers saw themselves as adding value to the books they sold by erecting barriers to entry. Not just anyone could publish a book. Publishers acted as the gatekeepers, keeping bad (less profitable) books out, and promoting good (more profitable) books. The good writers made millions, and the bad writers lived in cardboard boxes. Now, that's all changed. Now we (you and I) are the gatekeepers. We can evaluate and post reviews on books, share our thoughts, and reward good authors directly. We've completely circumvented the NEED for publishers. The market will be (and already is) much larger, and consequently, profitability will be much lower per book written, but more authors will move out of cardboard boxes and into houses. They won't be rich, but they'll earn a decent wage. This is exactly what will happen with all media, movies, music, books, magazines, and even software (thought to a lesser extent)