@ALBGunner04 You think the 3G could do 30fps H.264 VGA video recording? Maybe you ought to look and see how much CPU power that takes. Clue: more than the 3G has. Yeah, jailbreak it and it'll do some low frame rate small video, but that's not really in keeping with the iPhone, is it? Notice how it only gets features when they're implemented really well?

It rips CDs to the hard disk.

Kinda like the Rio Central... which ripped CDs, burnt CDs, served up to 8 remote thin clients and sync'ed over USB with Rio MP3 players. But that was 7 years ago....

http://reviews.cnet.com/digital-media-receivers/rio-central/4505-6739_7-8723432.html

It might also not make the app store as I would guess it requires an illegal copy of the mac plus ROMs to work. It'd be kinda cheeky to get apple to actually *host* something that infringes on their own copyright, no?

On the other hand, maybe the fact that the ROMs would then be coming direct from apple makes them authorized and hence legal? :)

Ack, those gaps... you can very very very easily fix them. Pop the hood then gently pull up on the metal of the back of the headlight; drop the hood back down again and see whether you need to tweak it again.

If anyone leans on the lights, the metal gets bent down ever so slightly and it's just so easy to make it look perfect again.

Still got my '90 UK MX-5!

Sigh. Microwave is a range of wavelengths, not a measure of radiated power. A 3G mobile on maximum output (+24dBm, or 250mW) may not seem like a lot, but it's right against your body... which is why there are legal requirements for absorbtion of this radiation - look up SAR testing.

Tried traveling on an electric train recently? There's a lot of power there, and people have been riding them for over 100 years without ill effects (apart from them being londoners).

I think you're kinda misunderstanding electromagnetic radiation... the car, whose switching fields are going to be pretty much all under the hood and contained by the faraday cage of the engine bay, are very low frequency compared to the near-microwave cell phone output.

Also, remember the inverse square law; a phone right next to you is way more worry than a motor a meter or two away behind various hunks of metal.

Uhh, let's see how solid the diesel has gone at 40 below. I assume you're aware of fuel waxing?

Uhhh, yes. Like he said.

I don't see anything but a static image, which doesn't make it look like more than a lightbox. The active LCD area seems to be very close to all edges, which makes things like, oh, putting a LCD panel driver on the glass tricky... and ditto for OLED, before anyone suggests that...

It's one thing to make a mock up, another to actually make a prototype that lives in the realm of fitting the necessary components inside it, and yet another to ship a product that delivers the user experience.

(imo, obviously!)

Like many people have said - it's a big car. Don't even attempt to compare it to something like the Fit (which, incidentally, is a great car but just not in the same size class), or even the VW Golf/Rabbit/GTI (I've owned a mk5 GTI 5-door).

You can easily fit a rear-facing child seat in the back of a Prius, something which I could only fit into my WRX wagon by moving the front seat all the way forward and vertical which was a non-starter for actually putting a passenger in it. 5-up is comfortable, plus the hatchback means you can fit a decent amount of "stuff" in it.

As for driving experience, it's not so bad - especially the touring model which has a bit more rubber (16" vs 15" on the standard) and slightly stiffer suspension. Is it an involving, dynamic experience? No. On the other hand, it's very pleasant, quiet, and undemanding which means it's relaxing and easy over long distances and for driving in today's traffic that counts for a lot in my book. I've owned plenty of fun cars in the past - Noble GTO-3R, NSX, Golf GTI, CRX - but given the driving I do nowadays I really don't see the point. I still have a Miata turbo for taking on the track (excellent cost/fun balance) but there are just too many people in the way around here to really let rip.

You can still have fun in the Prius if you want, it understeers gently as you'd expect but nothing that will stop you surprising other drivers by taking cloverleafs at 50 if you know what you're doing :)

As for cost, meh. It has the electronic toys of more expensive cars (the excellent key system, reversing camera, touchscreen, etc), it does what I want it to do, and even if *I* don't make up the money in saved gas cost, it'll make it up over the lifetime of the vehicle so as far as the machine itself goes, it's a winner. As an early-adopter type - who considers it his duty to encourage good engineering - I've spent plenty on leading edge gadgets that has been a LOT less satisfying to own than the Prius.

Philips did this exact thing in 1998 with the Ilium/Synergy combo.

http://www.prnewswire.co.uk/cgi/news/release?id=44944

It never shipped, but was shown around a lot. You got a huge touchscreen with the Synergy part, running all the EPOC apps (ie, Symbian before Psion formed the Symbian alliance), or you could just pull the very small - for the time - phone off and use that instead.

I had a brief play with one when I was contracting for Symbian, it was pretty cool for the time...