I thought the same thing. "Oden" is a kind of sweet, fishy anything-goes Japanese wintertime soup that borders on a stew. So unless that was the inspiration for the codename (which would worry me a bit) ...

Not even! Nobody has noticed that A & B are caddy-corner from each other, and Y & X share a similar fate. Trying to play an emulated game on this has to be like learning to type in Dvorak.

I know you're just being snarky, but an *example* of what might be tortious interference here is, if they had contracted with a Taiwanese company to produce their version of the überPhone, and then Apple enticed, encouraged, or extorted the manufactury to break their contractual obligations in one way or the other. It could just be by sheer force of personality -- as in, "Oh, wait? Holy crap. Apple's making something practically identical? We'll lose our shirts! Cancel the production order!". But if it's something as benign as that, instead of say, bribing the CTO to invent technical obstacles to production, then the judge will probably dismiss it. They're just covering every conceivable base.

Also, remember that here in the US, you're trying to get your car from your driveway to the parking lot at work. In the suburbs and city of Tokyo, at least, many people are just trying to get from home to the least-congested nearby rail station without breaking a sweat or getting rained on. Even bicycle riders are accustomed to renting a parking space at the train station. As a minimalist solution to that problem, and one with a steel rollcage at that, this looks like a winner.

When they can make these (or any other car for that matter) robotically- or remotely- driven for part of their trip, then we'll have a real revolution for the Japanese market -- even if it wouldn't catch on yet here. Log on and have the car meet you at a certain place and time for a one-way trip (during which you would be the driver), or have it show up with food in the driver's seat; It'd certainly be cheaper and more resource-effective than having the delivery guy haul his own body plus a 2,500 pound car down to your house to deliver 2 pounds of food.

If by 'coupon code', you mean QR Codes ... that might be awesome. I could see this having something to do with 2D barcode technology.

I just thought, "OMG! The iPod is a vampire!" Noticing the antenna, however, told me it was not actually a reflection. At least my recurrent nightmare hasn't unleashed itself on the waking world. Yet.

Matte Screen. Let me repeat that. Matte Screen. When using it outside, it's so reflectively bright, I have to use the inverted color scheme to read clearly.

The touchpad on my MacBook has been a little wonky, and the display is, well ... crappier than the MBP. The price difference isn't significant enough to justify this, Apple. The touchpad is freaking LOUD. It should be no louder than a key press! And it shouldn't be so much harder to depress.

Other than that, get this DRM crap out of my DisplayPort, and we'll have the perfect machine.

Since the case says 'For video recording use' and '120 mins' at the top, I'd assume this is for important events like wedding videos, children's plays and concerts, or corporate awards ceremonies. Just so you know it's an important video and under no circumstances is it to be discarded.

For things like the aforementioned, I think I might be interested in these discs. Not to backup trivial stuff, but to make and/or gift an important event on DVD-video.

I know! What is is with education these days? This must be what happens when journalists read second-grade level drivel online instead of actual literary works. I'm sick of these horrid little gaffes like "tow the line", and the 'sight/site/cite' and 'pedal/peddle' errors made repeatedly here. Bad grammar makes me [sic]!

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Simple haptic feedback would be ridiculously easy for this. Just put an electromagnetic coil under the user's jaw to complement the magnet on the tongue. You could push it up and down with no trouble, and the tongue is extremely sensitive, so you wouldn't even have to use much current / force. That said, it might interfere with the sensors, so it might have to be activated for only microseconds at a time, and disable the sensors while it's active. If the haptic coil were integrated into a single, molded unit with the sensors, then it would be much easier to calibrate.

I think the final version of this will probably not be a bunch of booms hanging around the subject's mouth, but more like a retainer, or even implanted dental work. Look how small the prototype sensors already are.