This idea is not new at all... I used to work for a company that holds the original patents on this type of technology (http://www.solatube.com/), and has making these types of things since the 80s. Their product was far less obtrusive, and from the inside looked a recessed can-light, and not the transporter deck from the star ship Enterprise. Their overall luminosity was far greater too, and multiple warehouses and factory floors already use this tech. The technology around carrying light through a tubular structure has become pretty efficient, however the size of the roof perforation and the overall ability of the light to turn sharp corners are the big problem. It's basically impossible to feed these things through walls and reach a second floor. Instead, you have go straight down. There is however another company that already came up with the idea of using a solar dish to track light, only, they did it much much much more intelligently. http://www.sunlight-direct.com/ With fiber optics, they can scale down the size of the perforations, go much further distances, and make the lights much less obtrusive. They can even make 90 degree turns (or 180 degree, or 490 degrees if you really wanted too....) with virtually no loss of light. Just stating the obvious...

Americans are so weird. Why does any disaster have to be Katrina, especially when there is no comparison to the scope or nature of Katrina. And what was that quip about "leaving millions of people in northern latitudes without power"? Does the rest of the world not count? While the realities of a danger like this are something to take a good look at, I find the dialogue to be western centric and kind of out of touch. Oh noes! My data is not available to me!!!1 What about places where lack of electricity is all it takes to cripple a water purification system or a hospital?

does it actually have a visual display? Am I missing something? This turns surfaces into multi-touch inputs, but does it actually turn into a display device as well? What is the point of placing this film "over a wood surface" if you can't see what the hell you're actually dong?

There have been cases where a peeping tom has viewed and even video taped private persons in their homes, and as long as the peeping tom is on public or their own property, they are within their legal right. Performing personal acts in front of an open window that is publicly viewable is akin to posting intimate details online, and the law has upheld this in some cases. "Reasonable Expectation" is still at the whim of who ever makes the law.

In space, no one can hear you suck.

I work for a major NGO that is heavily involved in USAID contracting. Until recently, it was my job to manage US export compliance for all technical hardware leaving the US. While we did not work in Cuba, we worked heavily in other countries sanctioned by US. There are two things about this story that don't add up. 1) The US heavily controls the export of technical equipment such as laptops and cell phones, so much that individual licenses must be granted to each item, and each item must be accounted for every single year. There is an entire office established just to control these items, called the Bureau of Industry and Security (http://www.bis.doc.gov/). Failure to comply with such regulations results in massive fines (in the millions of dollars) for the contracting agency, and even imprisonment for the guilty individuals. The theory is: technical equipment could be use for "Anti-American activities" if given to the wrong parties, and under NO circumstances are agencies allowed to freely hand out computers or other similar things. 2) I don't see anything in this article talking about repercussions from the US government. For this person to just freely hand out goods means he had special permission that is very rarely granted to any USAID partners (or any other American for that matter). It sounds like this person/agency was directly involved in activities that go well beyond USAID's mandate, and was a thinly veiled political maneuver. I don't think the Cuban government was targeting this person just because he was handing out computers, I think he was being targeted because he was supporting a subversive political tactic from a hostile party. Not that anyone didn't already suspect this, but just stating the obvious....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juFZh92MUOY

It's like Slashdot is parodying itself by posting this. That, or it didn't meet it's daily quota of articles on Android.

VSAT and BGAN were my first thoughts as well. Data is already being "beamed" into Iran, and has been for the past 10 years. I wouldn't really suggest using a VSAT though. It's not like they are easy to conceal nor can they be broken down quickly. BGANs are much more mobile and easy to hide. Again, I don't know of many Iranians who could afford such a service, but it's not like many Iranians would have the connections or the know-how to smuggle in a huge satellite dish and set it up themselves anyways.

Well, she is at about the age where many people understand the growing world of technology. So what? That does not some how help her record on other things.