Dude..... so what you're saying is:

1) Scientific principle
2) ....
3) Magic happens

Let me know when you've figured out #2 thanks.

So a better analogy is payphones then.

Most poeple have mobile phones now, and payphones are heavily used by ciminals setting up deals. It might even be a majority of their use now.

Does that mean that telcos are acomplices?

There is a simpler option, which is to replace the rebar with another tensile option, such as fibreglass or plastic.

Rather than a welder, it would be much simpler to have a spool of fibreglass/plastic ribbon which is then laid down at intervals in the 3D print.

Even simpler still is to add chopped fibres to the concrete mix, which make the concrete more durable and stops the propagation of cracks. Considering how long we've managed with brick walls that have practically zero tensile strength , a fibre reinforced concrete could be more than sufficient. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F...

Not sure why it requires a satellite link and a smartphone. I can understand the versatility but wouldnt a whip antenna and 900MHz line of sight radio to a reciever on the beach work just fine? Seems like expensive overkill and less reliability as you have to have someone monitoring the phone.

There are chips available that monitor the USB data lines for all of the available charging protocols (shorted - chinese, fixed resistance - android, fixed voltage - apple) and will then current limit appropriately.

I'm also sure that i've seen a USB charging "condom" on slashdot before, which had two of the USB current limiting controllers back to back to allow charging to occur, whilst providing isolation of the data lines to prevent malicious data exchange.

The problem is it can be up to an order of magnitude different in price.

There's not a lot of good reason for home automationto be that expensive, the technology has been capable for a while. The trouble has always been user base and and making it user friendly enough for a muggle to install. That's where the big tech companies have an advantage and are making some cheap, attractive devices.

Unfortunately the way this is going will set up two distinct camps - subsidised cheap devices that are cloud connected and leak privay data, or expensive self contained ones. It would be nice if there was a middle gound.

How do they add sugar!!!

Look, I love coffee as much as the next guy but when they are replacing 20kg of scientific payload with a 20kg coffee machine (plus the pods and waste management), they might have their priorities a little skewed. If they'd spent the money on produging a better freeze dried espresso, all of humanity could benefit.

I get the feeling that it's nothing to do with being a Government agency. I've seen more than 50% failure rate on very large IT projects for other regular businesses and corporations.

There seems to be a major problem with sotware projects producing an accurate requirements spec, and following that though to implementation. End users have no idea what they want, fill the requirements full of edge cases, and keep moving the goalposts. Programmers often have no idea how the software will be used so whenever there are gaps they improvise with the most ridiculous schemes. And software architects always say "technology XXXX will save us, it makes YYY so easy", forgetting entirely that you still have to produce a sensible user interface with a sane workflow and that takes 80% of the effort.

Personally I cant see this getting better for a while. It's not the fault of any one person, it's just human nature when trying to deal with highly complex systems. We need to use a radically different design approach and employ exceptionally good project managers, and even then we might still want to cross our fingers.

Yeah, that's how I saw it too.

Dropbox and Box should be quite embarased by this, it's shamefully lazy design in a world where online security matters.

But we wouldnt be sending extremeophiles to Mars. They would be regular "goldilocks zone" contamination, like from someone's skin or a sneeze. These bacteria would not be adapted to Mars and would die instantly.

The article is misleading - they are not 9000 times faster than a PC for general tasks. The chips can simulate neurons 9000 times faster than a PC can simulate neurons, but there's no mention of how fast those simulated neurons can solve a problem for you.

Good old clueless tech journalists, followed by slashdot editors just copy pasting.

The chips aren't 9000 times faster than a typical PC for general tasks. Specifically, they can simulate neurons 9000 times faster than a PC can simulate neurons. Pretty typical of any ASIC with a limited set of a highly specialised functions.

I've been eating Quorn products once or twice a week for a while now as my partner is vego and I want to be able to share some meals with her.

Their beef mince lacks the right texture but is passable in a bolognese or con carne, but damn I am impressed with their crumbed chicken fillets. A bit of napoli sauce and some cheese and you have a very quick parmiagana that tastes just as good as the real thing.

Supposedly the NexusS doesnt use gorilla glass, so it is much weaker anyway.

Yeah but it should still charge, albeit more slowly. That's a reasonable person's expectations for backwards compatability.

The new iPad air flat out refuses to charge on anything other than a 12W supply with the correct signalling voltages.