(been on vacation)
Sorry to have been snarky.

But if the contraption can't lift both responder and victim out (like the basket can), then I really think this has limited use. I suspect the weight of two people and the geometry of the contraption make impractical for evacuation -- which is the most common rescue work I imagine.

Strange, I thought I'd seen those basket lift contraptions used for years. Guess they quit making them.

You say the emergency area is farther than 20 miles round trip? Too bad, a helicopter would never be able to go that far either I guess.

"The Martin Jetpack is a disruptive technology, much like the helicopter was when first developed, with substantial capabilities which will be very complementary to our solutions we can offer our customers," says Avwatch

Uhhh, I don’t think so. This is like an extremely small helicopter, there is little I can see it doing a helicopter couldn’t. What few things it might be able to do a copter couldn’t, remote control drones will soon be able to do.

I don’t think the 60’s jetpack dream will ever be truly realized.

I’ve never understood why taxes for things have to come from oddly tenuously associated sources for the things they fund. Here in DC the Dulles metro extension is mostly funded by tolls on cars on the Dulles tollway, why do the residents in that area get the privilege of subsidizing travel for DC to Dulles whether they would use the metro or not? Why should phones be taxed to fund internet for schools? Shouldn't school infrastructure funding come from some from a mix of property taxes, state funding, and federal funding?

Sometimes taxes need to go up. If not, then don’t hide the fact that they went up with all the damn smoke and mirrors. Storm sewers here in Maryland need funding, so now we are going to get a rain tax proportional to acreage. Of course it won’t mater if your property is next to a stream and has no impact on the storm sewer system. If infrastructure needs fixing then just raise the damn property taxes -- larger estates will end up paying more anyway.

North Korea just anounced they've already cloned one (and T-Rex as well).

I may be shortsighted, or... there is no advantage to this car over conventional electric or hybrid at this point and will likely stay that way. Sure internal combustion engines (ICE) took off, but how many other inventions since then haven’t? Are you still riding around in your Stanley Steamer?

The 5 minute fueling is no advantage if there is nowhere to refill. Hydrogen is notoriously hard to contain, should these become common no doubt we will start to here stories about hydrogen leaks and is unlikely they will be able to add an ordorant as it may poison the catalyst.

Not everything succeeds, cars are expensive, make wise choices, not just OMG it’s cool and green.

..than to have the FBI wondering why I'm contributing money to this cause. I applaud the goal, but I'll let someone more altruistic than me step up to bat.

Save me the "When Good Men Do Nothing," I have family and other considerations outside Slashdot idealism.

Let’s see, my Volkswagen Passat, which I paid 18K, for will go 450 miles and refuel just about anywhere.

Green is nice and all, but why even bother rolling something out that is obviously not ready for primetime? At least Hybrids can refuel anywhere even if over priced. I’ll go all electric or hybrid once the economics are in place, and I have no problem with early adopters, but getting one of these seems to be for masochists only at this point. Give me a range of 500+ miles, or the ability to fuel at home (maybe natural gas to hydrogen conversion – though that somewhat defeats the purpose).

Remember, Hydrogen is really just a battery when you think about it, the power still has to come from somewhere else like coal (though ideally wind or solar). In most cases hydrogen is generated from natural gas, generating, you guessed it, carbon dioxide in the process.

I don’t recall seeing boot camps for Electrical Engineers or boot Camps for Medical Doctors. I remember back in the late 70s when I first started coding on an Apple ][ people regarded me with awe for being able to write a print statement in a for loop. In those days everyone probably could learn to code simple text based game and recipe organizers, but they didn’t. Now that we need stable object oriented code that actually takes some discipline to write we’ve decided everyone should do – it is the path too quick riches after all.

I’m not saying our discipline is too hard for a person with an average IQ, but it deserves the same respect as any other technical field. There is enough bad code to fix from people that spent 4-8 years learning to code, I don’t think boot camp graduates will write better code. If anything we should be toughening the academic standards for writing maintainable code and take the time to be sure the lessons have sunk in, not shortening the time we learn to code – I can only imagine that leads to a quick and dirty solutions.

Of course maybe this is not really about true web development, but about just being able to fire up something like Cold-Fusion and churn out volumes of similar looking websites -- you know to keep costs down.

45+ years ago when I was a kid and before cellphone towers dotted the landscape there were these funnel shaped microwave repeating towers everywhere that carried long distance phone traffic across the country without wires.

So your point is you would ignore the list, so it shouldn't be available to anyone? Or because you think people like parents who may not agree with your stance on violence might use it -- again removing their role as a parent, because evidently gamers in the Slashdot community know better.

I could have thought I specifically said as long as it is not censorship. So why bring in Australia's practices to this discussion? Rating will lead to censorship? Not sure that follows.

Make it stop, dear God make it stop!

The things you mention should be covered in gaming review sites. Now maybe you think the magazines should just list these elements as well, but here is the situation, my 8 or 10 year old has requested I buy some innocuous sounding racing game. I’m at the store, I but it. We get it home and there are big busted ladies jumping around and possibly occasionally losing their tops.

Now you may have decided I’m a prude and that it’s OK for my 8 or 10 year to see these things, but really that isn’t your call. I didn’t ask for censorship, I just asked for informative labeling on the product similar to food.

How to achieve that fair labeling may be neigh-on-impossible, but there is nothing I see wrong with the goal.

Of course you may worry that if these elements are labeled then people like me might hurt sales of games with titillating sex and violence thus making for fewer of these available – because a pretty good number of Slashdotters think people should be mature enough to handle nudity, sex, and violence at all ages and that parents isolate their children too much, or that the parents should invest time researching a game before buying (which I concede to some small degree as a fair point). Still I would contend we should make it easier for people to make informed decisions, especially parents.

I would give Negative grades for each of the following:

Violence
Nudity
Sexism
Racism/Stereotyping (including slights to LGBT society)
Culturally insensitive
Religiously Intolerant
Religious Indoctrination
Politically Driven Agenda
Historically Inaccurate

Positive Grades for These:

Educational
Social Responsible
Mentally Stimulating
Historically Accurate

And an overall aggregate score

Granted things like Politically Driven Agenda would be hotly contested every time and couldn’t possibly work in the real world, but this would be a near ideal list. As long as it isn’t censorship what’s wrong with full disclosure. If a game would be embarrassed to be labeled Sexism Level 4, then maybe they need to dial back the bikini babes at the race start. I wouldn't want to get too carried away with categories, others may suggest a few more, but if we keep it to under 20 that shouldn't be too over the top, more like a list of ingredients in prepackaged food.

I had initially been interested in Google Glass initially as well, though I didn't really expect to buy one soon. I figured I'd wait a generation or two and for the resolution to be Full-HD and all the kinks worked out. I had expressed my curiosity about Google Glass to my wife who flat out said no way because of the nerdy look in public. Still I followed the progress passively and it never came and it never came. I figured we be on generation 3 by now.

Now Oculus Rift is on my radar – my wife is less skeptical (mostly because I will be in the basement when I get my geek on). This one too is beginning to drag out, though supposedly now only months away.

These companies seem very hesitant to bring first generation products to market, evidently worried anything less than perfection will doom long term adoption. Seems to me Google Glass should have had a for-businesses version first that acclimated the public to its appearance. There would seem to be literally hundreds of uses business could put these things too, whereas there doesn't seem to be a killer-app for the general public yet.

As for Oculus Rift gaming is already a killer-app not to mention tele-sight-seeing and 360 degree immerse movies.

I wouldn't be surprised in the long run to see Google Glass conquer business uses, and Oculus Rift conquer entertainment uses.