The "ride-sharing" services believe that smart phones are the enabling technology that explain why Things are Different Now and taxi laws should no longer apply. I would guess the rationale for this is the same. Of course a lot of people already had cell phones way back in the dark ages of Kozmo.com (2000 or thereabouts), but I'll grant relatively few people had GPS, especially linked to their phone, which would be very useful for automated dispatch optimization. Combining trips would be the key for making this viable.

Because your immune system is likely to kill you when it kicks into hyperdrive to clear the pathogens from your system:

The presence of microbial pathogens in the bloodstream triggers systemic inflammation and can lead to sepsis, which often overcomes the most powerful antibiotic therapies and causes multiorgan systems failure, septic shock and death. Sepsis afflicts 18 million people worldwide every year, with a 30-50% mortality rate even in state-of-the-art hospital intensive care units, and its incidence is increasing because of the emergence of antibiotic-resistant microorganisms.

The use of magnets here is not magical, just a way to pull out the nanobeads. They are coated with a human-derived factor that does all the hard work of pathogen selectivity:

These capture agents are composed of magnetic nanobeads coated with a genetically engineered version of human MBL that binds to a wide variety of pathogens and is easily manufactured but lacks key functional domains that could complicate therapy.

4K camcorders!

That's like saying you can take a car so long as you own the slim jim you use to get in it. You didn't make the asteroid, or oil deposit, or whatever it is. You have no inherent right to it.

Perhaps the space stations (in the universe of the movie) were orbited that way to facilitate resupply of all 3 with one launch.

Removing the human from the loop in aircraft automation has been a source of unending problems

Commercial aviation is now safer than it ever was in the past.

Fully autonomous driving is doable IF it is only along routes that have been verified and to some extent instrumented. I predict we'll see a few Approved Routes initially, such as stretches of Interstate. Fairly soon, the approved routes will account for the majority of vehicle miles driven. Then there will be a long tail of routes and conditions that won't be automated anytime soon. Basically, just like cellphone coverage.

Intel doesn't have enough 14 nm production to flood the world market for no-name Chinese tablets anyways. This is the latest and greatest, not the bargain basement.

because heart rate and GPS as apps aren't that convincing IMHO.

That's Garmin's entire wearables business, and they've been in it for years. And they aren't $100 bucks, they're more like $450.

Perhaps the drive can still run on air, albeit with more power consumption. In googling it, the advertised benefit is reduced turbulence and drag.

Anyways, the hard drive is rigid (unlike a balloon) so for helium to escape, something must leak in or pressure will drop. I can't imagine all the helium would leak out creating a total vacuum.

Better answer: just buy a phone with an SD slot. I do. Lots of people do.

In my case it's to carry my music collection, not make long videos, but same principle. Apple, and everybody else who does not include one, is just being greedy.

Actually it does matter. The Garmin watches (which also require daily charging) have page after page of complaints of problems charging, because the contact pins get dirty and corroded with sweat and grime. I have taken to keeping a piece of tape over the charging pins on mine, real classy. Apple's method sounds like a big upgrade to me.

I took my son on a motorcycle trip through North Cascades National Park this summer and it was fantastic.

Your .sig is less persuasive in the context of your post; it sounds like you are practically on tin cans connected by string up there!

My kids have practically no concept of TV, not because they're too good for it, but because it has been replaced by youtube.

The point of pumping the water back uphill is so you can re-generate power from the same water over and over.

The Hoover dam seems like an ideal candidate for pumped-storage hydro, turning it into the world's largest "battery" for renewable energy.