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.

How about they just design a phone that doesn't shatter when you drop it? Having the glass right to the edges might look nice but it's completely unpractical from a robustness point of view. Apple are just fashion victims.

My motorola Defy+ has a thin plastic bezel that doesnt degrade its appearance yet absorbs those nasty corner shocks. Simple design to solve a common problem and doesnt require building an expensive saphire factory.

Let me know when poeple's eyes can play back things they have seen. With the exception of an high functioning savant with a knack for drawing sceneries, most of us cant do this.

I would call this the same part number, but with a different revision number. Unfortunately you rarely get to see the revision numbers on electronics parts.

Yeah, I'm still baffled why both commerce and retail insist on having the same start time of 9am. How many people do you know are in the retail shops at that time? Most poeple I know are AT WORK!

Some countries have figured it out though. I was living in Malaysia for a while and they had regular 9-5 for general business, and 10am-10pm for retail. It was great being able to go to the shops after work, and the malls became quite social with lots of restaurants and poeple browsing around - as opposed to the Thursday "late night trading" frenzy in Western Australia.