I would agree - i do wonder sometimes if the car makers have actually done any testing to evaluate the usability of their shiny new gadgets. 4.6 secs seems to me like quite a short time compared to some of the in-car distractions i've seen. At least they've stopped drivers from being able to watch movies whilst the car is moving...

If by "x-ray machine with microscopy" they mean an electron microscope with x-ray analysis system (EDS), i do actually know someone who has such a setup at home. He is a bit geeky though...

Definitely time someone with a bit of clout stood up to the scientific publishers. Their business model made a bit of sense in the days when things had to be typeset, printed and distributed, but with modern electronic distribution it is little better than a Mafia-style extortion racket. I'd love to know what they actually do for their money - researchers do the research, write the paper, review the paper and (at least in my field) act as journal editors. And they do these at no cost to the publisher because they are either publically or industrially funded. That the publisher is able to take the copyright and then charge the people who actually funded it to read it, is an ongoing disgrace and (i think) should be an embarrassment to an industry/community which generally prides itself on its open-ness and its "freedom".

I know a lot of academics are becoming annoyed by the publishers and their business models. Frankly its a disgrace that most research isn't freely available to the general public. More often than not they have paid for it via taxation and university fees (most research, at least in europe where i am, is taxpayer funded). Add to that the fact that the academics do the work, write the papers, review the papers (for free i might add) and mostly act as journal editors (for free again), and its hard to see really what the publishers are doing beyond hosting the PDF.

Oh and the best bit - when you submit your paper to the publisher, you also sign over copyright. So they even own all the taxpayer funded work. Actually i was wrong at the start, its beyond a disgrace.

A revolutionary rethinking of how we communicate will always take time to gain inertia. Real people have busy schedules, and you can't just tell everyone you are ditching email etc and moving onto the Wave: You have to get reluctant collaborators onboard and lineup a good project or two with which to get the hang of it at the start. This is never going to happen in 3 months, and i think google know this. I can't help but feel that they cancelled for some fundamental failing that they are not talking about.

Still, i hope it doesn't go away. It has so much potential that it deserves to be developed.

I agree with this. My mother is dying from cancer also, but i'm not running round taking video, audio and making diaries of the event. Just being with her and taking a few pictures of her with her granddaughter is enough. Live for her now, not your future.

Ahh the memories. Doom2 at 2am sitting in the dark listening to the spider demons pacing back and forth in the rooms i was still to enter. The complete immersion that proper stereo sound gave made my AWE32 worth every penny.

I'm not sure i'd class Liq He as an advantage. Having worked with it i'd call it a pain in the arse, and totally unsuitable for computer cooling. Low heat capacity and insanely low temp mean it has to be transported and stored in large, very well insulated containers, so it lacks the easy mobility of liq N2. Transferring liq He from one container to another also requires some skill if you don't want to evaporate the whole lot during transfer.

Oh, did i mention it gives you splendid burns too.