ZPM's don't produce heat unless powering a heat source. Thought that'd be obvious from the way they can be handled with bare hands.
No reason to believe it/they would be powering anything right now.

How is this anywhere near the size of a SmartCar? The smallest Fortwo I've seen is probably twice the size of this thing.

Double check your facts. One thing that has been dropping in cost is Cochlear implants, both the surgery, the internal component, and the external processor/microphone. Last time i checked, it was under 50k. Do a flight to India, and get it done for 10k. Most folks with Cochlear implants do as well as someone with a severe loss and a good pair of hearing aids. Bi-lateral is definitely better than one of course. Most Canadian provinces - maybe all, i'm not sure - will pay for at least one (surgery/internal device and programming etc). Some will pay for two. You have to qualify, and you do have to pay for the processor (external part). For this whole thread - price bubble? Yeah, maybe. I bought my last pair of Phonak Naida IX for $6500, including a 1000 cash rebate from MSRP of 7500 at the time (price has dropped on them now over 2 years. Were they worth it? Yes. Sure, I skipped a vacation that year so i could afford the hearing aids, but still worth it. In 3 or 4 years, once these have worn out, do I expect to spend another 7k or so for the next set? Yup, and unless I get a better paying job, I'll probably skip another vacation. If anything, I'm spending more on hearing aids now than my parents did 20 years ago as a kid - buying them myself, I want to buy to top end ones, and I don't have as many problems with them as I did when I was a kid - they've vastly improved many of the issues that hearing aids used to include. I tried out 4 or 5 kinds for a couple weeks each before settling on the Naida IX - even though it was the most expensive! I would never wear those $14 hearing aids - feedback, uncomfortable, least of all they are ugly, etc... I might buy one just for kicks though if I'm ever in China!

hard to call it 'old' software, when backtrack 4 was released in November 2010. I'm sure most of the tools remain the same, with some updates/changes, so the book would be relevant for much of backtrack 5 too.

I used to use Libra - seems like it's gone defunct now, but was great for what you are looking for. Anyone know the story on why it's gone now?

What about the hard of hearing and deaf who wear hearing aids? Last thing I want is hearing these annoying sounds. Could program them not to pick up these particular range of sounds, I guess. Another reason not to have a law adding more noise to a noisy world. Benefit for the blind, but a hazard for the Deaf. Sure would be nice to have quiet cities! PS. There is a lot more hard of hearing and Deaf than there are blind.

Sounds to me kind of like the equivalent of the extremely annoying backup warning on trucks. Sometimes useful, yes, but more often, just annoying as heck. Most truck drivers honk as a warning as they start to back up anyways.

Driving license tests should start to be aware of the quiet electric vehicles, and train people to be more careful around their environment, especially when driving at low speeds in an area with bikes and pedestrians, such as a parking lot.

Deer? you're worried about deer? They don't move even if a freight train is bearing down on them!

Does buying wholesale mean that the product comes with manufacturer approval to resell? If not, could this mean a lot of manufacturers could sue anyone who purchases at, Costco for example, and resells?

Sounds like me... exactly the same. 3 years ago I was gaming at least 3-4 hours a day, mostly AOE3 and LOTRO. Now? I'm getting married next year, volunteering on a national NPO, traveling for vacation at least 4 weeks a year, and having much more fun in general than when I was cooped up running raids and rush strategies.

There are go between devices making hearing aids bluetooth compatible (not currently feasible to make them directly BlueTooth compatible because of the power requirements of bluetooth). My own hearing aids have the ability to connect to my BlackBerry via Bluetooth (or headphone jack). http://www.phonak.com/com/b2c/en/products/hearing_instruments/naida/overview.html Still, being profoundly hard of hearing, it only helps a little. I still have serious difficulty with hearing on the phone, or understanding web videos - captioning is what I need, and its certainly not standard anywhere outside of network television and Hollywood.

If that were such a downside, how come AWACs planes don't get shot down? 3 of those have crashed, none have been shot down. I could see these replacing the AWACs if they were large enough to pack a lot of technical equipment in.