Can't get to the Slashdotted page, but this does sound like it could have been an interesting online phone game. Two people each pick a Wikipedia entry. Then both search for the path between them ( with some agreement on origin/destination ). The game itself keeping track of the number of steps.

Of course a site that automatically traces the path ruins this. It would probably also result in people salting pages with links to more generic ones.

As the sign on the back of the vehicle in the article shows it's "self driving". This is not as driverless or autonomous as has been applied to airplanes up till now. If / when cars like these are available to purchase, that's a big difference. This is essentially autopilot, though a pretty advanced one with collision avoidance. Airplanes have had autopilot for decades now, and they are viewed very differently from AUVs or drones.

The State of Nevada does refer to them as autonomous though. The requirement for two people though makes them far from driverless. The NV DMV site says that when these sort of cars are available for public use that motorists will need a special endorsement for their drivers license.

2.4% of all car purchasers buy a hybrid.
0.84% of all car purchasers would buy another hybrid.

Yeah, there are other ways to put that

Or "It's almost 3x harder to sell a hybrid to someone who's owned one before than to someone who hasn't".

People here in CA were nudged to get a hybrid in no small part due to the ability to get a sticker that allowed solo driver access to the HOV lanes. Once that went away, a big part of the incentive went with it. I know some people who sold their hybrids in advance of the change, anticipating that the car would sell for more while they still could use the lanes.

So while hybrid owners might be unlikely to buy another, it could be due in part that without the HOV lane access they wouldn't have bought one in the first place. The story then would be "Car buyers follow temporary gov't incentive, move on when incentive goes away"

Most hybrids didn't offer better economy in the long run, once the added cost was factored in. They relied heavily on other incentives to make them more desirable in the first place. I'm surprised that those incentives didn't show up in the survey, or at least weren't mentioned in the report.

I was thinking I'd love to see it as a layer in Google Earth, being able to see the wind flowing over and around the topography would be very interesting. I see a few null areas with little wind showing so I plan to check them out in GE to see if some local hills or mountains that I don't remember are creating them.

You can buy an Android phone for a prepaid cell account for under $100. (used phones are doable too ) Various camera apps will do scene detection and emailing of stills or video or can do periodic image capture. Powered by a microUSB is easy enough, with it's internal battery as a backup for short power outages.

WiFi works fine, and with a home UPS will be up and running for most local power outages. Having a $X a day plan from the carrier will allow the mobile network to be used as a backup to the the WiFi without providing a continuous additional monthly bill.

Images / Video can be sent to an online email account, so while immediate notification can be on your own mobile, there's a ready built server for storing the images.

Arduino or similar hardware could be used as additional sensor inputs,or possibly an alarm output, but using built in cameras alone gives you a useful device out of the box.

It's probably even worse than it sounds. Here in the US we use up minutes for both incoming and outgoing calls.

That might be correct for other carriers, but T-Mobile does offer plans that are cheaper if they don't involve them "giving" you a new phone. Bring your own phone to them and you can get a lower rate. Do that with the other carriers and you get the same rate. If you get a subsidized phone you can switch to the cheaper plan when you're out of contract.

Apple tried to change the whole "free phone" mentality when the first iPhones were offered at full price, but that didn't last long. The G1 and Nexus One Android phones were also sold for full price. This didn't turn out to be popular as consumers were hooked on the 'free" or cheap phone prices.