The challenge is a challenge. The goal is clearly to produce usable power, not to need more filtering. While the requirements for this contest don't require grid-tie, that's something that can be implemented later.

That is also a very good point. Licensing fees are often per-processor or per-machine. If I buy 20 old servers and want to buy Windows Server licensing to go with it, I have to buy a separate version of Windows Standard for each. If I buy a single new, extremely powerful server, I might be able to set up 20 virtual servers, and only have to buy 1 copy of Windows Datacenter. And that's just talking about the OS.

Yes. Don't listen to the sibling comment, which ignores the well-known fact that deforestation in fact was a contributing factor. Of course, if you actually wanted to know the answer to your question, you would have found it with google, dozens of times over.

You don't get points for giving up what you can't hold at the time anyway.

Well, I'm not sure how long I would have had to wait to get a better player for $20 at a yard sale.

I have the world's slowest blu-ray player, an original Sony. BDP-S300, I think. It lacks both ethernet and performance. Sadly, the Raspberry Pi lacks SATA, which is what the unit uses to connect to the optical drive. That gives it hack value, though not with R-Pi. I'd probably have to shoehorn something Micro-ITX in there, or use a laptop motherboard, as the optical drive is smack in the center.

I've bought just one Blu-Ray movie because the player is so godawful slow and I have to use a crappy remote with it. Ideally I'd be able to run XBMC on Windows (XP or 7) on whatever I stuffed into the case, and then I could use the android remote app. Right now my entertainment system is a mk908 running Finless 1.4 or so and it leaves a lot to be desired. Playing discs is one of those things.

If you aren't already working on this, or don't already have a pretty good idea with at least a fair chance of succeeding, then you're probably not too smart if you decide to take this challenge on. So what? There are those who are working on solving this problem already. If they have the means to produce a product, they're already doing that. If not, then this will give them some money for production of prototypes for larger systems, and probably attract some investment dollars from Google.

I suggest you take that browser from the old days, run it on today's web sites, and see how many hundreds of MB it takes. Assuming it loads them at all.

Then you can't afford not to have a backup server and a development server. This point needs expansion :p

It can be disabled, but can you trust that they won't "accidentally" turn it back on with an update? If you must use Chrome, use Chromium instead. The only practical difference besides that it doesn't spy on you for Google is that you need to install a Flash player (if desired) manually.

Stupid objection the first: "This is worth a lot more than a million dollars."
Response:

Does Google own the intellectual property created during the competition?

No. Google is not requiring any IP or licenses be granted except a non-exclusive license to be used only for the purpose of testing the inverter and publicizing the prize. [...] However, in the spirit of advancing this power electronics community, Google may choose to make public some or all of the teamsâ(TM) high-level technical approach documents

Stupid objection the second: (something stupid about 12 volts)
Response:

Will be taking in 450 V DC power in series with a 10 Ω resistor
Must output 240 V, 60 Hz AC single phase power

I know that slashdotters don't RTFA, but seriously, all of you jaw-jacking about 12 volts or about how a million is chump change are a bunch of Useless McToolbags. STFU already.

Guy who sells used computer hardware claims that buying new computer hardware is a bad idea, and that you should buy used gear instead. News at 11.

Not what this guy is saying is wrong, but there are other unaddressed issues. They cover issues like "power savings", but not the much more important issue of buying an unknown piece of hardware from an unknown vendor, without a warranty. Aside from that, sometimes there are issues of physical constraints-- like I have limited space, limited ventilation, and one UPS to supply power. Do I want to buy 5 servers, or one powerful one?

Also, it's not true that hardware isn't advancing. In the past few years, USB has gotten much faster, virtualization support has improved, drives and drive interface has gotten faster, etc.

And sometimes, buying "new" is more about getting a known quantity with support, rather than wagering on a crap-shoot.

Well then you're a piss-poor IT person. Otherwise you'd know that you need to know the parameters for a project before you can choose a solution, which was exactly what I was pointing out. If your company says, "we need to buy a tablet for every employee" and you just run out and buy a bunch of the cheapest Android tablets you can buy, without asking any additional questions, then you don't know what the hell you're doing.

First question: What are the requirements here?

If they don't have a very clear answer, then the next question is, why are we doing this and what are we hoping to accomplish? And then you decipher the requirements from the answer to that question. For example, if the answer is, "We need to run this specific iOS application" and you've run out to buy a bunch of Android tablets, then you're fucked. Or it could be "We need tablets fitting these specific technical requirements," which turns out you should have purchased more expensive Android tablets, and not the cheapest model. Or it could be, "We just need something that's easy to type a lot of text on," in which case you might want to put on the breaks and find out if they really want tablets, or if ultrabooks would serve better.

You have to know what problem you're trying to solve before you pick your tools.

But wait a second... You're the same guy who is suggesting that poor children should be expected to do their homework on the sidewalks outside of McDonalds? I just noticed that. Geeze, no wonder I'm responding to so many insane posts. They're all coming from the same troll.

Agreed. Chromebooks seem like a very good solution.

I wasn't trying to argue that iPads were actually the best solution, but rather that you can't simply compare the retail price of iPads to another tablet and conclude that the iPad is a worse solution because it's more expensive. The are a lot of factors in play. Deciding which solution is best requires eliminating any solution that doesn't meet the needs of the program, then calculating something akin to TCO (Total Cost of Ownership), and finally allowing some influence for preference. Yes, sorry guys, if the people you're serving simply prefer Apple products, even if it's only a preference, that should be a factor. You have to decide how much of a factor.

Again, iPads may not come out on top, but it's a bigger calculation than simply looking at the sticker price.

How is this labelled "Informative"? You may as well be saying, "We should cut educational expenses by only allowing smart people to have children, and only allowing well-behaved children to attend school." It completely misses the point. We, as a society, need to anticipate that lots of people will have children whether or not we individually believe it to be a wise move. Once those children exist, we need to deal with them, and the best thing we can do is to make sure they're educated, and that they have the opportunity to become productive adults.