As soon as the RIAA et al thugs can find the locations they will fill the devices up with garbage, pr0n, incorrectly named and incredibly distorted music/video files. Nice idea but too easy to corrupt

I am both a musician and a geek and I've been there - i do my arranging and the playback from an arranging program (Finale/Sibelius) is pretty sophisticated these days. Software + synth will replace an average performance pretty well, but a great performance is great because it pushes the limits of the players and the environment. A great performance requires great individual performances and will be on the risky side. Typically a great performance (I've occasionally been lucky and been there, great performances are very rare) works this way: you are playing along and someone, perhaps the conductor, perhaps not, makes a proposal: "Lets go for it on this one"" and plays a stunningly great phrase. The proposal is answered by another wonderful phrase, and from then on to the end (if it goes right) everybody is concentrating at a rare level. I've occasionally heard performances that start great & finish ordinary, too. Want a couple of examples? These are from the classical area but I've heard it happen in jazz too. Try: Leonard Bernstein+NY Phil, Mahler Symphony #2, the version with Lee Venora singing. The brass playing is superb too. Same conductor & orchestra, Sibelius Symphony #2, The great phrase is the oboe solo. What we have now is software that gives us the most of the nuances and produces a polished copy of a fine performance. I can imagine software that would give us true greatness but not any time soon.

These guys are out of good ideas, they are trying to get something (anything) to stick so they can sue someone, anyone. I know nothing about UK law so I don't know if this will stick but it looks as if they are at their wit's end, not a difficult task by the looks of it.

is that it can be built by anyone with intermediate carpentry/model-making skills. This is not the case with Enigma, for example, that is in the advanced electromechanical category. Definitely deserves an A for excellent design and first-rate results with minimally advanced technology.

From previous: We do NOT have an electrical grid that can support all the new electric cars you would love to see. Sorry, its just not there, and not likely to be there for several decades. This is a correct statement and IMO the best argument for investing in distributed solar (rooftop panels) I have ever seen. I know it will not pay back for a number of years but it does pay back for most locations in the US. There are even companies that will let you lease their solar cell panels on your roof in return for a long-term commitment. There are also juicy Federal (US) subsidies on the horizon. Somehow or other I think this will happen for ordinary folks. And as a longtime geek, the thought of an all-electric Le Mans strikes me as a good thing, there should be some sort of relationship between the race cars for a race like that and the cars that ordinary people drive. Maybe if they let Danica Patrick drive (she placed third at Indy this year) an electric car could win IF the rules gave them a chance. For racing of course you don't worry about the long term, just get your car across the line first.

There will be effects, you can't do only one thing. "These devices would be deployed in groups of 20 or even more providing cheap electricity without harming our environment." Not quite. I remember reading an article on a study that was performed in the 1980s and reported in Scientific American. The purpose of the study was to discover the effects of putting tidal power units at the entrance of the Bay of Fundy, in Nova Scotia. This bay has enormous tides, over 40 feet difference between low and high tide levels, making it a candidate for a tidal plant power. The overall environment was definitely affected, one of the big effects was that there was a "reflection" of the tide at the Bay of Fundy that affected tides in Boston, over 400 km away. Specifically tides in Boston were stronger and somewhat later in the day. The total amount of energy on the coastline was the same, of course, but distributed somewhat differently. Also see http://www.ems.psu.edu/~elsworth/courses/cause2003/finalprojects/canutepaper.pdf Add in a rising sea level and things could get interesting in Beantown.