unlike the $100 OLPC crap this does have a market. i would gladly pay $50 to $75 for such a system. ITX has been around a while too. although i can't think of how much or little success those boards have had. there are more than a handful of situations were a small, low power computer like that would be a help. however the cost is about the same as cheap off the shelf stuff. problem is that you really can only makes these things cheap by mass production. this is a problem if demand starts slow. one area i applaud apple on is marketing. although in this area screw 'em. last thing they want or support is users playing with their hardware. despite joining the intel drum circle. the current anti-hacker mentality has also helped to foster misconceptions about those who take on these projects. one thing i can tell you right now is never ever travel with any home brew projects. current mental state of our society is panic at unknown things. seen too many harassed about legit gear (like radios and test equipment) let alone the horror stories i have heard with people's creations being confused with bombs or other nefarious devices. people are stupid.

shhh don't let 'em know some of us like to play with this stuff. makes it more fun. yea i really don't see how this would be efficient. it would be a very lossy. you don't always need a whip exposed either. a resonant antenna could be concealed depending on the band in use. not to difficult about 70cm. a length of resonant wire would more than likely out preform this "antenna suit" unless that is all the suit is, a resonant length of wire inside the suit. this also ignores the effects of ground and as pointed out the large bag of salt water that the antenna sits on. i guess your body could be the ground plane.

can't break a pad of paper and if you do it isn't going to set you back a few hundred. also people are not going to steal paper as much and if it is stolen see prior argument. ipads are nice, but they are a high end toy for people with money to blow. there are a handful of situations were a device like this is really useful. apple is better at marketing than any company i know in the tech world. they have people convinced that x86 intel hardware should sell for the prices of over a decade ago. unless the ipad is a stable and supported platform that isn't constantly updated while older versions go unsupported i don't see its use outside of a few areas. no since investing in ipads for the company when 2 years later you got to do it again and the old ones no longer get updates. most places i work for expect about 4-5 years of service out of a desktop or laptop. many of them have abandoned apple over the years because of the falling prices of intel and AMD hardware, once apple jumped to intel they saw little reason for the price. older systems are not supported by the new OS, i can still install XP or 32bit windows 7 on 10 year old PC's i built. the old macs have built up in my closet. i watched numerous graphic desgin departments abandon apple and pic up dell when apple dumped CRT. i don't see anything different with the ipad. it's a nice toy, but for work the market has many tools. i don't see it replacing solid and useful products from the likes of telxon/symbol. nor do i see apple offering long term support for products like those companies. if apple made an industrial version of the ipad that did have long term support, well then i think we might have a winner. it doesn't seem the same company i grew up with.

use to sell those things when i worked at best buy. that cable you see there for $75+, well it really costs around $5. the thing is they push these because margin has been lost in other areas. a TV sale use to have a good profit for the store. however as newer flat screens came out the margins shrunk. now most TV's are being sold at or around cost, in some cases below. thus the push for cables, service and "service plans". however the gig was up from day one. the reason, internet and cell phones. people talk more, so word spreads. many are going with "store branding". they will have their own brand and it "compares" with the "high end" brand. they make less, but it is more realistic than the high priced version to the customer even if it the exact same cable. hey, you wanted capitalism...

remember their last attempt at 3d? yea we all know how well that thing worked out for nintendo. lets just see if the 3DS pulls a virtual boy or if it does go somewhere. I really think some of these marketing people are revisiting ideas from the 1990's that failed with the idea that technology has finally caught up. what they fail to think about is "will people really want it" 3D is one of those tech that sounds good on paper, but really isn't that great outside of cool looking movies. there are few uses and even some potential health risks. other techs and tricks get the job done just as well and they are familiar to us. 3D, like the flying car, sounds cool, but has little real word use.

this is the nature of humans and popular movements, almost always an insane clown in the middle. this guy is at best satire, but is more likely pandering to paranoid, deluded, overzealous religious/fundamentalist 1950's hold overs. the fact that many people believe him and take him seriously is disturbing. you know all those folks that hate(d) the idea of women voters, natives, blacks, desegregation and humanism in general? well here they are, foaming at the mouth from fear and rallied by idiots like beck. trying to make our country a better place, you know "God's country".