Yea, I love how americans go "oh boy, its electric, its clean!" Wonderboy is right on the money about america's electricity. On top of the fact that it comes mostly from coal/oil you must consider the tremendous loss and innificiency associated with power plants. Only about a quarter of the energy from fossil fuels makes it out of the steam turbines, and on top of that you have to figure loss from electrical resistance in all of the power lines. A well designed gas/electric hybrid car (especially the new designs with the intagrated engine/wheel components) actually makes far better use of fossil fuels than an entirely electric one.

^true, you can't start a turbine with just a battery, but many turbines are run up with a conventional starter/generator, which can be used to spin the engine up to the necassary rpm (usually about 40%) then swithces gears and becomes and airplane's equivilent of an alternator. This is done to save weight. The JSF100 starter motor is interesting in that it actually has special air ducts that can direct pressurized air into the blades of the free turbine, replacing the pressurized air that should be coming from the compressor, thus building momentum and getting the engine up to speed.

Hahaha, you guys have had a bit of a misprint there. The JSF100 is a massive 3+ foot diamater afterburning turbofan engine that powers many F-16s, what this gentleman has botched onto his scooter are two JSF100 starter motors. They feature a free turbine that spins at over 70,000 RPM, and normally have a sun and planetary gear train with a 30:1 ratio used to start the collosal JSF100. This guy has converted them from turboshaft to a thrust turbine configuration, which is actually an innificient, but very fun use for them. I've seen a similar configuration attatched to an ultra-light class personal aircraft. The engine weighs 90 lbs. and at the shaft outputs 90 break horsepower and nearly 350 foot-pounds of torque.

I agree with reader #2, even though it’s becoming sleeker, sexier and more appealing to geeks in general, the blackberry needs to stick to its brick-phone roots of being aimed at the professional. I know countless business-men, journalists and entrepreneurs who base a great deal of their business activity on their blackberry. This represents a great deal of the blackberry line's market share and its developers are wise to appease them. We all know that anti-camera policies are getting stricter (Georgia Tech anyone?) and you couldn't even get on the manufacturing floor for government-spec toilet seats with a camera, let alone something that actually mattered like in the aerospace industry. It’s good to see that this group is kept in mind along with the clamoring tech-enthusiasts who want all that media functionality by having the camera-laden and camera-less versions of the new phone.