Count me into the many, many people saying "my XYZ device has done this for ages". My TomTom 920T GPS has adjusted its audio volume around a user-preset level based on external noise levels for the last year. It does this not only for navigation, but also for MP3 music and other items, both on its internal speaker and on its FM radio transmitter.

This idea is not new, has been not only thought-of but well implemented before, and is not worthy of a patent.

"Feature parity", eh? So Apple's implementation will pan about with you as you turn around, using the iPhone's built-in compass, right?

Oh, wait. You mean the iPhone doesn't *have* a built-in compass?

I guess this is bizarro-world feature parity then.

Venturebeat reckons pricing will be in the region of US$40,000 - so you can quit dreaming folks.

http://venturebeat.com/2008/10/15/3-d-prototype-printing-moves-to-your-desktop/

Sorry Joshua, but that's simply untrue. Given that I *was* the person who found the image, and I found it by guessing a URL - it isn't linked from the CSS files like the other three images that were found - I should know. The post has now been removed in a failed attempt to stop blogs like this one not giving credit, however the timestamp at which I found the image can be seen here:

http://tmonews.com/forums/index.php?topic=2188.msg32672#msg32672

Your user may not have *told* you that the image came from TmoNews, but it unquestionably did. Sadly, the direct URL was posted on TmoNews' site briefly, which allowed the story to be stolen from them.

If Engadget took the time to look at when the tipoff was received by them and when the story was posted on TmoNews, that'd make it clear who the real source was.

(sorry if there are any dupes here, having problems submitting comments as I'm receiving no confirmation they were sent).

This photo and three others were found by the users at TmoNews.com.

Please give credit where it is due, or better yet link to their item.

Four brand-spanking new pics of the G1 have been posted on the front page of TmoNews.com... :)

There is absolutely ZERO chance that this thing has a Canon DIGIC III processor in it. Does anybody here really believe that Canon would license their exclusive technology - the one thing they most promote as responsible for the image quality of their cameras - to an almost completely unknown Chinese cell phone manufacturer?

If it truly has a DIGIC III processor in it, it'll almost certainly turn out to be an unlicensed clone and this phone will never see the light of day in any market where the law is properly applied. Much more likely though is that either AVING (who seem to be the source of this nonsense) misunderstood their Beijing Tianyu representative, or simply cut'n'pasted an old article and missed editing that bit out.

It's absolutely hilarious how many sites have picked up and are running with this news without taking one moment to confirm its accuracy.

Zac: SSDs have been around for years. Are you really stupid enough to think the TSA has never seen one before?

Not to mention that 1.8" hard drives have also been around for years, and a 1.8" SSD is not going to look so different to a 1.8" hard drive on an X-ray that the tech is unable to understand what it is.

Once again, you're so fanboi-blind that you can't even tell when you're the victim of viral marketing.

Zak: If you believe for one millisecond that the TSA thinks that the terrorists are out there designing and manufacturing high-tech laptops that stand out from the crowd, solely to use them as really easily spotted bombs, you're even stupider than you already appear.

Newsflash - the TSA doesn't care what your laptop looks like. All they care about is that it doesn't seem to have been modified from the factory in any way that might make it unsafe (or for that matter, to conceal some modification made for terrorist purposes).

If it seems stock and starts up, they could care less whether it's the latest 4mm-thick 64-core Hello Kittybook. In fact, airport security staff are the one group of people least likely to be impressed by your swooshy new form-before-function Apple product. They've probably seen 50 others *exactly* like it in every way, earlier on today. Chances are, they've already seen most such new tech products within a week or less of their release.

Despite what your mother told you, you're not a pretty, unique and delicate little flower. You're one of millions of sheeple who all do much the same thing with much the same tools, and the TSA has seen it all already.

But feel free to live in your own fluffy little world where Apple's products are just so amazing that the earth stops spinning when anybody looks at one, "moron".

Apple publicity stunt. Nothing more, nothing less. I don't for one second believe this actually took place as described.