Aluminum Oxide is essentially transparent, and is essentially the same composition as a sapphire. It is incredibly hard and resilient to the elements. When Aluminum is exposed to air it rapidly oxidized forming a thin transparent layer of Alumina around it, preventing further corrosion. This very trait is why an extremely reactive metal such as Aluminum is often thought to be relatively inert and immune to corrosion (such as Gold), when in reality it is the byproduct of it's rapid oxidation that actually prevents further corrosion.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transparent_alumina

Manufacturing it in large scale economically is obviously the holy grail of a lot of researchers. In pop culture references, Scotty complained in Star Trek 6(? not a trekky, but the one with the whales) that our society was too primitive and as such hadn't developed this ideal material for making a giant whale tank for a time traveling starship.

the lead based solder that was banned was used for plumbing. Lead based solder for electronic components is still widely used and is readily available at any Radio Shack

Lightbulbs still use lead.....even compact flourecents. Take a look at that soft metal at the base of the bulb that helps it make contact with the socket. And kids are more likely to put a light bulb in their mouth, uncle Fester style, than they are to lick an exhaust pipe. In a more extreme example, CRT televisions and monitors use vast quantities of lead to coat the back of the picture tube, many large tubes use 20-30 lbs of lead. Of course if you were to lick the lead on a CRT you would have a whole other problem on your hands than a little lead poisening. If it can recover wasted energy and isn't likely to end up in a childs mouth, I could see it being implimented, lead or not.

Accelerometors may not turn vibration into energy, but Piezo-electric devices can. Univeristy of Utah has been researching practical applications.

I believe the company logo doubles as the air intake. It looks more like a hole than a sticker. That might explain why it is a bit large.

My gues sis they will still make you take it out of the bag.

I remember buying certified "airport Friendly" shoes, back when it was considered optional to remove your shoes at the checkpoints. At the time TSA was merely advising people it would be faster if they just took your shoes off, cause the metal shanks in the soles would set off the detectors. I continued on, and the TSA guy says jey you might want to take off your shoes (Still optional). I tell him, these are metal free "Airport Friendly" and even point to the small logo on the side. He goes ahead and lets me through, and I don't set off the detectors. Well of course on the downside, he did signal to the guy after the metal detectors, and I was put through a full frisk, removal of shoes, running them through the X-ray and hand searching my bags, starting up the laptop and everything else they could do short of a strip search. Worst part was the shoes were expensive and did not last long due to being made of flimsy "airport Freindly" materials.

an iPhone and Blackberry SIM swapping scenario isn't going to work too hot with the iPhone SIM. For a Blackberry to function, the SIM has to be placed on a Blackberry Plan. This makes it so it actually runs on a different network segment than typical phones. So you can use a Blackberry SIM in a regular phone, but not the other way around. I have my Windows Mobile phone registered on the Blackberry network so I can use ActiveSync or Blackberry connect. The iPhone on the other hand complicates things a bit. An iPhone won't work with a SIM unless it's been activated in the phone, or you Jailbreak it. So the only shot at using the same SIM in both phones is with a Blackberry enabled SIM. The only shot of using a Blackberry enabled SIM in an iPhone is by Jailbreaking it.

"Browsing Engadget"

1 very good reason to upgrade to Vista

Vista Media center is very cool, is free with Home Premium, or Ultimate. With the prevelance of HDTVs, and XBox360s acting as Media Center Extenders, it suddenly becomes a very viable and graceful way for folks to access their computer based media in the living room. Combine that with the fact that MS has licensed Media Extender tech for Consumer Electronics manufacturers to integrate into Audio/Video Equipment (it is already working its way into the market with the HP MediaSmart LCD TVs) and pretty soon it will be a very common way to watch media. Of course it all depends on having Vista :)

Of course if media aint your thing, or if you don't care if it is super user friendly (a must for me as my Wife would not tolerate it, if it wasn't) then there are other options that don't require Vista.

pick me!