Well guys it looks like the part about “Can the sweeping powers of a VISA officer decide the future of Sri Lankan scientific programs?” on the post MURALI: Robot for landmine detection was actually true and in fact has happened to Dr. Thrishantha.

How do I know? Well, on the 2nd of May I received a short email from the Doctor himself. ( Yes, I did go through ALL the email headers to find out where the email came from!)

Here is the email (published with permission):

No, it isn't another Mac Mini. Although it looks just like the Mac Mini at our office, this baby is Intel’s very own Concept Entertainment PC. Of course Intel must have thought the Mac design was very cool to have something that looked just like it! CNET News has more on this…

Today Merill and Lasantha returned from the US. Guess what they brought back?! .. a Mac Mini!! I’ve only heard of this before, but seeing one for real was something else!

Photo from Harsha’s Sony Ericsson T610 Camera Phone

We switched this out later that night and it was a new experience. It wasn't super fast, but then again, this was not a high end product. Also the system to froze within 1/2 hour of using it. I’m not really sure what happened, but that was a bit of a let-down.

Lasantha will be the lucky guy who gets to use this for his QA work, Lucky him!

Hybrid shooters: If anyone had trouble deciding what to buy, a still camera or a video camera, well… now its possible to have them both in one!

Casio Exilim Pro EX-P505 at $499 is a 5-megapixel digital still camera plus a 640-by-480-pixel, or TV-quality, video. CNET news has more on this.