The problem of anthropomorphizing (spelled it right this time) with evolution is that not only is it not comparable to human beings (like your computer program) but it is also not even an active process in and of itself.
Ah, but we don't know that it is not comparable to human beings. It may well be that "purposive" behavior is actually implemented by randomization/selection mechanisms similar to evolution, as suggested by Edelman. This also offers a possible explanation for the "watchmaker" illusion (the observation that the products of evolution resemble the products in some respects of purposive design). Indeed, genetic algorithms are one of the most successful methods of simulating design in a computer.
How about DNA? It's contains all genetic information that determines how cells are formed and how they behave. It's what allows cells to copy the essence of themselves from one generation to the next, and allows them to continue on the platform from where the last generation left off. If our cells weren't packing around little mini protein 'storage devices', not a whole lot would be happening.
This depends upon whether you are a "nucleic acid first" or a "protein first" guy. One view holds that the first life form was some kind of autocatalytic nucleic acid similar to RNA, in which case the basic features of DNA were there from the beginning (i.e. it didn't evolve, it was just a fortuitous assembly), and the great advance was synthesis of proteins to help.
In the other view, the first form of life was an autocatalytic set of polypeptides, in which case the evolution of the nucleic acid system for assembly line production of polypeptides was the big advance.
the skull is very thick (aka, disperses sound waves), and magnetism must pentrate through all that distance. Also, considering that coils are about the best anyone CAN do with magnetic focusing, what do you suggest? A satellite dish?
I was thinking about something on the lines of an MRI scanner, with superconducting magnets. A bit unwieldy for casual use, at least with current technology, but that may change in the future.
Those NMDA receptors do not affect the majority of gated sodium and potassium channels, which actually induce the action potentials that make any difference at all.
Talking about "the majority of gated sodium and potassium channels" betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of neuroscience. The majority of gated sodium and potassium channels are simply voltage gated ion channels that make the "wires" work. You need them for neuronal conduction, but the signals that they carry are actually initiated by neurotransmitter receptors located at synapses in much smaller numbers, which are the ones that determine what neurons fire when. Of these, NMDA receptors occupy perhaps the most critical role. NMDA receptors are excitatory ligand gated ion channels that gate sodium, potassium, and calcium ions, and are fully capable of inducing action potentials. They play a critical role in learning. And there are also other ion channels that are also responsive to membrane tension, and could potentially be influenced by sound vibration.
even if I assume that some technology actually allows you to focus sound energy into the skull
High frequency sound waves are not particularly difficult to focus. That is what makes it possible to use sound waves for deep imaging in the body, or to break up kidney stones.
I don't know whether this approach would work, and I have serious concerns about its long-term safety. But it certainly cannot be dismissed out of hand on the basis of a superficial knowledge of neuroscience.
But asbestosis takes 10 to 30 years to develope after exposure, so that study would not have discovered any asbestosis
Which is probably why they weren't looking for asbestosis, but rather early indicators of damage such as inflammation. Still, I'd like to see more studies before concluding that such particles are without hazard.
for the most part, this feature has always been pretty wasteful
Actually, the suggestions automatically recorded by TiVo don't waste anything, because they are automatically deleted if the space is needed for a scheduled recording.
I figure the Tivo records enough stuff for me so that it deserves to get to watch what it wants the rest of the time.;-)
Oddly enough, my two TiVos have very different "tastes," presumably reflecting their different recording histories.
Buckyballs are not my big concern. Nanotubes, are structuraly similar to asbestos fibers, that is thin and stiff and very small.
If buckyballs are regulated like soot, by that logic, nanotubes should be regulated like asbestos.
However, it is unclear whether the hazards of asbestos fibers are solely a function of dimension. One early study suggests that nanotubes may not be all that hazardous. On the other hand, there is a long history of human health hazards from dusts, ranging from mineral to agricultural, so I'd be hesitant to presume that a nanotube dust is safe. It is probably a good general policy to minimize inhalation of fine powders, nanotechnological or otherwise.
In my opinion, the numerous cases of companies willfullingly evading pollution controls and dumping known harmfull stuff where it shouldn't shows that the regular approach to this just ain't cutting it.
Whatever regulations you have, there will occasionally be violations, so the frequency of violations is not informative. On the other hand, modern instances of mass toxicity due to illegal dumping seem pretty rare. This is not surprising, since the standards usually have enough safety margin that you have to exceed regulated by a large amount to cause much damage.
When the potential damage goes up, so should the safe-guards
The point is that there is absolutely no reason to believe that the potential damage is any greater with substances made by nanotechnological methods than with substances made by conventional methods.
So buckyballs may be bad for you? Not exactly a big surprise--there are buckyballs in soot, after all, and breathing soot is not beneficial.
For the most part, nanotechnology is just a novel approach to doing chemistry--creating molecular assemblies of atoms. It makes possible some novel chemistry, and there will probably be some novel hazards, but there's nothing to indicate that there is some kind of "generic" hazard as is the case with radioactivity, where many different isotopes emit only a handful of energetic particles. So it makes no sense to try to create generic regulations for nanotechnology.
So we're going to have to investigate the risks of nanosubstances just the way we investigate the risks of biological substances (which are just "evolved organic nanotechnology," anyway) and new chemical compounds--case by case. A company that wants to discharge some nanotechnological waste should be subject to exactly the same scrutiny as a company that wants to discharge a new chemical. Eventually, we'll probably begin to figure out whether particular classes of nanosubstances have particular hazards, like asbestos or polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. But targeting nanotechnology per se for some sort of heightened scrutiny is just obstructionist fear of new technology.
TMS has probably reached the limits of its usage as of right now. There is no way to penetrate more than a few centimeters into the skull.
The devices I've seen are pretty crude; basically just big loops of wire on a handle. It seems to me that there must be ways of focusing magnetic fields deeper within the skull.
Also, will someone PLEASE tell me how the HELL sony plans on converting their "ultrasound" into electrical energy in the brain? Because the last time I heard, only the ear recognizes mechanical vibrations of the air!
If you are recording from neurons electrically, you certainly see electrical events if you disturb them mechanically. There are stretch gated ion channels, and some neurotransmitter receptors also have mechanical sensitivity. See, for example this paper on NMDA receptors
This sounds like the result of an out-of-control university public relations department. The idea of targeting telomerase for cancer therapy is not at all new. Drug companies are already developing small-molecule telomerase inhibitors as cancer chemotherapeutic agents.
What the investigators have found is a novel indirect method of reducing telomerase by stimulating its degradation. But introducing genes for therapeutic purposes is difficult. It is hard to get genes taken up by all of the tumor cells, especially when there would be a selective pressure favoring cells that are resistant to transfection.
So the work is an advance in understanding how telomerase is regulated in cells, but not any sort of cancer therapy breakthrough.
If it works at all, there could be hazards, especially as this is not envisioned as something done for a few minutes as with a diagnostic ultrasound, but for hours on end, day after day. It might be worth the risk to address a medical problem with vision or hearing, but entertainment is another matter.
There are known mechanisms by which excessive neural activity can potentially result in damage.
I'm not going to line up to be the first to try this new technology. The prudent thing to do would be to wait ten or twenty years and see if the early adopters start turning up with dementia or stroke.
By the way, researchers are already achieving interesting effects with transcranial magnetic stimulation, which is much further along, experimentally speaking. Indeed, some scientific equipment companies are selling ready-made devices for this purpose. At least it really does do something, although I haven't seen any practical (as opposed to research) applications.
Yes but a "correct mathematical proof" only establishes truth relative to the axiom system used. Because how will you ever prove that the axioms are true?
Mathematical proofs are not actually statements of truth in the real world, but rather statements of contingency. They all ultimately reduce to the form, "If A, then B." Establishing truth in the real world means establishing by observation and experimentation that A is true.
The structure of the neuron is well known and has been proven by microscopic and chemical analysis. Details can be found here [purdue.edu] and here [nih.gov]
Certain aspects of neuronal structure are known. But the structure of neuronal neurotransmitter receptors, which are clearly crucial for neuronal signaling is in general not known in detail, nor can it be derived computationally (folding and dynamics of protein macromolecules remains computationally intractable). Similarly, there are many aspects of their function that are not known in detail. Probably much of that detail is dispensable, but we do not know enough about cognition to understand what is crucial and what is not.
It has been PROVEN (and it's a well-known fact) that it's impossible to create a Turing machine which will determine if a given expression is true or false (see Incompleteness theorem [wikipedia.org] for details).
This actually is more about the limitations of logic than the limitations of computers. Indeed, Godel's Incompleteness Theorem has nothing to do with computers--it is a proof that in any system of logic (that meets some very broad criteria) there must exist statements that are true but that cannot be derived from the postulates of the system by any sequence of logical steps. Adding additional axioms does not solve this; there always remain unprovable propositions. This limitation applies to proofs by humans as well as proofs computers. However, the fact that there are some theorems that cannot be proved does not mean that there are not many others that can be.
However, the fact that there are some truths that are literally inaccessible from the postulates certainly suggests that there may be others that are accessible only by a very large number of steps, effectively requiring computers. I wonder if anybody has ever attempted to prove this?
On the other hand, you can run dual tuners, which is HUGE. And you can download schedule data from teh satellite instead of having to keep the phone chord plugged in, if it's not a convenient run.
Actually, you don't need the phone cord for stand-alone TiVo's either. You can plug in a USB ethernet or WiFi adaptor and get everything over the internet. I think that you may need the phone for initial setup, but that's it.
Oddly enough, I probably record at least as much HDTV over the air as off of DirecTV's satellite. I get all of the major networks with just a rooftop antenna in beautiful HDTV. Quite a change from when over-the-air TV was riddled with ghosts and noise. So I'm not particularly worried that my 10-250 won't be able to record DirecTV's HD locals when they finally get around to adding them.
As for DirecTV introducing their own HD DVR, I'll believe it when I see it. I've been disappointed before by DVRs that are supposedly "just as good" as TiVo. If DirecTV doesn't offer a TiVo upgrade to the 10-250, I'll probably end up dropping DirecTV returning to Comcast. DirecTV has provided crappy support for their TiVo systems, anyway. Many features that have long been available on TiVo's stand-alone units, such as iTunes music play, internet scheduling, and export to PC, are still unavailable on DirecTiVo units.
Although they charge you full purchase price, this is canceled when you eventually return the item, minus a $1.50 restocking fee.
Basically, I only rent from Blockbuster when I think I might want to keep an item way after the return date, so the $1.50 is a bargain. Only problem is that it looks like a lot of people are doing the same thing; Blockbuster is far more likely to be out of stock on recent releases since they instituted this policy
Particularly amusing is the fact that the distributed clients are designed to remain hidden from the user, apparently out of concern that users will remove them to get their computers to run faster. Which makes them potentially a pretty good black hat tool.
I wonder how long until one of these escapes from the Secret Service?
I wonder if the "lukewarm" sales have anything to do with the fact that most dealers will only sell you the PSP as part of a bundle with a bunch of lukewarm launch titles.
Which was the better buy for "your" situation considering my n200 has shuffle mode also?
The shuffle. If I wanted to listen to FM radio, I'd already have a FM radio. I got a music player because I think FM programming sucks--too much repetition, too much talk, etc. And it doesn't work in the subway.
A screen simply takes up space, adds cost, and is one more thing to go wrong. I own a 20GB iPod, but I never use the screen at all; I run it exclusively in shuffle mode.
I never use the screen on my iPod. I run it in shuffle mode all the time. If I didn't already have a 20G model, I'd have seriously considered the shuffle.
It always takes a while to figure out how best to use a system that incorporates a genuinely new approach rather than a rehash of old ideas. Still, original DS games are beginning to come out. "Yoshi Touch & Go," which received a review score of 8.8 out of 10 from IGN, is described in the review as "truly a design that's unlike anything you've played before."
In deciding whether to buy a PSP, the central question for me will be, "What does this offer me that I don't have on my PS2 at home?" I'm not that excited about playing the same sort of games on a smaller screen. As limited as the Nintendo DS's library is, the games do offer a genuinely new experience. With its short battery length, the PSP isn't that compelling to me for travel--I'd rather take my DS, which also folds up nicely to protect the screens and buttons when not in use.
Wireless networking of the PSP might be a significant draw if it turns out to be popular. There still aren't that many DS's around.
Watching movies while traveling--especially on a new, incompatible format isn't that exciting to me either; I can watch standard DVDs on my laptop, with a bigger screen (but it will probably be appealing to parents for keeping the kids quiet on car trips). However, if I could transfer TV shows from my TiVo to a PSP card, that could be appealing. For most TV shows, a small screen seems less of an imposition than with movies.
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The problem of anthropomorphizing (spelled it right this time) with evolution is that not only is it not comparable to human beings (like your computer program) but it is also not even an active process in and of itself.
Ah, but we don't know that it is not comparable to human beings. It may well be that "purposive" behavior is actually implemented by randomization/selection mechanisms similar to evolution, as suggested by Edelman. This also offers a possible explanation for the "watchmaker" illusion (the observation that the products of evolution resemble the products in some respects of purposive design). Indeed, genetic algorithms are one of the most successful methods of simulating design in a computer.
How about DNA? It's contains all genetic information that determines how cells are formed and how they behave. It's what allows cells to copy the essence of themselves from one generation to the next, and allows them to continue on the platform from where the last generation left off. If our cells weren't packing around little mini protein 'storage devices', not a whole lot would be happening.
This depends upon whether you are a "nucleic acid first" or a "protein first" guy. One view holds that the first life form was some kind of autocatalytic nucleic acid similar to RNA, in which case the basic features of DNA were there from the beginning (i.e. it didn't evolve, it was just a fortuitous assembly), and the great advance was synthesis of proteins to help.
In the other view, the first form of life was an autocatalytic set of polypeptides, in which case the evolution of the nucleic acid system for assembly line production of polypeptides was the big advance.
the skull is very thick (aka, disperses sound waves), and magnetism must pentrate through all that distance. Also, considering that coils are about the best anyone CAN do with magnetic focusing, what do you suggest? A satellite dish?
I was thinking about something on the lines of an MRI scanner, with superconducting magnets. A bit unwieldy for casual use, at least with current technology, but that may change in the future.
Those NMDA receptors do not affect the majority of gated sodium and potassium channels, which actually induce the action potentials that make any difference at all.
Talking about "the majority of gated sodium and potassium channels" betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of neuroscience. The majority of gated sodium and potassium channels are simply voltage gated ion channels that make the "wires" work. You need them for neuronal conduction, but the signals that they carry are actually initiated by neurotransmitter receptors located at synapses in much smaller numbers, which are the ones that determine what neurons fire when. Of these, NMDA receptors occupy perhaps the most critical role. NMDA receptors are excitatory ligand gated ion channels that gate sodium, potassium, and calcium ions, and are fully capable of inducing action potentials. They play a critical role in learning. And there are also other ion channels that are also responsive to membrane tension, and could potentially be influenced by sound vibration.
even if I assume that some technology actually allows you to focus sound energy into the skull
High frequency sound waves are not particularly difficult to focus. That is what makes it possible to use sound waves for deep imaging in the body, or to break up kidney stones.
I don't know whether this approach would work, and I have serious concerns about its long-term safety. But it certainly cannot be dismissed out of hand on the basis of a superficial knowledge of neuroscience.
Too bad they didn't add a control of soot containing asbestos. So they could see what asbestos does in the same amount of time.
Inflammatory reactions to asbestos are already known. See for example this study
But asbestosis takes 10 to 30 years to develope after exposure, so that study would not have discovered any asbestosis
Which is probably why they weren't looking for asbestosis, but rather early indicators of damage such as inflammation. Still, I'd like to see more studies before concluding that such particles are without hazard.
for the most part, this feature has always been pretty wasteful
;-)
Actually, the suggestions automatically recorded by TiVo don't waste anything, because they are automatically deleted if the space is needed for a scheduled recording.
I figure the Tivo records enough stuff for me so that it deserves to get to watch what it wants the rest of the time.
Oddly enough, my two TiVos have very different "tastes," presumably reflecting their different recording histories.
Buckyballs are not my big concern. Nanotubes, are structuraly similar to asbestos fibers, that is thin and stiff and very small.
If buckyballs are regulated like soot, by that logic, nanotubes should be regulated like asbestos.
However, it is unclear whether the hazards of asbestos fibers are solely a function of dimension. One early study suggests that nanotubes may not be all that hazardous. On the other hand, there is a long history of human health hazards from dusts, ranging from mineral to agricultural, so I'd be hesitant to presume that a nanotube dust is safe. It is probably a good general policy to minimize inhalation of fine powders, nanotechnological or otherwise.
In my opinion, the numerous cases of companies willfullingly evading pollution controls and dumping known harmfull stuff where it shouldn't shows that the regular approach to this just ain't cutting it.
Whatever regulations you have, there will occasionally be violations, so the frequency of violations is not informative. On the other hand, modern instances of mass toxicity due to illegal dumping seem pretty rare. This is not surprising, since the standards usually have enough safety margin that you have to exceed regulated by a large amount to cause much damage.
When the potential damage goes up, so should the safe-guards
The point is that there is absolutely no reason to believe that the potential damage is any greater with substances made by nanotechnological methods than with substances made by conventional methods.
So buckyballs may be bad for you? Not exactly a big surprise--there are buckyballs in soot, after all, and breathing soot is not beneficial.
For the most part, nanotechnology is just a novel approach to doing chemistry--creating molecular assemblies of atoms. It makes possible some novel chemistry, and there will probably be some novel hazards, but there's nothing to indicate that there is some kind of "generic" hazard as is the case with radioactivity, where many different isotopes emit only a handful of energetic particles. So it makes no sense to try to create generic regulations for nanotechnology.
So we're going to have to investigate the risks of nanosubstances just the way we investigate the risks of biological substances (which are just "evolved organic nanotechnology," anyway) and new chemical compounds--case by case. A company that wants to discharge some nanotechnological waste should be subject to exactly the same scrutiny as a company that wants to discharge a new chemical. Eventually, we'll probably begin to figure out whether particular classes of nanosubstances have particular hazards, like asbestos or polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. But targeting nanotechnology per se for some sort of heightened scrutiny is just obstructionist fear of new technology.
TMS has probably reached the limits of its usage as of right now. There is no way to penetrate more than a few centimeters into the skull.
The devices I've seen are pretty crude; basically just big loops of wire on a handle. It seems to me that there must be ways of focusing magnetic fields deeper within the skull.
Also, will someone PLEASE tell me how the HELL sony plans on converting their "ultrasound" into electrical energy in the brain? Because the last time I heard, only the ear recognizes mechanical vibrations of the air!
If you are recording from neurons electrically, you certainly see electrical events if you disturb them mechanically. There are stretch gated ion channels, and some neurotransmitter receptors also have mechanical sensitivity. See, for example this paper on NMDA receptors
This sounds like the result of an out-of-control university public relations department. The idea of targeting telomerase for cancer therapy is not at all new. Drug companies are already developing small-molecule telomerase inhibitors as cancer chemotherapeutic agents.
What the investigators have found is a novel indirect method of reducing telomerase by stimulating its degradation. But introducing genes for therapeutic purposes is difficult. It is hard to get genes taken up by all of the tumor cells, especially when there would be a selective pressure favoring cells that are resistant to transfection.
So the work is an advance in understanding how telomerase is regulated in cells, but not any sort of cancer therapy breakthrough.
If it works at all, there could be hazards, especially as this is not envisioned as something done for a few minutes as with a diagnostic ultrasound, but for hours on end, day after day. It might be worth the risk to address a medical problem with vision or hearing, but entertainment is another matter.
There are known mechanisms by which excessive neural activity can potentially result in damage.
I'm not going to line up to be the first to try this new technology. The prudent thing to do would be to wait ten or twenty years and see if the early adopters start turning up with dementia or stroke.
By the way, researchers are already achieving interesting effects with transcranial magnetic stimulation, which is much further along, experimentally speaking. Indeed, some scientific equipment companies are selling ready-made devices for this purpose. At least it really does do something, although I haven't seen any practical (as opposed to research) applications.
Yes but a "correct mathematical proof" only establishes truth relative to the axiom system used. Because how will you ever prove that the axioms are true?
Mathematical proofs are not actually statements of truth in the real world, but rather statements of contingency. They all ultimately reduce to the form, "If A, then B." Establishing truth in the real world means establishing by observation and experimentation that A is true.
The structure of the neuron is well known and has been proven by microscopic and chemical analysis. Details can be found here [purdue.edu] and here [nih.gov]
Certain aspects of neuronal structure are known. But the structure of neuronal neurotransmitter receptors, which are clearly crucial for neuronal signaling is in general not known in detail, nor can it be derived computationally (folding and dynamics of protein macromolecules remains computationally intractable). Similarly, there are many aspects of their function that are not known in detail. Probably much of that detail is dispensable, but we do not know enough about cognition to understand what is crucial and what is not.
It has been PROVEN (and it's a well-known fact) that it's impossible to create a Turing machine which will determine if a given expression is true or false (see Incompleteness theorem [wikipedia.org] for details).
This actually is more about the limitations of logic than the limitations of computers. Indeed, Godel's Incompleteness Theorem has nothing to do with computers--it is a proof that in any system of logic (that meets some very broad criteria) there must exist statements that are true but that cannot be derived from the postulates of the system by any sequence of logical steps. Adding additional axioms does not solve this; there always remain unprovable propositions. This limitation applies to proofs by humans as well as proofs computers. However, the fact that there are some theorems that cannot be proved does not mean that there are not many others that can be.
However, the fact that there are some truths that are literally inaccessible from the postulates certainly suggests that there may be others that are accessible only by a very large number of steps, effectively requiring computers. I wonder if anybody has ever attempted to prove this?
Unless this is different on the newest DirecTivo's, then the USB ports are not active (unless you hack it)
That was precisely my point--I was talking about an advantage of the stand-alone TiVos over the DirecTiVo units.
On the other hand, you can run dual tuners, which is HUGE. And you can download schedule data from teh satellite instead of having to keep the phone chord plugged in, if it's not a convenient run.
Actually, you don't need the phone cord for stand-alone TiVo's either. You can plug in a USB ethernet or WiFi adaptor and get everything over the internet. I think that you may need the phone for initial setup, but that's it.
Oddly enough, I probably record at least as much HDTV over the air as off of DirecTV's satellite. I get all of the major networks with just a rooftop antenna in beautiful HDTV. Quite a change from when over-the-air TV was riddled with ghosts and noise. So I'm not particularly worried that my 10-250 won't be able to record DirecTV's HD locals when they finally get around to adding them.
As for DirecTV introducing their own HD DVR, I'll believe it when I see it. I've been disappointed before by DVRs that are supposedly "just as good" as TiVo. If DirecTV doesn't offer a TiVo upgrade to the 10-250, I'll probably end up dropping DirecTV returning to Comcast. DirecTV has provided crappy support for their TiVo systems, anyway. Many features that have long been available on TiVo's stand-alone units, such as iTunes music play, internet scheduling, and export to PC, are still unavailable on DirecTiVo units.
Although they charge you full purchase price, this is canceled when you eventually return the item, minus a $1.50 restocking fee.
Basically, I only rent from Blockbuster when I think I might want to keep an item way after the return date, so the $1.50 is a bargain. Only problem is that it looks like a lot of people are doing the same thing; Blockbuster is far more likely to be out of stock on recent releases since they instituted this policy
Particularly amusing is the fact that the distributed clients are designed to remain hidden from the user, apparently out of concern that users will remove them to get their computers to run faster. Which makes them potentially a pretty good black hat tool.
I wonder how long until one of these escapes from the Secret Service?
I wonder if the "lukewarm" sales have anything to do with the fact that most dealers will only sell you the PSP as part of a bundle with a bunch of lukewarm launch titles.
Which was the better buy for "your" situation considering my n200 has shuffle mode also?
The shuffle. If I wanted to listen to FM radio, I'd already have a FM radio. I got a music player because I think FM programming sucks--too much repetition, too much talk, etc. And it doesn't work in the subway.
A screen simply takes up space, adds cost, and is one more thing to go wrong. I own a 20GB iPod, but I never use the screen at all; I run it exclusively in shuffle mode.
I never use the screen on my iPod. I run it in shuffle mode all the time. If I didn't already have a 20G model, I'd have seriously considered the shuffle.
It always takes a while to figure out how best to use a system that incorporates a genuinely new approach rather than a rehash of old ideas. Still, original DS games are beginning to come out. "Yoshi Touch & Go," which received a review score of 8.8 out of 10 from IGN, is described in the review as "truly a design that's unlike anything you've played before."
In deciding whether to buy a PSP, the central question for me will be, "What does this offer me that I don't have on my PS2 at home?" I'm not that excited about playing the same sort of games on a smaller screen. As limited as the Nintendo DS's library is, the games do offer a genuinely new experience. With its short battery length, the PSP isn't that compelling to me for travel--I'd rather take my DS, which also folds up nicely to protect the screens and buttons when not in use.
Wireless networking of the PSP might be a significant draw if it turns out to be popular. There still aren't that many DS's around.
Watching movies while traveling--especially on a new, incompatible format isn't that exciting to me either; I can watch standard DVDs on my laptop, with a bigger screen (but it will probably be appealing to parents for keeping the kids quiet on car trips). However, if I could transfer TV shows from my TiVo to a PSP card, that could be appealing. For most TV shows, a small screen seems less of an imposition than with movies.