"We have to rescue this history, " insists Xu Buzeng, 70-year-old doyen of Jewish scholars in Shanghai, who realized a lifelong dream last fall when he visited Israel on a fellowship to Hebrew University.

CNN: The Ghosts of Shanghai

"According to traditional beliefs, when a girl has a dream and sees a red snake, that means she will fall in love or get married, " she says.

WSJ: The Year of the Snake Draws Hisses��And Yawns

It's hard to say just how realistic that dream is at this point, of course -- the device is set to go up for order in the fall, and Pettis is the first to admit that the company still has a long way to go before the Digitizer is consumer-ready.

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