And when you are performing the equivalent action on Siri, your device is passing that information to a remote server which is processing the request and then returning an answer, in pieces, back to your device.

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In many cases all the manufacturer has to do is show that a device is reasonably safe and "substantially equivalent" to other legally marketed devices.

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Pyron uses an acrylic concentrating lens, which focuses the equivalent of the light from 6, 500 suns on a small optical device, which then spreads it across the surface of the solar cell.

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Would we be able to find the connectors that plug into the consumer device for connecting it to a computer (or whatever its equivalent would be) or to power after 50 years?

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However, that awfully familiar-sounding name suggests that Samsung and Verizon are directly exploiting that Odyssey codename which many associated with the ATIV S. If so, we're looking at a device that's not at all far off from a GSM equivalent, keeping the Snapdragon S4, LTE and both 8- as well as 2-megapixel cameras.

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In the near future whether you are in the middle of the ocean or docked at a foreign port, your personal communications device (whether smartphone, Blackberry, laptop or tablet) will provide equivalent communications that we have all come to expect at home.

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But the new law included a loophole called 510(k) that remains today: A device can be approved with few or no clinical trials if it is deemed "substantially equivalent" to a gadget that existed before 1976.

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