But elsewhere in the world, Elop said his cheapest device would appeal as either a failsafe that users can turn to when their smarter handsets are struck dumb by power outage or as a novelty stand-in for costlier, bigger devices.
That's a bit more myth of course, because the Possum was just as capable of recording a daft novelty song or a foot-stomping slab of honky-tonk.
For Graafstra himself, the chips are more than a novelty or a hacker hobby.
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If the story is about IBM releasing earnings, the algorithm will look at language and grammatical structure to assess how positive or negative it is and give it a score that combines sentiment, relevance, novelty and whether it is breaking news or a followup.
Closer to home, the syrup sells well in small containers as a novelty item or souvenir, he said.
Whether the Astrium system will remain a specialised novelty or will be the forerunner of something more like the cosmic power stations of Asimov's imagination is anybody's guess.
"I imagine if this comes in a lot of them will vote for the first time because it's a novelty - anything that's new or a break from the routine they'll try, " he says.
Some commercial aviation executives say that distributing tablets directly to passengers is likely to remain a novelty or a stopgap before new planes with new built-in systems are delivered.
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The novelty of a great screen or beveled edges fades quickly relative to what a device can do for me.
Or would any kind of structure lead to its eminent demise as a novelty item?
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"In the past, the towels had a novelty look, like a stylized image of a racket or a net, " Ms. Ackroyd said.
"It's no longer a novelty for a woman to run a cable network, department or division, " says Suzanne Kolb, chief marketing officer for E!
Eating out more frequently, choosing convenience or prepared foods, and expecting novelty and year-round availability all play a role in exposure to new pathogens.
In the 1970s, to speak of the need to reduce, or even stop, the change that humans were inflicting on their planet was a novelty.
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