If the digital records of government policies, actions and transactions are to remain available, authentic and usable over time, international professional standards must be applied.

UNESCO: MEDIA SERVICES

Because of the need for repairs, only half of the six Sea Harriers on Illustrious may be usable at any one time.

ECONOMIST: The future of the Royal Navy

Apple had no trouble selling the iPhone 4 with an extra-sharp 3.5-inch display, and it was even defensive about its choice: Jobs is well-known for insisting at the time that phones needed to be usable with one hand, and app compatibility was better served by maintaining the status quos for resolution and size.

ENGADGET: The ever-expanding smartphone screen: how supersized became everyday

McNierney acknowledged that most customers may bypass the hand cranks but he insisted they are usable. (Six minutes of hand-cranking should produce an hour of run-time.) To test the feature, the organization took out the tablet batteries to see whether the devices could run just by hand crank.

FORBES: A Look At OLPC's XO 3.0 Tablet's Solar And Kinetic Chargers