Web experience : Ajax leads JPSpan

Before one get boredam of the existing webapplications there is some new child pops up and gather users attention, well this time it is not a new one, but a years old, and comes up with example of its potential, Our very old baby which I believed had a great potential is again in limelight.
what it can do?
Try this google suggest beta and type a word and you will see the magic, client actually pushes something in backend and gets data and indeed uses it to give more lively user experience,
This is done using javascript engine, but not the old hack of image loading, as that I believe is already blocked by IE, But it uses XMLHTTPRequest in the background.
But I still really don't know the reason of google, amazon, etc investing in Engines like Ajax than jpspan which a php and Javascript combinations, and also free., Though one clear disadvantage of later one is it limits you to php on server side, which I agree is not really only cool thing out there.
Can anyone add more here?

moviekend

my weekend started on tuesday(8th feb) evening and till now im in weekend mode,
Following is the stuffs I did
Wednesday, 9th Feb 05:
Movie:
-> Multiplicity
-> Maid in Manhattan

Thursday, 10th Feb 05:
Movie:
->Lost in translation
->Tommy boy
->Charles Angel
->Rush hour
->Eraser

Friday, 11th Feb 05:
Movie:
-> Multiplicity(Yes again)

Saturday 12th Feb 05:
Movie:
->The Juror
->The cat

So total of 10 movies, and todays plan is "Indiana Jones" and "Catch me if you can".
so making it total of 12 movie for a weekend, well maximum I have ever seen in any of the weekend, but still got bored most of the time :)

Artificial species

Its being very long I can recall that I heard of artificial species ... most probably in some book as I like reading those kindof books.
But this concept I saw lately(8-10 months backs) first time in movie in "I Robot" where Bill Smith fight against Robo's rule, And now today 03 Feb 2005, I heard it for real that some S. Korean researcher sponsored by HP is planning to give Robo's sex drive and will eventually allow them to reproduce, Well truly speaking im just shocked by this news.
Here are the links from some major sites over this
SMH
FIP