Side point but I can't help it: I can't bare static image navigation like this anymore, especially from a tech site like wired. I work on a widescreen laptop and I have to scroll down every time a new page loads with the next image.
These are interesting to see but framing it in terms of people helping to identify them seems kind of gimmicky. A box with dials and terminals on it could be almost anything and that's all that a lot of these pictures show. If they also posted pictures of the circuits inside then they would have a lot more of a chance of someone actually figuring it out.