For a home user it is not all that much of an issue, if you are running a remotely recent OS then it is probably already IPv6 capable. At worst you may need to replace your modem/router box, and those who would have trouble with this are likely to be with an ISP that takes care of such matters for them.

When you are dealing with large scale infrastructure and corporate networks however, things become a little more difficult. At that scale the assumption of running a recent OS doesn't always hold, so you have software updates to worry about which incurs at least a time cost (and time is money). Also the possibly replacing your router becomes replacing racks worth of managed switches, routers, dchp servers and so on. That's not even beginning to take into account all of the legacy software that expects IPv4 and requires it in order to work.

So, yeah. Simple for home/small business users, but a major project for the IT guys who make things work behind the scenes. Fortunately said tech guys should have been working on getting ready for this for a while already; just like when they made sure that the world didn't fall over at the turn of the millenium.

Seriously, why do we even need a system which lets people charge arbitrary ammounts via SMS? It's insecure, ripe for abuse and open to fraud. I don't think I have ever seen it used for a beneficial purpose, except perhaps for charity donations which could just as easily be done via another system.

So, why not just shut the thing down? Or, heck just limit it to registered charities; it's not like anyone else uses it but those who prey on the weak (rip off custom ringtone companies, horoscope peddlers and malware)

Privacy isn't always about hiding wrong-doing; it's about hiding things that some people are too narrow minded or ignorant to understand and accept.

So I believe it would be more accurate would be to say that those who are concerned with the what if's and the maybe's are those who understand that not everyone does - or even should - conform to societies idea of normal. These are the sort of people who understand that in any system there are edge cases, things which are not quite as they seem on the surface and actively try to design around such flaws. These are the programmers, the designers, the engineers of our society.

These are the people who try to make sure that you can pick up your drunken college buddy from a gay bar at 0-dark-30, and not have it bite you in the ass should you later try to run for public office. These are the people who try to prevent you from being labelled a terrorist simply because your club happens to share a community building with an unpopular religion. These are the people who try to to prevent pediatricians from being lynched because some idiots can't tell the difference between a Doctor specializing in children and a pedophile.

So, in future when you are about to call someone paranoid over issues such as this, please consider: it may be that they have realized that what may seem to be a simple system, when applied on a national or international scale, becomes a system in which even relatively small errors can destroy lives.

Yet another reason why I don't trust Facebook, Google, or any other of these sorts of company with my mobile number.

If I want to buy something I'll take out my credit card tap in all the numbers and buy it. At least that way I *know* that I'm buying something, and I'm not nastily surprised when my mobile bill is huge after hitting the wrong button when my touchscreen plays up.

Well, yeah, but I am also taking into account meetings where that may not be practical, such as those involving lots of diagrams/mathematical equations or those which refer to a hard copy document (which could then also be scanned).

To get the obligatory Raspberry Pi out of the way: Hook up a microphone to a Raspberry Pi, and have that record/dump onto your local network fileshare.

On a more serious note though, it should be the job of someone in the meeting to take the minutes. It'll all well and good to have an automated system recording audio of the thing for future reference, but it is much better to have someone taking down the key points manually. Not only do you have a backup incase of failure of your system, but you also have a summary with the most important points which is much easier to skim over and extract information from.

If you combine handwritten notes with a document scanner in the room you can have a system to scan, archive and distribute a copy of the minutes almost instantly. Alternatively the minutes could be typed onto a netbook/small laptop and that document emailed round.

For that sort of application most of the prosthetic would/should be mass produced. As awesome as 3D printers are they are really for prototyping and customization rather than cheap manufacturing. I would see it more as using a 3D printer to print off some parts for customized fitting to the patient, and using off the shelf parts for the rest.

On the other hand, there are plenty of robotic hand projects which could be adapted to function as prosthetics. So, go take a look and see if you get inspired.

I second that, and would mod it up if I had mod points.

Anything like and Android/Apple phone, tablet is essentially a read only device*. You can't do any meaningful creative work on one. Until it has a decent free office app, a whole host of programming IDEs & compilers, image editors and the ability to view more than one program at a time... well it's just a nice toy for reading ebooks and playing angry birds.

* in the loose sense: sure there is some ability to write stuff; like notes, contacts, appointments, facebook stuff, etc. but you can't write a sizable computer program or do image editing, or basicly anything really useful.

Have you had a look at Zarafa? It's an open source replacement for exchange which handles email, calendaring and contacts. If you ran a server with this then your co-workers could connect with their favourite mail client/calender app, or use the webclient. It also supports Z-push which works like active sync for use with android and windows mobile devices.

I have an instance of it running on a custom built mythbuntu PVR at home to provide me with something other than google calendar to use with my android.

The downsides: the free community edition has some limits to it's features (eg: no multi-user calendar support), so you may need to fork out a few dollars if you need such.

The big problem in lawsuits seems to be the big guys throwing money at the problem till they win. What about if there was some sort of requirement for equal representation funding?

Perhaps the money from both sides is pooled, and then split evenly to provide representation for both.

It's definately a good start, and increasingly necessary as we approach the stage of needing a lawyer for every little transaction otherwise.

I think it is still in need of some further development though. As Justin pointed out there is the red/green colour blind issue, which could neatly be solved by using a circle with a line through, which is pretty widely accepted as a negation.

Also the first three icons - alert on changes, ability to export your data and only using the minimum required for functionality - are a little un-intuitive. That said, they are not exactly the easiest concepts to iconise

Am I the only one thinking that a Government department - which will undoubtedly deal with privileged information at some point - should not be using a system which is designed to take said information out of their control?

It has irked me for quite a while how lacking internet banking is in terms of security. That is not to say that the measures they have implemented are ineffective, but rather that they miss out on entire classes of security. It's as though they stick a bunch of locks on the front door, but leave the bathroom window wide open.

The most obvious one: bi-directional authentication. Banks require you to prove you are who you say you are. This is done by a variety of methods from passwords to hardware card reading gizmos which spew out a limited time code. What they neglect to do is prove that they are who they say they are.

If the first step in authenticating your identity was one which authenticated the bank's then it would be a lot harder for phishers to pretend to be your bank.

The server is not the issue here, or at least not the main one.

The part that is landing UMaple with the $3.6 million fine is that in order to make the official MapleStory client look to UMaple's server instead they had to write a little launcher app (UMaple Launcher) which would presumably do something like an in-memory edit to change the server address the client used. Possibly with a modification to some sort of handshaking protocol.

It's the technological equivalent of ignoring a 'do not enter' sign, rather than the actual bypassing of security, but sadly it still seems to count.

This launcher is the part that is being used by the 17K users, and so where the court is getting the 17K counts of infringement from.

But only because they didn't read TFA:

They used a much more invasive method for this one.