Yes, these keypads have been in use for at least 10 years. You press a button to activate the keypad, and it randomly places the digits onto the pad so they're in a different place each time. After you successfully enter your code all of the numbers disappear. It certainly makes it slower to enter your PIN, but it also makes it impossible to surreptitiously determine your PIN.

Given some of Google's recent comments on patents, what is the likelihood that they picked one of the most obviously documented prior art patent ideas they could come up with just to make a point?Just trying to make the point that, "If this gets patented, then clearly ANYTHING can. And that proves that the system is broken."

Or maybe I'm just being entirely too naive.

But doesn't that DRM then destroy your rights granted by the first-sale doctrine? And then it comes down to which law takes precedence: the DMCA, or the right of first sale.

Do any of you law types have any comment on this legal conflict?

Other than methane, what other gas does the Cowboyneal group contain?

Which Korea did you live in? I live in Korea now and use the subway systems to commute to work/school every day. The average subway car can be broken down like this:
10% (80% of seated passengers) : People sleeping or pretending to sleep so they dont have to get up for the grandmother/grandfather standing in front of them
10%: texting (nothing amazing there)
10-20%: watching a video on a PMP
remainder: staring vacantly into space/recovering from the previous night's drinking binge.

These are averages, YMMV.

almost no one uses the 'web' on these trains, and almost anytime that i use the 'web' (more like wap than www) functions on my phone any koreans around me will freak out and tell me to be careful cos its so expensive. hell, i even have people request that i dont send them text messages above a certain character limit, cos then it defaults to MMS, which costs money to receive.

this will change over time as the poorly named 'wibro' takes hold.