The direct value add here should be that they keep your bodyshape in the cloud and you can reference it during online clothes shopping (or bike frame shopping) so that the site selling jeans etc can send you the right size. The indirect value add is that they keep anonymised copies of every scan to build a database of what size patrons actually are (and sell the data to people designing clothes). You could launch a business where you scan people for free, and charge online merchants a fee to access the profile when suggesting clothes for sale. I could see high price gyms doing you before and after scans as part of the "6 weeks with a personal trainer" package. And yes (though it horrifies me) I could see people one day linking to their 3d model (rather than a photo) in online dating profiles. I'm sure you'll be able to stitch an actual face photo onto the 3d model. People will add their own bodies into first person games. I could see eventually a self service booth that scanned you monthly and gave you targeted health / exercise advice entirely without human intervention. I'd use that, if I had guarantees of data security. ("Do more situps !"). Police mugshots would be 3d eventually, allowing better matches with CCTV and Thermal CCTV Airlines could decide in advance how to balance the plane / assign legroom based on passenger dimensions Automakers could supply personalised foam seat inserts You could do tuxedo rental by post, no high street premises needed. What fun this will be.....l Keep your eyes open for when it comes to Facebook - the new "share my body" option box will be checked by default, I bet...

Why spend millions in hardware that is going to idle just to cater for the odd spike This is not the "odd spike" though. It's what they can expect every month end from now on. People will leave it to the last minute (knowing they can, and saving the cash flow) . If they want to smooth the traffic they should offer "renew any time in the month but we'll only take payment right at the end".

Visa is a smartcard, not a plan old RFID

>> If the new password must vary by at least five characters, they must be keeping a copy of the password Wrong. If the password updating page asks for your old and your new passords, the difference can be policed in Javascript before you even hit the submit button.

(by "the target hack" I meant "the Target hack")

Apple could I suppose choose to encrypt at rest. But it would be a pretty inefficient mail server. A subpoena after you had stopped using the service and fled to Hong Kong might not turn up anything. I think it's a disingenuously narrow definition of "hacked" being used here. If my cloud ecosystem uses trivial "secret questions" or is brute forcable or has a 2FA system so awful noone uses it, then is an intruder using these weaknesses who comes in through the front door brandishing a real (socially hacked) password not actually regarded as a hacker ? This is all a war of words for mainstream media consumption, remember. Recently I heard that "gmail had been hacked", whereas the actual story was that a rogue (non play store) android app was able to sniff shared memory while the gmail app was logging in. The headline maybe should have been "apps on android can read each other's memory". The target hack could have been headlined "applications in XP can read each other's shared memory, and your whole system is only as strong as the security disciplines applied by your heating subcontractors if you give them access". But the general public can't get their heads round this stuff. I'm also pretty sick of hearing how this is somehow a sign of Apple's specific weakness ("note how it wasn't android") rather the opposite interpretation ("famous people are more likely to be using an iPhone than a Samsung Galaxy S"). Any system made easy to use for the masses is at the mercy of the poor security behaviour of the users. Most of all though, I'm quite surprised to hear frpom all of this that I'm apparently in a minority for NOT using my phone to take / send naked pics. Everyone's doing it, I hear. Who knew ?

For me MightyText is a must have. I can't rely on others to have internet access but everyone can receive an SMS. But I hate typing them on the on screen kbd. There's a free version but also a premium that includes gens like "queue an SMS for sending at a later time/date".

One problem with the last Samsung android phone I had was all the Samsung crap on it. Surely their own OS will be even worse ? Or maybe they plan to create a rival ecosystem to the google one (maps, mail, calendar, drive, now, their own chromebooks). Hmmm