To be perfectly frank these scanners are fine, an addition to security arsenal rather than replacement. You will just walk into the thing and out the other end; the majority of people will go right through - unlike metal detectors that result in considerable delay due to change in pockets or metal buckles. Whether these scanners are actually effective remains to be seen of course, but there should be no resistance in principle.

I have no pity for the privacy queens - you don't like it, don't fly. I won't have my security compromised by your over-delicate sensibilities.

No matter how good the AV or anti-malware the user will be a weak point. This will continue to be an issue because if you make something idiot-proof nature will come up with a better class of idiot. I stripped off my resource hogging AV a while ago and use third party firewalls for protection, been fine ever since.

And how much will they be charging for this fashion-statement bit of techno-frippery? It looks frighteningly breakable to me for a mobile device.

Either way, good luck to 'em.

Although the bill has been structured to make it difficult to implement, it is a very worrying trend indeed. It was said of affirmative action in the US, 500 places on a university course. Affirmative action kicks in, one white person is removed and a ethnic minority with lower grades is put in. The ethnic minority would have been refused the place on poor grades. The white person lost the place simply because of the colour of their skin. Its racism, just fashionable and politically allowable racism. This bill is one step away from quotas and that is a disaster.

I always put on ethnic monitoring forms for jobs that I am black disabled lesbian. If they question it my answer is "Why is the form still attached to my application?" and secondly "would I have go the interview otherwise?"

Harman needs to go, shes a man hating feminist dinosaur and does the government no favours.

And how do the ISPs feel about all this? A great deal of burden is on their shoulders. And it wouldn't surprise me, using the UK government as an example, if the definition of RC material starts to slip with future governments, leading to the blocking of political or run of the mill pornographic sites. Very worrying indeed.

Legislation based on proclivity is extremely dangerous, bordering on thought crime. The current laws, as explained in the article, do make sense as a child would have to be abused for the picture to be produced. But by criminalising the production of someone's mind is very difficult to justify. What if I doodle a cartoon of me killing someone? Does that give me proclivity to murder?

What if I tell them my favourite film is Care Bears - The Movie? Can I work anywhere then?

Seriously though, this is widespread profiling and its neither justifiable to feasible.

As sensible as this decision is, lets hope they know where to stop. Its all to easy to foresee a "creep" of censorship.

So, with no browser pre-installed on a system, how do you download one? Via some obtuse FTP system? Thats really going to help non-technical users. And I notice Apple is barely mentioned, don't they do the same with Safari? The EU are being idiotic.

At last some statistical sense on tasers. I would prefer to get zapped than take a kicking from a set of size 9s or shot in the head several times. Injury and damage from tasers is very rare but tend to get picked on.

of things to come. Pride comes before the fall.

As much as I hate to agree with anything Jackboot Smith says, this retard deserves to stay in the US.

OK, take an example. 10 people, do the same job, a complex job requiring previous skills and training. 5 are men, 5 are women.

One of them (a male) is highly experienced and negotiated a £5k higher wage. Women find out about this. All demand the higher wage. Soooo, we have one highly experienced man on a higher wage, 5 women get the wage whether deserved or not, and four men who are discriminated against because of their sex on a lower wage. And possibly a bankrupted company who can't afford another £25k a year wage bill.

Nice one Government. Do you want any small businesses to succeed?

Lets hope Windows 7 is good enough that downgrading won't be required. I'm not holding my breath.

So you grasp it in your fist and jerk it hard up and down? Is Fallen Angel Jobs trying to tell us something about people who use iPods?

Am I the only one more worried about the term "re-education classes"? Just the name sends a chill through me, I can't think of anything more Stalinist.

Mines the one with a pic of a 13 year old in the pocket.

3 have the most dreadful 3G system I have ever seen. It repeatedly fails to connect to certain websites, requiring a disconnect and reconnect and its coverage is poor. I can only hope this T-mobile mix will improve matters.

Good job Irish ISPs! Stick it to 'em.

Surely "death by dangerous driving" warrants a more harsh sentence? This is the man who threatened to fill the streets with 10,000 angry muslims if Wilders was let into the country, so I have little sympathy for him.

FFS, all locking this rather lovely looking new phone will do is force customers elsewhere. I would love to own a Pre and would like to have a legitimate one rather than a dodgy cracked overseas job, but I refuse to give in to carrier blackmail on the issue.

Just when Palm looked like they were digging themselves out of their hole, they do this. Rubbish.

Noble has hit the nail bang on the head. Us highly qualified technical types, which keep advanced engineering running, are fed up with receiving ignorant orders from highly paid managers and their 2:2 in business studies from Kingston Poly. Highly skilled techies are vital and managers treat them beneath contempt; perhaps some fusion of the career streams within large companies would make things better.

Apple are well known for making devices that are easy to break; having delicate controls away from any protective support structure seems a risk indeed. Also, can you use your own headphones with this? The poor music quality of an iPod is only matched by the rubbishness of the headphones.

I bet if you gave the same project title, "Design an ambulance for the future", to a bunch of 6 year olds they would come up with something very similar to the RCA chaps. Which just about says it all.

Mines the one with an engineering degree in the pocket.

Genius!

Does the US already put age restrictions on video games like they do with DVDs?

For a new OS that the author seems to have barely seen, its a remarkably negative article. A bit on the partisan side perhaps?

That Times spelling bee thing is drivel, its impossible to hear the nasal tones of the speakers. Its meant to check your spelling rather than your hearing.

Lots of numbers spouted back and forth, but any engineer will know there are a fair few assumptions in all these calculations, so any figures that are produced are subject to this. Personally I think the wind generation is a white elephant, although the cost little to decommission they still require extensive maintenance, particularly when hit by UFOs. And the Chernobyl reference is frankly asinine, that disaster was argument against communist incompetence rather than against nuclear power.

Despite this, the energy security issue is more important the the eco issue. Currently Britain (or England, if the union breaks up) is beholden to some very unsavoury regimes for both uranium and fossil fuel supplies, and this has to change.

Mines the one with the list of assumptions in the pocket.

That Bloodninja was hilarious! Thank you Rik and Reg!

Back on topic, just how does the Chinese government propose to check for smut in texts? There must be billions sent per day. Or do they let fear do the work for them?

I work in the biotech industry, and it has always been my view that chemical weapons pose far more of a terrorist risk than biological weapons. Yes, a biological outbreak of smallpox or similar pathogen could be catastrophic but bear in mind humankind lived with smallpox until the mid 19th century. To be truly effective a virus would have to be specifically engineered and any in research will tell you this is a mammoth task and keeping it secret would be even more challenging.

Nerve gases to NOT all dissipate naturally. Sarin, the gas used in Tokyo subway attacks, does dissipate but VX has both a far lower LD50 and is a viscous liquid, cleaning up a section of a city that had been contaminated would be very difficult indeed. Couple that with ease of production (far easier than a virus or bacterial pathogen) it poses more of a risk short to medium term.

The extradition should be fought as the Yanks can't be trusted to hand out a punishment that fits the crime, particularly if its handed over the the military. The "terrorism" link smacks of abuse of legislation, must like when that Walter fellow was thrown out of the Labour Party conference under terrorism acts.

As someone who has travelled in London for the past 11 years, Oyster WAS a revolution. Its easier, its cheaper and the cards are difficult to lose. Privacy issues aside its been a success. If you have never been to London or owned an Oyster card, then quantify your comment with that.

So THATS why my right wrist is always hurting.

Paris as she loves a bit of wrist action.

The Kathmandu one is pretty funny as well, but the Austria one takes the biscuit!

I can't think of a more poorly thought out piece of legislation. The whole premise that violent porn (and I am talking about simulated porn, the real stuff is already illegal) causes violent people is very tenuous indeed and just seems another excuse for raiding people's PC's, while persecuting anyone who likes a bit of kink. El Reg is right, pretentious moralising gesture politics at its absolute worst.

We're not prejudiced, we hate everyone...

Mines the one with a picture of Mohammed on the back.