The Nintendo Wii includes the ability to purchase downloadable games at an online store, using the Wii's Internet connection. You buy games using "points," which you pay for with cash. (I assume stores like these use "points" so prices paid for points can vary from currency to currency, while the item point prices stay the same. Wii points cost 1 U.S. cent per point in batches of 1000. The Zune store charges 99 U.S. cents for 79 points, which I assume is intended to confuse U.S. customers about the actual price of a song. But I digress.)

You can purchase points using the Wii itself. To do so, you enter your credit card number using the Wii controller and an on-screen number pad. Because the number pad is difficult to use in this way, your credit card number appears unobscured in big numbers on your television as you key it in, so you know you typed it correctly. In my case, that makes my credit card number visible from the street if my curtains are open an inch or more.

The Wii has the same problem with password fields in their Opera web browser. I was pleased to see that Gmail actually works pretty well (for reading mail anyway) on the Wii, but it displayed my password on the screen while I punched it in.

I'd love to see this fixed, but to be honest, I'm not sure what the fix is. In the case of the Wii store, I'd prefer to purchase points using the web site (not using the Wii), then spend the points on the Wii, but that doesn't seem to be possible yet. For passwords, maybe just an option to obscure during entry?