Boy, Girl Charged With Child Porn NBC Chicago
A 13-year-old girl and a 12-year-old boy from Valparaiso have been charged with possession of child pornography and child exploitation after it was discovered they were using their cell phones to exchange nude pictures of themselves with each other. The “sexting” case is being dealt with in Indiana’s juvenile court system.  In adult court, they could have faced 11 years in prison and been forced to register as sex offenders. The images were discovered last week when the girl’s phone sounded during class and the teacher confiscated it.  An investigation revealed the boy sent the girl an explicit photo of himself Jan. 17 and asked her to use her cellular phone to send back a similar picture of herself, which she did, police said. Police also learned the girl showed the picture of the boy to a seventh-grade friend.

Japanese alternatives to the iPad Telegraph
Tablet computers, essentially computers without physical keyboards, have been on the market in Asia for a long time now. However, there are a select few which stand out from the crowd and might, I dare say, be able to take on the iPad. Last year, Japanese company Kohjinsha announced a truly ground-breaking PC: the DZ dual screen tablet. The DZ initially appears rather boring, with a small 10.1 inch screen and little else to mark it out from the rest of the market. That is until you slide out the other 10.1 inch screen hiding behind. This transforms the tablet into a dual screened mini computing giant, capable of running both displays in unison or as separate workspaces.

Despite Changes, Many Still Oppose Google Books Deal New York Times
The landmark class-action settlement in 2008 that would have paved the way for Google to create a huge digital library and bookstore faced a tidal wave of opposition last year. So in November, Google and the other parties to the case, the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers, made revisions to the agreement. But version 2.0 of the settlement has failed to placate many of the critics who opposed the original agreement. With a Thursday deadline looming, several parties rushed to file a new round of objections to the settlement, which requires court approval. In a new, 33-page filing, Amazon.com, a vocal opponent of the original deal and a rival of Google in e-books, said the new agreement ‘continues to give Google exclusive rights likely to lead to a monopoly.’ Amazon and several others, including the Department of Justice, argued that the original deal would have given Google exclusive rights to millions of unclaimed or ‘orphan works’ — out-of-print books whose rights holders were unknown or couldn’t be found. Similarly, the Internet Archive, which like Google has been digitizing books from libraries, said in a new filing that the revised agreement fails to address issues in the original deal, ‘including the misappropriation of massive numbers of orphan works, the anticompetitive nature of the agreement and the failure to fairly address the rights of foreign authors.’ [Also see

Hackers target power plants, other infrastructure, survey finds Associated Press
More than half of the operators of power plants and other “critical infrastructure” say in a new study that their computer networks have been infiltrated by sophisticated adversaries. In many cases, foreign governments are suspected. The findings come in a survey being released Thursday that offers a rare public look at the damage computer criminals can do to vital institutions such as power grids, water and sewage systems and oil and gas companies. Manipulating the computer systems can cause power outages, floods, sewage spills and oil leaks.

Comcast, NBC promise to keep news, free TV Reuters
Cable giant Comcast and NBC Universal said on Thursday they would continue reporting news, keep broadcast television free and offer more children’s programing if the U.S. government approves Comcast’s plan to take control of the TV and movie company. But the filings, which were submitted to the Federal Communications Commission, did little to immediately allay critics of the deal, who were concerned about Comcast’s control of NBC’s television shows and movies in cable, television and on the Internet. They dismissed pledges by Comcast, which plans to buy a majority stake in NBC Universal from General Electric, to offer an additional hour of children’s programing each week using multicast channels of NBC owned-and-operated affiliates, and lengthen the amount of time that ratings information appears at commercial breaks.

Results of Study on CellPhone Use Surprise Researchers New York Times
Laws banning cellphone use while driving apparently haven’t reduced crashes, according to a study released on Friday that compared the number of total crashes before the ban with the number after. The study found virtually no difference in the numbers, a finding that had the researchers scratching their heads. ‘We were very surprised,’ said Adrian Lund, the president of the Highway Loss Data Institute that conducted the study and an affiliate of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. The thought was, of course that if law were passed that decreased cellphone use, then there should be fewer crashes. But that was not the case. ‘You know that there should be fewer,’ he said. ‘We were looking for that, and we aren’t seeing that pattern,’ said Mr. Lund, who is also the insurance institute’s president.

Australia bans graphic games … sort of Global Post
Has the Australian government’s most recent attempt at technological book-burning backfired? Last month, the government gave the green light to controversial plans to censor the internet and now fans of computer games have started a political party to protest the censorship of globally best-selling adult games. A debate is raging about the government’s refusal to allow an adults-only (18-years-old) or R rating for games, effectively leading to the banning of some of the world’s most sought-after home entertainment — games that are available to adults in their entirety in the United States and other Western countries. Ironically, the lack of adult rating — intended to exclude violent material — may be having the opposite effect.

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