CourseCast of the Week
Episode 0094,
03/28/2009
Title/Description: Sexting, Online Town Hall, News
Briefs
Welcome to Course
Technology's CourseCast of the week, Episode 94, recorded March 28, 2009. This
is Ken Baldauf bringing you this week's technology news and information. This CourseCast
is brought to you by Course Technology. Check out www.cengage.com/coursetechnology
for innovative textbooks and creative electronic learning solutions.
Story 1 - Sexting
Child pornography is a
disturbing crime that has become amplified by the ease with which photos and
video can be transferred over the Internet. This week 57 people were arrested
in Canada in a child porn crackdown. Last year, Australian police broke a child
porn ring that stretched across 170 countries and led to the arrest of 200 men
and the confiscation of 14,000 computers. In recent years, law enforcement
agencies around the world stepped up efforts to bust adults who have profit at
the expense of children through child pornography. But what happens when
children publish their own pornography?
In Pennsylvania, three
teenage girls have been charged with child pornography for allowing themselves
to be photographed partially nude. The girls are part of a growing trend among
teenagers called sexting, sending test messages containing sexually charged
photos. In New Jersey, a 14-year-old girl has been charged with child
pornography for posting nearly 30 explicit nude photos of herself on MySpace.
If convicted, the charges would force her to register as a sex offender, a
stigma that would remain with her for life.
Roughly 20 percent of teens
admit to participating in sexting. The increase in teens swapping nude photos
has parents and lawmakers scrambling for ways to address it. States including New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, North Dakota, Ohio, Utah, Vermont, Virginia and Wisconsin have begun bringing legal charges against teens caught sexting.
Civil liberties organizations are fighting against this response arguing that
felony charges are too severe for the crime. Many are watching the New Jersey case against the 14-year-old believing that it will set a precedent for how
states deal with the issue.
Canada
makes 57 arrests in child porn crackdown [Reuters]
Prosecutor
sued over semi-nude teen photos case [Reuters]
Girl,
14, Faces Porn Charges For Nude Photos [NPR]
"Sexting"
Shockingly Common Among Teens [CBS News]
Story 2 - Online Town Hall
President Obama held an
online town hall meeting this past week where he fielded questions posed by the
public online at the Whitehouse.gov Web site. Using Web 2.0 technologies,
people submitted questions and voted on questions that they thought were most
important. Nearly 93,000 people participated, submitting 104,000 questions, and
casting 3.5 million votes. The online town hall meeting is an effort by the
administration to connect directly with the voters. The question receiving the
most votes, the one that the president fielded first, was "How do you plan
to restore education as a right and core cultural value in America?"
Obama's
Web 2.0 experiment draws 92,000 users [Computerworld]
Obama Turns to
Web To Take Questions from Public [NewsFactor]
Online Town Hall
[YouTube]
And that brings us to News Briefs
- In an
appearance on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, President Obama encouraged
young people to pursue degrees in science and engineering rather than
finance and business stating that the country needs more professionals who
are engaged in creating things that make people's lives better.
Obama
on Tonight Show urges students to study engineering, not finance
[Computerworld]
- Not happy
with Facebook's new design? Your not alone! After receiving complaints
from over a million of its users, Facebook has decided that the redesign
of its Website was perhaps a mistake and has promised to fix some of the
issues.
Facebook
Will Tweak Site To Placate Angry Users [NewsFactor]
- When the
economy goes down, Internet crime goes up. Some Chinese IT professionals
who have lost their jobs at companies such as Intel, Lenovo, and Motorola,
have found opportunity in the malware industry. China has recently become
a leader in global malware distribution.
China
becoming the world's malware factory [Computerworld]
- A new
form of ransomware is hitting PC users. Once infected the malware encrypts
all of the files in Windows "My Documents" folder. When the user
attempts to open one of the files a Windows error message states that the
file is corrupt and directs the user to a recommended "file repair
application". Users are duped into paying $50 for what they think is
legitimate software to fix their mangled files.
New
ransomware holds Windows files hostage, demands $50 [Computerworld]
- Your
search results on Google may be a little more accurate now that Google has
included an "injection of semantic technology". The new
technology utilizes artificial intelligence to identify "associations
and concepts related to a query" enabling the search engine to
interpret the user's intent more intelligently.
Google
Rolls out Semantic Search Capabilities [PCWorld]
- A new
report from the EPA found that US companies are wasting $2.8 billion a
year by powering PCs when they are not in use.
Report:
U.S. companies waste $2.8B per year powering unused PCs [Info World]
- The
Chinese government has blocked YouTube access for its citizens after a
video was posted showing Chinese police beating a Tibetan protestor to
death.
YouTube
Blocked in China; Official Says Video Fake [NewsFactor]
- The
Recording Industry Association of America has switched strategies from
suing people that illegally download music to threatening to cut off their
Internet access. While ISP's are playing along by sending threatening
letters to copyright violators, both Cox, and Comcast say that they would
not cut off Internet access without a Federal court order.
Pirates
Will Get a Warning, But ISPs Won't Kick 'Em Out [NewsFactor]
- The
conficker worm, reported as infecting over 10 million PCs worldwide, is
planning an April fools trick. Code in the worm has information security
experts warning that the worm will become even more aggressive on April
1st. Exactly what the worm will do is anyone's guess.
Conficker
Worm Will Call Home on April Fools' Day [NewsFactor]
- A new
video gaming company named OnLive is working to deliver popular video
games streamed over the Internet. The technology could make gaming consoles
obsolete as it streams games from 10 of the biggest game producers direct
to PC or TV.
"Cloud-based"
console takes aim at Wii, PS3, Xbox 360 [Reuters]
- Now,
thanks to new technology from New York University, your plants can Twitter
you when they need water, or are over watered. Soil-moisture sensors
combined with a microprocessor, wi-fi and software allow your plants to
twitter messages like "I'm desperately thirsty, please water
me". The inventor's rhododendron has more than 2.300 followers on
Twitter.
Thirsty
plants can Twitter for water with new device [Reuters]
That's it for this week's CourseCast.
Links to this week's stories and many more news and information resources are
provided at the CourseCast Web site at coursecasts.course.com. Email us with
your suggestions for the show at course.coursecasts@cengage.com. Until next
time, have a great week and be sure to take advantage of the Power -- of
Technology!