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Photos and videos of child pornography on the Web have multiplied at an alarming rate over the past few years. In 2011, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children said it received 17.3 million images and videos of suspected child abuse, which is four times more than 2007.

Google has announced that it wants to help curb this proliferation of child pornography. In fact, the Web giant plans to take it even a step further -- it wants to completely eradicate child porn from the Internet.

"Behind these images are real, vulnerable kids who are sexually victimized … Read more

If you happened to watch Apple's WWDC keynote yesterday, you probably noticed that one of the biggest crowd responses -- the largest chorus of "oohs" and "ahhs" -- came when Tim Cook unveiled Control Center.

And no wonder: It took Apple six years to add a feature Android users have enjoyed since almost the beginning. If you wanted these capabilities on your iPhone, you'd have to jailbreak it and install SBSettings.

No more. Control Center has arrived -- or will arrive, anyway, once iOS 7 splashes down this fall -- bringing with it a … Read more

For all the complaining about Windows 8's lack of a Start button (much of it coming from me), the tech media has largely ignored an even bigger feature Microsoft unceremoniously pulled from the OS.

And not only pulled, but also slapped with a price tag.

I'm talking about Windows Media Center, the thoroughly awesome software that makes a Windows PC a great companion for TV -- or just a great TV, depending on how you use it.

Windows Media Center (hereafter WMC) made its debut as a specialized version of Windows XP, but was later incorporated into most versions of Windows Vista and Windows 7. Offering a gorgeous 10-foot (i.e., TV-friendly) interface for your music, photos, videos, and, with the addition of a tuner, TV shows, WMC quickly amassed a small but rabid following.… Read more

One of the most closed-off countries in the world has finally started to roll out Internet for its citizens. The Cuban government has officially opened 118 public Internet centers across the country, according to the Associated Press.

Up until now, computers with Internet access were sparse on the island. Besides a few universities and employers offering access, some of the only places to get online were tourist hotels that charged up to $8 an hour for erratic Wi-Fi, according to the Associated Press.

The Cuban government estimates that only 2.9 percent of the country's citizens get online, according … Read more

Kids dealing with cancer at the A.C. Camargo Cancer Center in Sao Paulo, Brazil, are getting a slightly different kind of cancer-fighting treatment. The medicine is the same, but the delivery method carries a superheroic message. The IV fluid is now covered with superhero logos created by advertising agency JWT Brazil.

Warner Brothers (owner of DC Comics) is also a client of JWT and gave its blessing and a helping hand to the project that features Green Lantern, Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman. The kids are given custom comic books and animations that show the popular superheroes undergoing similar treatments. The superheroes recover thanks to the "superformula" and continue in their crime-fighting ways.… Read more

PALO ALTO, Calif. -- Got a large roll-to-roll printer that you're not sure what to do with? You might have a future in electronics manufacturing.

It's still very early days, but researchers at the Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) have been taking significant strides in developing a new technology that makes it possible to print electronic components like sensors, transistors, light-emitters, smart tags, flexible batteries, memory, smart labels, and more.

PARC's work can also bring a new element to 3D printing: adding electronic, sensing or optical functionalities to parts. Printing electronics shares one major trait with that … Read more

When your hormones are harassing you to within an eyebrow-width of your sanity, all you want is a simple life.

You want to be able to curl up with the kind of social network that understands you and doesn't give you headaches.

That kind of social network is, increasingly, not Facebook.

At least this is what teens seem to have told the Pew Research Center during its latest study.

Indeed, the teens surveyed were disturbed by the increased presence of adults and the increased tendency of other teens to angst-ridden self-expression on Mark Zuckerberg's site.

There is, as … Read more

Some stories make you wonder.

Some, however, make your eyeballs cease to move.

This, for example, is the story of a T-Mobile employee who says she was made to clock out to use the bathroom.

Which, to the average objective eye, seems a trifle inhumane.

Kristi Rifkin was employed by T-Mobile in its Nashville, Tenn., call center. It seems that, on the whole, she felt her job was relatively sweet music.

However, things changed when she fell pregnant for the second time.

As ABC News reports, her pregnancy was tough. On the advice of a doctor, she had to drink … Read more

David Segal Violins is located just a few blocks from Lincoln Center and the Juilliard School in New York City. I stopped by the showroom to learn how the technology of violin making has changed, but that wasn't the main story. Today's violins may look similar to the ones made 300 years ago by Stradivarius or Guarneri, but they get used in different ways. Where before violins were only played in concerts, now they're also recorded. Segal tells me that a great concert violin might not work all that well to accompany a vocalist.

The "technology&… Read more