Outgoing FCC head Kevin Martin is pushing for action this December to create a porn-free wireless Internet — despite objections from the wireless industry and some consumer groups. The FCC has been trying to sell the idea for a while now and this appears to be Martin’s last gasp before he puts his resume on the street.

Saying that it had not reached sales goals, Nokia has announced that it is ceasing production of handsets for the world’s largest cell phone market. The company blames global economic conditions and slumping sales for its decision.

It’s alive!  The botnet, which was crippled several weeks ago by the closure of a San Jose ISP, is back. Srizbi botnet is estimated to be responsible for about half of the world’s spam and it appears that the shadowy group, working from Russia, has regained control and spam levels are on the rise.  It’s tough to keep a good spammer down.

It's an annual event that combines the best vetern entrepreneurs from Silicon Valley and the brightest hopefuls from Oxford University to discuss the state of the market and future of global entrepreneurship. The participants were thoughtful, enthusiastic and refreshingly optomistic. Edgelings Editor-in-Chief Michael S Malone was the founder of Silicon Valley comes to Oxford and gives us a glimpse into the event.

Edgelings correspondent Charlie Martin briefly emerges from his Turkey-induced tryptophen shock to count his blessings during Thanksgiving for all that the technology revolution has given us -- much of it already too unappreciated.

Is that headache just caffeine withdrawal or a brain tumor?  You check for info on line and by the time you’re done, you’re convinced you have a least a dozen obscure and fatal illnesses. Microsoft has released details of a study on medical search term results and has concluded that the information overload may be more debilitating than the perceived malady.

Here’s a company that sells virtual items, like a new shirt or more powerful suit of armor for your video game avatar – virtual goods for real cash. They claim to have processed 50 million transactions in the past year. Do you think there is any correlation between time spent shopping for your avatar and the weight problems in kids?  Wouldn’t you rather have that sweater for yourself, for real? Mother told me no good would come from sitting in front of the screen all day.

Microsoft chief honcho Steve Ballmer has been called to testify in the class action “vista capable” suit being heard in Washington state. It’s a classic tech case of marketing verses technical realities and who knew what, when – we’ve seen it before. A number of companies had expressed concerns about the Vista roll-out including HP, Sony and Intel. Spokespeople for Ballmer say that it was underlings who knew the issues best and handled the troubles and that Steve was not directly involved with operational decisions.

In olden days, couples would take naughty pictures at home and hide them in a dresser draw for future entertainment. But the cellphone cam has given us the luxury of portability- we can take these pictures with us anywhere we go for a quick titillation.  

Now, an Arkansas couple is suing McDonald’s claiming they left their cell phone, full of personal pictures, in a company restaurant and the photos along with their address and home number appeared on the Web. Their new found fame as Internet porn stars  gained them a hoard of new friends trying to call and visit.

The couple wants $3 Million in damages.  Yet another in a long string of stories that remind us that if you don’t want the world to see it, don’t do it near a camera.

Social networking site Facebook has won their court case against a Canadian man who relentlessly spammed the site with sexually explicit messages.  The court awarded the company over $800 Million in damages, about three times Facebook’s annual revenues.  The company reassures users that it will do everything in it’s power to keep the site spam free and hopes this judgement sends a message to spammers.  The defendant has been hard to locate since the suit was filed and it may be a bit difficult to collect on the judgement.

Los Angeles real estate developer Elliot Gottfurcht, founder of EMG Technologies, and two “co-inventors” have sued Apple claiming that the technology used by the iPhone to display certain web pages on the mobile device infringes on a patent granted the group last month. This should be interesting.

With all the troubles swirling around Sun, Edgelings contributor Charlie Martin takes a developers look and asks serious questions about the future of Java. Opinion

Reports are out that micro-blog site Twitter has rejected a $500Million Take-over offer from Facebook. The problem is, Facebook wanted the sale to be paid for in Facebook stock, which many think is greatly over-valued.  The merger may sound like a good fit but the Twitter folks see bigger opportunities ahead for the company.  Give them credit, a tech company that doesn’t aspire to selling out to a bigger fish is becoming increasingly rare.  Kara Swicher from All Things D  has the story.

The Motion Picture Association of America wants control of your HDTV.  The group has asked the FCC for a waiver on Selectable Output Controls (SOC) on HD sets, limiting consumers abilities to send a broadcast to multiple devices. An estimated 20 million HDTV sets will cease to function in the same way they did when they were purchased. Consumer groups are up in arms but FCC action on the request isn’t expected any time soon.

Ten Sleep Wyoming, population 350, is finding an entirely new economy because of broadband and the web.  The town has become a hub for teaching english to over 15,000 students in Korea via the ‘net. Eleutian Technologies is hiring English teachers across northern Wyoming for the project and estimates that teaching English to Asian rim students is a multi-billion dollar market.  Now we can expect thousands of Asians to speak in a flat Cheyenne accent.  Thank heavens the company  isn’t based in Alabama.

Symantec reports that hackers are becoming more patient in targeting victims and more selective in their attacks. Rather than pillaging computers for any and all data they can find, sophisticated hackers are launching surgical strikes against only select data, making their activities less noticeable. The computer thieves also are perfecting their enterprises and finding new ways to gain profit in a growing underground digital economy.

While digital books account for only about 1 percent of sales, Random House will be expanding its online library of offerings. The company has a library of 8,000 in digital form and the new offerings will expand that number to 15,000 when completed in several months. E-books sales have increased by triple digits this year for the publisher with the company pointing to the Amazon Kindle as one reason for success.  There is an obvious migration of material in to digital form but whether serious sales will follow remains to be seen. It’s tough to gather around the kindle for a bedtime story.