Ewan Palmer reports: A teenage boy in the UK has had a crime of making and distributing indecent images recorded against him after he sent a naked picture of himself to one of his female classmates. The 14-year-old was not formally arrested after he sent the explicit image to a girl of the same age via Snapchat. The police file against the boy will now remain active for 10 years, meaning any future employer conducting an advanced Criminal Records Bureau check will be aware of the incident. However, it is not clear whether a police file was recorded for the girl who saved and shared the image. Under new legislation, if she had been over 18, the girl could have been convicted under the so called 'revenge porn' law in the UK.

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Mathew Ingram has a post where he looks at the pros and cons of Twitter getting rid of the 140-character limit. I don't think there are any cons, they have to do it. Here's why.

1. Facebook is right. People don't click on links. It's not just true of mobile readers, it's true of all readers, everywhere all the time. They. Don't. Click. Links. Memorize that.

2. Facebook wants to be in the news business. So does Apple. Probably a lot of other big tech companies. Will any of them have a 140-character limit? No need to answer that.

3. So there's Twitter with a package that can handle pictures, movies, vines, etc. But if you want to read a few paragraphs of text you have to click a link? If that limit lasts much longer it's an example of paralyzed management. Obviously there is no technical limit. If you can embed a video, you can include a few paragraphs.

4. The user experience would have to change a tiny bit. You'd see the first 200 characters or so, then a See more link, exactly like Facebook has. Or if they want to be a little more beautiful, they could put a triangular wedge there and allow it to expand and collapse with a nice animated effect. None of this is even slightly challenging to program.

Conclusion. They have to do it. What's amazing is that they've waited this long without doing it.

Controversial penalty decides game in Amsterdam; Italy, Czech Republic seal close wins.

Tired of the repetitive commercials on Hulu Plus? The good news is that the streaming TV service is now offering a commercial free version for $11.99 per month, with the ad-laden version still available at $7.99 per month. However, some shows, like ABC’s “Agents of SHIELD” will still feature ads.

 

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Zothecula writes: Working with a team of UCLA scientists, a man with protracted and complete paralysis has recovered sufficient voluntary control to take charge of a bionic exoskeleton and take many thousands of steps. Using a non-invasive spinal stimulation system that requires no surgery, this is claimed (abstract) to be the first time that a person with such a comprehensive disability has been able to actively and voluntarily walk with such a device.

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Vote in towns and villages across country is first since central government gave its regions greater autonomy.

HughPickens.com writes: Gregory Meyer reports at the Financial Times that electricity generated by U.S. wind farms fell 6 per cent in the first half of the year, even as the nation expanded wind generation capacity by 9 per cent. The reason was some of the softest air currents in 40 years, cutting power sales from wind farms to utilities. The situation is likely to intensify into the first quarter of 2016 as the El Niño weather phenomenon holds back wind speeds around much of the U.S. "We never anticipated a drop-off in the wind resource as we have witnessed over the past six months," says David Crane. Wind generated 4.4 per cent of US electricity last year, up from 0.4 per cent a decade earlier. But this year U.S. wind plants' "capacity factor" has averaged just a third of their total generating capacity, down from 38 per cent in 2014. EIA noted that slightly slower wind speeds can reduce output by a disproportionately large amount. "Capacity factors for wind turbines are largely determined by wind resources," says a report from the Energy Information Administration. "Because the output from a turbine varies nonlinearly with wind speed, small decreases in wind speeds can result in much larger changes in output and, in turn, capacity factors." In January of 2015, wind speeds remained 20 to 45 percent below normal on areas of the west coast, but it was especially bad in California, Oregon, and Washington, where those levels dropped to 50 percent below normal during the month of January.

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Kentucky clerk convicted of contempt of court for refusing to marry same-sex couples in violation of federal law.