By Jesse Brown, CBC technology columnist.

Anyone who watches Degrassi: The Next Generation, or NBC’s To Catch a Predator, knows that the internet is teeming with sexual predators eager to lure kiddies away through IM chats into unspeakable real world situations. With this persistent menace in mind, 49 U.S. state attorneys general created an expansive task force to study the problem of online solicitation of minors and to recommend safety measures.

Their finding: There is no problem.

By Paul Jay, CBCNews.ca. The official home of the U.S. vice-president is now clearly visible through Google Maps satellite imagery, a development that curiously coincides with the departure of notoriously secretive former U.S. vice-president Dick Cheney.

By Pras Rajagopalan, CBCNews.ca. A researcher at a French university says Nintendo's brain teaser games like "Dr. Kawashima's Brain Age" are no better at improving cognitive ability than doing puzzles with pencil and a piece of paper.

By Jesse Brown, CBC technology columnist.

British PM Gordon Brown was planning to exempt Members of Parliament from transparency rules that would require them to disclose their expenses, just like all other public servants. The exemption (unsurprisingly) had wide, cross-party support and was sailing ahead into law.

But then the "Internets" happened.

By Jesse Brown, CBC technology columnist.

Whistle-blowing, muck-raking Wikileaks has done it again, and in a big way.

The full-disclosure website has released no fewer than 70 United Nations investigative reports classified as "Strictly Confidential" (and 530 other UN reports, too).

By Paul Jay, CBCNews.ca

Yesterday we mentioned the criticism of a Times of London story which included the assertion that running two Google searches released the same amount of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere as boiling a kettle of tea. Now a new critic has emerged: the Harvard physicist and green-website founder to whom the statement was attributed.

By Paul Jay, CBCNews.ca.

A Harvard physicist and green-website founder's assertion that running two Google searches released the same amount of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere as boiling a kettle of tea has caused a tempest in a you-know-what. Type in "google search kettle" in Google and you'll get a host of links to the study mentioned in the Times of London over the weekend, the nut of which is this: the search you just tried released the equivalent of about 7 grams of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

By Peter Nowak, CBCNews.ca.

LAS VEGAS - Two years in a row, Toshiba proves to be a bust at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Last year, the Japanese company had the rug pulled out from under it when Warner Bros announced it was dropping support of HD DVD in favour of Blu-ray. If this year's CES press conference on Wednesday was any indication, Toshiba still hasn't recovered.

By Jesse Brown, CBC technology columnist.

Each year Macolytes around the globe breathlessly await the introduction of cool new technology at the Macworld expo. But this year, the coolest news was not the addition of great new tech, but the subtraction of bad old tech. DRM will soon be gone from iTunes, and that’s cause for excitement, whether you use Apple’s music store or not.

Here’s what it means:

by Peter Nowak, CBCNews.ca.

At the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Peter Nowak in this video takes a look at some of the newest devices, including dual-screened laptops, full-body massage chairs and 3-D television sets.

by Peter Nowak, CBCNews.ca.

Is the world ready for a two-headed laptop? Lenovo thinks it is. The Chinese electronics maker, which owns IBM’s old computer division, on Tuesday made one of the more interesting pre-announcements to the Consumer Electronics Show, which officially begins Thursday. Lenovo announced the availability of its new ThinkPad W700, which features a second monitor that slides out from behind the main screen.

By Jesse Brown, CBC technology columnist.

What do text messages actually cost?

Interesting revelation in the New York Times: text messages, which can cost consumers twice what they did just three years ago, actually cost cell phone providers nothing ... or at least, next to nothing.