Parental filters for pornographic content will come as a default setting for all homes in the UK by the end of 2013, says David Cameron’s special advisor on preventing the sexualization and commercialization of childhood, Claire Perry MP.

Internet service providers (ISP) will be expected to provide filtering technology to new and existing customers with an emphasis on opting out, rather than opting in.

“[In the UK] we will have filters where if you do nothing, the parental filters will come pre-ticked,” said Perry, speaking at a Westminster eForum on 14 June.

» via ars technica

Millions of tweets, Facebook status updates and even a blog about a bus shelter in the Shetlands are to be preserved for the nation.

The British Library and four other “legal deposit libraries’” have the right to collect and store everything that is published online in the UK.

It is estimated around a billion pages a year will be available for research.

It follows 10 years of planning and will also offer visitors access to material currently behind paywalls.

» via BBC

“Complacent” British universities that fail to respond to the rise of online universities will be swept away by global competition, says a report into the future of higher education.

Sir Michael Barber, chief education adviser for Pearson, says online courses will be a “threat and opportunity” for the UK’s universities.

This “avalanche” could see some middle-ranking universities closing, he says.

“There are too many universities doing the same thing,” says Sir Michael.

» via BBC

A high court in the United Kingdom has ruled that a copyright owner does not have the right to claim profits from copyright infringement.

“A copyright owner does not have a proprietary claim to the fruits of an infringement of copyright. I shall not, therefore, grant proprietary injunctions,” wrote judge Guy Newey of the England and Wales High Court of Justice, Chancery Division, in a ruling published on Tuesday.

» via ars technica

If you head to McDonald’s in the U.K. you might hear an new question coming from behind the counter: Would you like a book with those fries? That’s right, move over cheap toys, pint sized British consumers of McDonald’s Happy Meals will now get a book instead. The fast food giant has partnered with publisher Dorling Kindersley and bookseller WH Smith and plans to distribute over 15 million books to kids over the next two years. The move makes McDonald’s the largest book distributor in the U.K.

Kids will get a combination of fiction and nonfiction texts, including texts on science and technology topics. And, along with the book that comes with the Happy Meal, kids will get a certificate they exchange for a book at their local WH Smith bookstore.

» via GOOD

A high court judge has ruled that companies do not have a general claim of ownership of the content contained in staff emails.

The decision creates a potential legal minefield for the terms of staff contracts and an administrative nightmare for IT teams running email servers, back up and storage.

The judge ruled businesses do not have an “enforceable proprietary claim” to staff email content unless that content can be considered to be confidential information belonging to a business, unless business copyright applies to the content, or unless the business has a contractual right of ownership over the content.

» via ComputerWorld

Some 16 million people in the UK lack basic online skills, a survey suggests.

The report, conducted by consultancy firm Booz & Company, defines basic skills as using a search engine, sending and receiving emails, completing online applications and accessing information online.

Go ON UK, a charity chaired by the UK digital champion Martha Lane Fox, commissioned the report.

The organisation aims to do more to improve digital literacy in the UK.

» via BBC

High-flying graduates are to be given a £20,000 golden handshake to train as computer science teachers.

Ministers have asked Facebook, Microsoft and IBM to help design the training for the new teachers.

Education Secretary Michael Gove said current information and communications technology (ICT) teacher training courses would be axed from next year.

The move “could not be more welcome or more necessary”, said Prof Steve Furber of the Royal Society.

» via BBC

Photographers, illustrators and authors will be amongst those to lose their digital rights under radical new proposals published by the Government today. New legislation is proposed that would effectively introduce a compulsory purchase order, but without compensation, across an unlimited range of creative works, for commercial use.

Millions of amateurs who today post their images to Flickr and automatically receive the full protection of the law, would also lose, unless they opted-out.

The changes involve orphan works reform - floated as Clause 43 of the Digital Economy Act in 2010 but killed off by photographers - and an Extended Collective Licensing (ECL) program. The white paper follows intense lobbying by the culture sector and large corporate users of copyright works, such as Google, who wish to lower their costs.

» via The Register