A law that was passed in California last year, and that went into effect on January 1, 2017, makes it illegal for anyone operating a motor vehicle to hold a cellphone in their hand while driving. Assembly Bill 1785 (“AB 1785”) criminalizes “driving a motor vehicle while holding and operating a handheld wireless telephone or a wireless electronic communication device.”

You may have heard that New York is banning Tiger Selfies after a spate of them on dating app Tinder. What, you may be asking yourself, is a tiger selfie (and for that matter, what is Tinder), and why would NY pass a law to ban them? We explain, and clear up some misconceptions.

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) this week called for a complete, total ban on both talking on cell phones (even hands-free), and texting, by drivers. The recommendation, intended to reduce accidents resulting from “distracted driving” followed the Federal agency’s review of accidents resulting from a distracted driver – a problem so serious that the NTSB says that at any moment during any day, approximately 13.5 million drivers are using a cellphone. Last year alone, nearly 3100 fatal accidents were known to be the result of distracted drivers, and the number of accidents attributable to talking or texting drivers is undoubtedly far higher when you include non-fatal accidents, and consider that few drivers will admit that they were texting or on the phone behind the wheel.

Amid a scandalized outcry, Amazon this week stopped selling a book entitled The Pedophile’s Guide to Love and Pleasure: a Child-lover’s Code of Conduct, although they continue to sell an apologist treatise on the same subject. The former, self-published by Phillip Greaves, and the latter, written by David Riegel and published through the interestingly-named Safehaven Press, are at the center of the current tension between freedom of speech, protection of children, and Amazon’s duty, if any, in both.

A new study released by the Highway Loss Data Institute (HLDI) suggests that laws which are aimed at curbing texting while driving not only don’t serve to reduce texting-related accidents, but, counter-intuitively, if anything such laws seem to lead to an increase in, if not accidents, at least the filing of accident-related insurance claims.

According to reports on the BBC and in the Register and other international news sources, a complainant in Pakistan has initiated a process against Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg which could invoke the death penalty or, at least, life in prison, over the “Draw Muhammad” contest that was being hosted on Facebook.

As the Apple iPhone app store and T-Mobile G1 phone application market show signs of becoming more open, Microsoft has gone in the opposite direction, issuing a flat-out Mobile Market ban from their Mobile 2 Market applications market on several genre of applications, including alternate browsers or search clients. In otherwords, you and your Windows Mobile phone will remain captive and chained to only Microsoft applications.