Habbo owner Sulake has issued a statement today announcing its plan to reintroduce chat channels and instant messaging within the virtual world that offer better protections for teens that frequent it against pedophiles. A report from British TV's Channel 4 detailed how pedophiles were using the service to engage youngsters in lewd and suggestive conversations.

British TV station Channel 4 ran a damning story about pedophiles in the virtual world of Habbo earlier this week that caused two major investors in the Sulake - the owner and operator of it - to walk away from the company. Now Sulake is trying to recover from the bad press, even as loyal users held silent vigils in the game in a show of support this week.

A short story on Boston.com details yet another criminal using an Xbox 360 to smuggle drugs. According to Jamaican authorities, they have seized 24 pounds of cocaine concealed inside the shell of an Xbox. The seizure was conducted by the Jamaica Customs Department, who say that they discovered the cocaine at Kingston's airport shortly after a Guyanese traveler cleared customs with a laptop and a suitcase.

Is Habbo (formerly Habbo Hotel) a despicable hang-out for pedophiles that are continually preying on its underage users? A report that will air tonight on a Channel 4 news claims that they have strong evidence that it is. The report claims that pedophiles are chatting it up in the graphical social game-like teen destination, asking them if they have a "web cam," if they will get naked on camera, and trying their best to engage under age children in sexually charged conversations.

A 27-year-old Sarasota, Florida man has been arrested for allegedly being a complete loser. According to police, Heath Howe has been charged with child abuse for tying his 4-year-old girl up with rope so he could play video games.

The child (who was not identified because of her age) told police that she was tied up with rope and left in the kitchen on May 17 by Howe while he was playing video games. The little girl added that she did not think she was being punished because Howe didn't say anything to her while he was tying her up.

The BBC reports that a Latvian company has been fined £50,000 over smartphone apps it created that tricked people into receiving premium rate text messages. What's worse is that these apps pretended to be legitimate versions of hit apps such as Angry Birds and Cut The Rope. More than 1,000 people received bills after downloading the fake versions of games. Naturally they were upset about this and complained.

A man from Greece, New York (a suburb of Rochester) has been sentenced to six months in jail, ten years of probation and registration as a sex offender in New York State. Twenty-year-old Richard "Ricky" Kretovic pled guilty to the crime of Criminal Sexual Act in March of this year as part of a plea deal and on Friday Monroe County Court Judge Victoria Argento delivered his sentence.

An recent exhibition in Romania called "UpDate 3D Loading" by an artist named Iani Papadopol was a big hit with attendees. Some called his work brilliant and amazing. It turns out that the art on display was amazing, but it just wasn't the product of Papadopol because it was all stolen.

The latest episode of the ultra popular web show Extra Credits (Season 4, Ep. 11) tackles the very thorny issue of online harassment in games. Anyone that has played a game online via their PC, Xbox 360, PS3, etc., has run into some (basically) anonymous individual who seems to have no control over what they say. They call you every name in the book for little or no reason. This episode of the show explores what can be done about it and why some of the usual excuses for allowing such behavior no longer work.

Twenty-one-year-old Aymen Korbi of Wallington, England, was convicted in Croydon Crown Court on Tuesday for stabbing his wife. The charges stem from a November 2011 domestic dispute which ended with Korbi stabbing his 21-year-old wife Aida in the back with a shard of glass from a broken mirror. During the trial she told the court that she had packed a bag and intended to leave with their 18-month-old daughter, but Korbi attacked her before she could leave the residence. She said he broke her cell phone, smashed a bedroom mirror and attacked her with a shard of glass.

Norwegian Anders Behring Breivik, who killed 77 people in July of last year has talked about "training with Call of Duty" and being "obsessed with World of Warcraft" in his 1000+ page manifesto and during his ongoing trial in Oslo, Norway this week. Naturally the media is eating the whole obsessed gamer angle up and reporting on it as fact, but mental health professionals like Seena Fazel are saying that there's a real problem with connecting the dots.

As you are probably aware, the trial of Anders Behring Breivik is in its third day in Oslo, Norway. The Norwegian man is charged with murdering 69 people at a summer camp and eight others using a bomb last year - a charge that he has pled not guilty to. Yesterday Breivik took the stand and the media pounced on what he said about gaming, along with what he wrote about it in his lengthy manifesto, along with his anti-Islamist views.

A 39-year-old women's road trip to allegedly have sex with an underage boy proved to be a dumb idea. The tale of the 16-year-old boy from Joppa, Florida and a 39-year-old woman from Maryland began with the two meeting up in the online game War 2 Glory, where the two enjoyed flying bombers together.

The FBI has released an artist rendering of Rex Reichert, a former arcade owner from Collegeville, Pennsylvania who is wanted for allegedly sexually abusing two boys, ages 10 and 14. The artist rendering shows Reichert as he would have looked in 2006, but he has been on the run from law enforcement since 1992.

A Florida man has been charged in the shaking death of his three-month-old son because he wouldn't stop crying while he was trying to play a game on his Xbox 360. According to the Polk County Sheriff's Office, the death occurred on Thursday. Twenty-year-old Lakeland, Florida resident Jacob David Hartley admitted to authorities that he shook the baby violently in the early morning hours of April 5.

The Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania man charged by the FBI with stealing the identity of Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen has been turned over to the U.S. Army this week. Twenty-eight-year-old Brandon Lee Price must first face a charge for going AWOL from his unit. He isn't in custody - instead he has been returned to his unit (the 10th Mountain Division) in Fort Polk, Louisiana. He is accused of leaving his unit at Fort Polk without authorization in early July 2010.

A 46-year old man from Ipswich, England has been convicted and sentenced to three and a half years in prison for molesting a ten-year old girl, who was smart enough to capture the act using the camera on her Nintendo DS. The man, John Fisher, admitted in court that he touched the girl inappropriately in January 2010 and November 2011. He really had no choice but to admit to the crime because photographic evidence was presented to the court proving Fisher's evil act.

When you are on the run from the U.S. Military, committing a major act of fraud and identity theft is probably not the brightest idea. The FBI says that they have apprehended an AWOL Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania soldier who pretended to be former Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen. In an indictment unsealed on Monday,  investigators allege that 28-year-old Brandon Lee Price called Citibank in January and requested a change of address on Paul Allen's bank account - from Seattle, Washington to Pittsburgh.

A Spokane Valley, Washington area hang-out for teens was forced close after $14,500 worth of consoles, controllers, video games, petty cash, and other miscellaneous goods were stolen earlier this week. The business called Game On was burglarized on Monday night or early Tuesday morning, according to Spokane Valley Police. The burglar(s) apparently found a way into one of the establishment's windows. Local teens frequented the hang out because it provided them with a place to play games, take part in game tournaments, watch movies with friends, and more.

A Catholic priest from Kalispell, Montana has been accused of possessing child porn, but the whole story starts with a Nintendo DS. Police began the investigation into the 67-year-old Catholic priest name d Rudolph “Rudy” Carl Bullman after a woman who bought a Nintendo DS from him called police. She told them in October of 2011 that she found sexually explicit pictures of young boys on the Nintendo hand-held he sold her.

Enterprising criminals have apparently decided that former Megaupload users are as good a target as any, and have started sending fake demand letters to people under the guise of a law firm representing rights holders. So far, scammers are using two approaches to target file-sharers: the technical approach (malware and web browser redirects) and the pay-up-or-else-we'll-sue-you letter approach.

A man who stole some items of little value and murdered the man that owned them thought he got away with the crime. After allegedly shooting the man in the head, a Las Vegas man named Patrick Wilcock sold some of the items he stole at a local pawn shop. But police say that the one thing that may have uncovered the crime was a stolen PlayStation 3. The suspect stole it, along with some video games and other items not mentioned in the report.

Common sense dictates that you can't scream "fire!" in a crowded movie theater and that doing so isn't considered protected speech. In the wake of the recent Ohio school shootings, making public jokes about shooting up your local high school also falls under the purview of widely held common sense doctrine.

The lawyer of a man accused of attempting to firebomb several synagogues in New Jersey is saying that his client suffers from mental illness and was unduly influenced by video games. The 19-year-old man, Anthony M. Graziano of Lodi, N.J., pled not guilty to first-degree attempted murder, bias intimidation and aggravated arson for two attacks on synagogues in the area. Graziano was in court today seeking a reduction in his $5 million bail. Superior Court Judge Liliana DeAvila-Silebi cut the bail in half because Graziano is "destitute."

Former Alorton, Missouri police chief Michael Baxton Sr. pled guilty on Thursday in federal court to two felonies after an FBI sting caught him stealing five game systems. His bad. According to the U.S. attorney's office, an investigation of "systemic corruption within the Village of Alorton by various public officials" brought Baxton down. Charges against other officials in the town may be forthcoming.

What started out as a robbery to pay for a tattoo ended with the death of a 7-year old girl and her uncle, according Marion County, Indiana prosecutors. Two defendants, 22-year-old Michael Bell Jr., 25-year-old Jeremy Priel, are accused of collaborating in a plot to obtain a PlayStation 3 console that Bell wanted to trade for tattoo work, according to court documents charging the two men with murder.

California has launched a new eCrime unit to combat various online crimes. The new law enforcement unit created by California Attorney General Kamala Harris and announced Tuesday, aims take on various "cyber crimes" such as email scams, online fraud, piracy, child pornography, and real-world theft of computer gear by organized crime.

"Today's criminals increasingly use the Internet, smartphones, and other digital devices to victimize people online and offline," Harris said while unveiling the unit in the Silicon Valley city of San Jose.

Crime is taking a bite out of retailers' fairly decent sales numbers for the holiday season so far, according to trade group the National Retail Federation. According to estimates from the group, around 40 percent of theft is caused by organized crime rings, "returns" fraud, and shoplifting. Crime has costs U.S. retailers tens of billions of dollars already according to the group.

Psychiatrists who Norwegian courts assigned to assess accused mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik have come to the not-so-shocking conclusion that he is suffering from paranoid schizophrenia. After interviewing him 13 times, they say he was in a "psychotic state" during and after the two separate attacks in late July that led to the deaths of 77 people and injured 151. The report is preliminary and still needs to be reviewed by a panel of forensic psychiatrists.

The Texas family court judge who was shown whipping his teenage daughter in a YouTube video has been suspended by the Texas Supreme Court. The seven and a half minute video was from a 2004 incident. It showed Judge William Adams viciously beating his daughter with a belt because she downloaded illegal music and games from the Internet. In rendering its decision, the court did not detail the reason for the order of suspension that was made public Tuesday.