The 24-year-old, of Westbourne Drive, Shiney Row, befriended two 12-year-old boys on the popular Habbo Hotel site, where children can adopt and play with virtual pets. Newcastle Crown Court heard Nicholson convinced the boys to chat with him via webcam, where they would then be exposed to sickening live footage of him committing a sex act on himself.

Nicholson was caught when the mother of one of the boys, who were friends, turned on the family computer where her son had accidentally left himself logged on to the MSN internet portal. Using the screen name “Axel”, Nicholson carried out a lewd act after persuading her to switch on the webcam, believing he was talking to her son. The son and his friend were then spoken to by the police.

Alex Nicholson sobbed when he was sent down for two years and barred from using youngsters’ websites for 10 years.
Prosecutor Amanda Rippon told the court: “One boy said he had been visiting children’s chatroom Habbo Hotel, where children can adopt pets and dress in funny clothes.

“This man had been in there. That is how he first made contact. “The second boy explained when he had gone to the children’s chatroom, the defendant had adopted him and his friend and said ‘I love children’. "Nicholson was arrested and officers found 63,000 pornographic images on his computer, 442 of which were indecent images of children. He told police he “got turned on by children having sex,” and admitted he had been having an illegal relationship with a 15-year-old boy.

The court heard Nicholson had filmed himself engaging in sexual activity with the boy, who agreed to what was going on despite him being too young to give his consent. Judge Roger Thorn jailed Nicholson, who sobbed throughout the hearing, for two years. The judge said: “I take your demeanour to be showing, as clearly as anyone could, your remorse, shame and guilt for what you have done.

“All that said, your offending here is of an alarming nature.” Nicholson admitted engaging in sexual activity in the presence of a child, engaging in sexual activity with a child and making and producing indecent images of children. Jamie Adams, defending, said Nicholson is a “very, very vulnerable person”.

Mr Adams added: “He knows it is not right to have behaved the way he had, but the very fact he recognises that is a massive step.” Nicholson also has to register as sex offender and abide by a Sexual Offences Prevention Order, which bans him from children’s websites – both for 10 years.

A PERVERT has been jailed for sex offences against boys he met while trawling a children’s chatroom.
Source: http://www.sunderlandecho.com

Dome.fi: Sulake To Lay Off 25% Of Workforce, Shuts All Country Offices

According to Finnish publication Dome.fi, Sulake the creator of Habbo Hotel, will be laying off some 40-60 people from their workforce. In total, they have about 210 people working for the company so this is effectively 25% of their workforce. We also heard this from a different source, so the chatter is definitely picking up. Sulake.com was down as of just now and there is no official announcement on this so far.

In showing the door to 25% of their workforce, Sulake will also close all of their 11 country offices according to the article on Dome.fi.

The jobs will terminate as of March 16th, even those who have been permanently employed. The company won't have to go through the negotiation process large companies are required to follow in Finland as the employees are placed in a separate company that will be completely terminated.

The news on this are really scarce at the moment and naturally we'll try to bring you more as things emerge. If you have any information on the situation, feel free to get in touch with us at editor (at) arcticstartup.com

Source: arcticstartup.com

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Sulake wrote on her official website:

Sulake has today begun the work to consolidate some of its manual processes and local operations. Habbo Hotel will continue to be available everywhere it is today. In doing this, the Habbo Hotel product will place more emphasis on being a platform for teens, and its priority will be to enable User Generated Content. Teens will be able to socialize, create social spaces, and form groups in a free form, content rich environment. The near future introduction of more social features and a gaming channel will continue to reinforce Habbo Hotel's position as a leading social platform for teens.

http://www.sulake.com/blog/entries/2012-02-16-Sulake_Consolidation.html

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Sulake wrote on her official Facebook:
We see that a lot of rumours are going around today, but rest assured: we are NOT merging, and we are NOT closing down! We will be back with more info and an FAQ tomorrow!

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Lafontaine publishes clarification requests for Habbo in a blog of Sulake
We are not closing any Hotels. If anything, we are going to make them bigger. We’re not closing all the offices. We’re moving people around so we can communicate better together and build things faster. We’re not going to stop awarding badges and creating fun quests and offering ways to achieve status in Habbo. We are going to do more of it.

What is happening is very straightforward. We look at where you go in the Hotel and what you like to do. What you like to do, we are going to make more of. That means more games, more ways to make friends, and more tools to communicate with them. We’re going to stop doing the things you don’t like as much. That means less of what you weren’t using anyway. If we try something and you don’t use it, we’re going to take it down and not have people work on it.

We had some great people working on things that were not as popular in the service. So it did not make sense to keep people working on that. We don’t have enough people making the things you like, so we transferred some people over to work on those things, and we’re going to bring in some new people as well.
http://www.sulake.com/blog/entries/2012-2-17-Our_Thoughts_on_Staff_Changes.html

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Images in sulake Brazil: