I feel bad for Ed Vaizey. First he didn’t support net neutrality, then he decided he did, to the cat-calls of the geek community. Now he’s been tasked by the Conservatives to pick off some of the ripest low-hanging fruit: child safety.

Everyone likes children; everyone hates things that aren’t safe for children. Not so much low-hanging fruit, in fact, but pre-picked, washed and packaged fruit. An open goal.

Better yet, he’s taking on the internet. Give the tabloids a choice between putting a child in a room with an annoyed Rottweiler or a room with an internet-connected computer, and the child will be attempting to disengage its arms from Fido’s jaws before you can say ISDN.

It’s Safer Internet Day today, which means we get to watch ministers wring their hands over the FILTH our kids are watching online. We also get to watch this patently absurd video which, I guess, tries to get across a point about cyber-bullying through the medium of 90s Euro house music and teleporting teenagers.

Where does Vaizey come into this? Tasked with cheerfully popping a ball into an open goal, he’s quickly discovering the goal mouth is lined with razor blades and the keeper has hands like mattresses. “There is material online that, while legal, is not suitable for children.  In the physical world youngsters are protected from inappropriate content and the same needs to happen online,” he said today. “We will continue to work with industry to address the legitimate concerns the public has over children having easy access to inappropriate content.”

Letting a child access the internet without supervision is like letting them browse Sky’s post-watershed channels

He’s right, of course. The internet is positively awash with pornography and graphic violence, much of which, I’m sure, has the potential to do great damage to immature, easily impressed and naive minds. Could a clever piece of internet-filtering software help?

No. Last Christmas I was in a room full of relatives, and, as can happen when conversation dries up and the last glass of wine has been slurped, the talk turned to YouTube Videos We Had Seen. We decamped to the computer room, where we watched – I forget – something about an ice-skating dog. Anyway, the video watched, the adults became distracted and the kids took over control of the search bar. Less than five minutes later they had found a wet T-shirt competition.

Having noted the address, I was taken aback to realise that this happened not only on a computer that already had filtering software, but on a website (YouTube) which supposedly filters content.

Adult content is everywhere online. Any innocent search on Google Images has the potential – if not an actual likelihood – to produce an array of startlingly adult images, scattered like rude confetti through legitimate search results. If the internet can return porn when you’re not even looking for it, what hope does an automatic filter have? Kids are smarter and more tech-savvy than their parents and will defeat all but the most draconian filtration systems.

There is, however, a filter that works. It reacts fast and it doesn’t matter how content has been disguised: if it’s adult content, it will be recognised and shut down immediately. If a child repeat offends, the filter can react with an array of cruel punishments, from the withholding of money to earlier curfews. Earlier versions could deliver a clip around the ear.

The filter is the parent or guardian of a child, and that either would allow a young person to access the internet – filtered or not – without supervision truly boggles the mind. Letting a child access the internet without supervision is like letting them browse Sky’s post-watershed channels.

That’s why I feel bad for Ed Vaizey. He’s been instructed to make the Government look like it has a command of technology, and the conscience to deploy that technology to protect children. What he should be doing, though, is telling parents to pay attention, and there’s not much political capital in that.

Given that I didn’t know how I’d take to it, I wanted to invest as little time and money in finding out. Here’s how I did it…

1: The Equipment

I already have a Flip Mino HD but this suffers from one critical flaw: there’s no way to see whether the shot is framed properly once I start recording. A traditional camcorder has a flip-out LCD panel which can usually be rotated so I can check this as I record. I began, therefore, by looking for a digital camcorder but quickly found that there was a lot of choice amongst the Flip’s rivals.

The answer came in the Toshiba Camileo P10, the slightly fatter sibling of the S10, both of which have rotatable LCD screen. Now, I confess that I hadn’t read Jon Bray’s review of the S10 before buying, because I was in Tesco looking at it and there was no mobile reception. In my defence, the price was tempting: I ended up paying £50 and decided the risk was worthwhile.

I made the initial recording in my car at 720p resolution and was chuffed with the picture quality, although not with my performance. However, it was with an unusual naivety that I bounced up the garden path imagining that a few minutes with Adobe Premiere Elements would see my masterpiece complete and uploaded.

2: The Software

I’ve been a fan of Adobe Premiere and its consumer version Premiere Elements for many years and so I fired up Elements with enthusiasm. However the video clip, when imported into Elements, consisted of a soundtrack and no picture despite the fact that it worked perfectly in Media Player.

The video was in AVI format using the H.264 codec and this seems to be what was tripping Elements up. I converted the video into WMV using Windows Movie Maker and imported that, but then found it impossible to export successfully from Elements.

I had similar problems with Sony’s Vegas HD software, which wouldn’t load the clip, so I downloaded Cyberlink PowerDirector’s trial version. This would load the clip and allowed me to edit it in a way very similar to Elements but, again, when it came to outputting the video it would either refuse or the soundtrack would be mangled.

In desperation I turned to Windows 7’s version of Windows Live Movie Maker. Now, as a software snob I would never previously have considered this as an option, considering it the video equivalent of choosing Windows Paint over Photoshop or Fireworks. Needless to say, five minutes later Windows Movie Maker was happily encoding my edited video.

3: The Service

So, where should I host my video? One option was to convert it to Flash, add a control bar and host it on my own site. However, this has a couple of disadvantages. Firstly, it’s then only accessible from a single site and doesn’t turn up on video-sharing sites. Secondly, I couldn’t find a low-cost tool that would handle the high resolution WMV output from Movie Maker.

I thought about YouTube but wanted my experiment to be a bit more private. So, I’m trialling the vzaar video hosting service which does a good job of hosting my videos, albeit at a cost.

The end result is very good (putting aside my performance). My £50 camcorder, free video editing software and vzaar trial have proved an effective combination, with YouTube as a free alternative hosting service.

It’s that time of year again when the incredulous cower behind their couches as the normally sombre tech industry unleashes its inner sarcasm and goes hunting for the naive. We’ll be keeping an eye out for the best April fool’s japes doing the rounds and collecting them here, but if you’ve noticed any drop us a line and we’ll add them to the list.

Opera facial control

First up is this humdinger from Opera, eulogising the latest development in Opera 10 – facial control. From the press release: “Opera Face Gestures enable anyone with a Webcam to control their browser moving only their face. Based on the same architecture as Opera’s Mouse Gestures, Face Gestures makes surfing the Web as easy as smiling, batting an eye lash or flaring a nostril.”

Click here for the utterly brilliant demonstration

Topsy-turvy YouTube

If you go down to YouTube today you’re sure for a big surprise. Everything’s upside down. Videos, comments, the lot. It’s a very odd April Fools joke but you’ve got to admire the work that’s gone into it. According to the press release “internal tests have shown that modern computer monitors offer better picture quality when flipped upside-down”. Who are we to argue?

Guardian goes Twitter

There’s no doubt the Guardian has got this web thing down, but could it really become the first newspaper in the world to be published exclusively in Twitter? We especially like the standfirst proclaiming “Experts say any story can be told in 140 characters” – mainly because it’s probably true. Thanks to Ryan Thomas for spotting this.

Introducing CADIE

Anybody heading to the Google homepage today will be stunned to find that Google has perfected artificial intelligence, more so because this AI appears to share much in common with a 13-year-old girl. This one wins the award for the sheer amount of sweaty effort that’s gone into it – a particular highlight is CADIE’s view of how the Google homepage should actually look. To find out more just head to the Google Homepage and click the introducing CADIE link. Thanks to Laurent Cargill for pointing this one out.

-CADIE’s everywhere it seems. The troublesome AI tyke is offering a new autopilot setting for Gmail, a 3D version of Chrome, a Google brain search. She also seems to have pandas on the brain, they’re all over YouTube and Google Maps. We’ll leave it to you to find these.

A funeral with every laptop

Superb stuff from Laptopsdirect, which is offering to pay for your funeral in return for some (tasteful) product placement. Fancy a gravestone etched with a Laptops Direct special offer? Or how about a Laptops Direct jingle played after the funeral music? Well done folks. This is a cracker. Cheers again to Ryan Thomas for the tip.

Google to foist CCTV footage online

Comrades over at The Register are reporting that Google is working together with the Metropolitan Police and London’s Westminster Council to put CCTV footage onto the Internet. Marvellous stuff. We can’t wait to see Privacy International’s complaint about this one.

Dell to buy Microsoft

If you’ve missed the fuss, our own Jon Honeyball got into the April Fool’s lark with this report that Microsoft was eyeing up a Dell deal. It’s not true… honest.

Warner Bros buys Pirate Bay

Well it looks the hostility is finally over. The new logo really is something.

Gordon Brown is a very intelligent man. Unfortunately, this is tempered by the fact that he has the charisma of a bag of cabbage.  However, somebody in Downing Street clearly saw an opportunity to rectify this when they responded to little England’s petition to make Jeremy Clarkson Prime Minister with a video posted on YouTube.

If you’ve not seen it, watch it here. Otherwise, bear with me for a thirty-second summary: The video opens with the words: “Thanks to the 49,447 people who signed the petition to make Jeremy Clarkson Prime Minister. You make a compelling case… ”

We then see the doors to number 10, which open and we pan up the staircase, which is lined with photographs of past prime ministers before we arrive at the top, and a picture of Clarkson. This is then followed by by the words: “But on second thoughts… maybe not.”

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not barrelful of monkeys, farts in the bath, Arrested Development funny, but it’s worth a wry smile and a blog post. It’s a sign that this Government does have some charisma about it, and, perhaps more importantly, imagination.

Which is why the furore it’s caused is mind-boggling. The Conservatives described it as a waste of tax-payers’ money, presumably while they finished pouring the 140th bottle of Dom Perignon into their champagne jacuzzi. Scores of people have been scribbling furiously to newspapers claiming their petition isn’t been taken seriously, but then if you ask a stupid question….

They claim it shows Labour is “detached”. Since when is having a sense of humour being detached? I find it incredible that so many people can be so outraged by something so very insignificant. If the Government has misjudged the public mood on this one, then quite frankly maybe the public just needs to cheer up a bit.

Personally, and I think for the vast majority of people, the video is a very human response to a completely ridiculous proposition. It shows personality, and God knows, Brown needs to start showing some of that. Sadly, the outcry is probably going to get the video’s creator a slap on the wrist and an edict never to display any imagination, humour, or humanity ever again. That’s not just a pity, it’s criminal.

The $1.65 billion it paid for YouTube may be small beans to the search monolith, but Google has publicly admitted that it can’t find a way to turn a profit from the millions of eyeballs that are watching video on its site every day. Hosting terabyte upon terabyte of video doesn’t come cheaply. Charging users to watch videos is a non-starter, so either Google finds a way to make YouTube more attractive to advertisers, or it’s going to continue to bleed money.

However, the hosting costs are nothing compared to the damage the copyright owners could inflict. A federal judge has forced Google to hand over its viewer logs to Viacom, which is suing Google for $1bn (60% of what it paid for YouTube in the first place) for alleged copyright infringement. Those logs should prove beyond doubt how much copyrighted material is being viewed on the site.

My guess is that it will be a pretty substantial proportion. The vast majority of clips I’m sent links to have being scraped from TV, be it Premiership football highlights, clips from BBC comedies, or music videos. The Guardian’s Sport section regularly lists clips of classic sport events that could only have come from copyrighted sources.

If the judge grants Viacom its $1 billion bounty, it will be open season on YouTube. And then we’ll discover just how deep Google’s pockets really are…