I recently posted about the Privacy Commissioner’s concern over Google Street View and its ability to catch identifiable people unawares as it snaps the low level environs. Of greater concern, I think, should be the abililty of security forces to watch us from the various cameras at their disposal. We all know about the CCTV cameras made so infamous in Britain. Now there’s an effective, affordable, and nearly silent eye in the sky to worry about.

A piece on the Wired website talks about a small drone helicopter being tested by British police that is capable of photographing pretty much . . . [more]

…to a more powerful server. It may be happening this evening. If so, there could be some delays before you can find us again, because the new server address will take some time to “propagate” through the internet. See you… soon. . . . [more]

Since the Toronto International Film Festival just happened here, I thought this piece of news would be interesting to everyone: Canada’s National Film Board’s library of more than 13,000 films is in danger because it does not have the technology required to digitize the collection. So sad. . . . [more]

As reported pretty much everywhere already, the New York Times has decided to dump its subscription program, TimesSelect, and drop the paywall for all of its archives with the exception of those between 1923 to 1986, some of which will be free even so.

As well, the N.Y. Times is opening its whole website to readers, free of charge. . . . [more]

IBM has entered the office suite software fray in a big way with Lotus Symphony, their brand new suite of free apps, which includes a word processor, a presentation program and a spread sheet program. Symphony is based on the Open Document Format standard, and will read and export to Microsoft formats, as well as exporting documents as Adobe PDF files. Currently it’s available for Windows and Linux operating systems, with Mac to follow.

This cost free alternative to MS Office has got to interest firms, large or small, that will now be paying significant dollars each year for . . . [more]

Startling news, to say the least, in the Globe’s Business section today. Telus and Bell paid two lawyers at McCarthy Tétrault to draft a model telecommunications bill that’s been offered to the government as a template for a new Telecommunications Act. You could be forgiven for wondering if the next amendments to the Canada Health Act will be brought to you by RJR Nabisco.

But I think there’s more to it than that. As the article points out, the drafting lawyers are enormously respected and the companies have reportedly had no input whatsoever into the content of the model . . . [more]

The Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic at the University of Ottawa has just released a study into the privacy implications of digital rights management technologies (DRM) currently used in the Canadian marketplace:

“Our assessment of the compliance of these DRM applications with PIPEDA [Personal Information Protection and
Electronic Documents Act] led to a number of general findings:

• Fundamental privacy-based criticisms of DRM are well-founded: we observed tracking of usage habits, surfing habits, and technical data.
• Privacy invasive behaviour emerged in surprising places. For example, we observed e-book software profiling individuals. We unexpectedly encountered DoubleClick – an

A number of library listservs are announcing a revamp of the Law Library of Congress website. The site of course retains GLIN: Global Legal Information Network, along with other useful links for legal research. One interesting current awareness publication I was not aware of is their Global Legal Monitor. The current edition (August 2007) is 51 pages in PDF and contains short summaries of new legal developments in countries around the world. The information in the monitor is well-indexed (yes, there were several entries for Canada involving recent case law on border searches, etc.). . . . [more]

Nebraska state senator sues God: read all about it, here. According to the report, the Deity “is accused of causing untold death and horror and threatening to cause more still.”

Let’s assume God can afford suitable counsel or will be able to find someone prepared to work pro bono for a “good cause”. This lawyer could take the brief even if concurrently working as a Devil’s Advocate, at least so long as there is no conflict. I think it is safe to assume God wouldn’t need to resort to the cab rank rule (if it applies in Ontario). Under . . . [more]

Although law-related (print) monographs in Canada are far from dead, perhaps we are at a tipping point now on the availability of law-related e-books. I recently made (an extremely) rough count of the number of e-books available through each of Quicklaw, WestlaweCARSWELL and Canada Law Book ((For this study, I am not considering the numerous “black binders” from CCH as “monographs”, although those binders are available online through CCH Online)).

I counted a total of 85 e-books, many of them being major Canadian legal treatises. Examples of an e-book from each of these vendors (where there are also print equivalents) . . . [more]

Starting today, Google Presentations which will permit a slimmed down version of PowerPoint to be available on the web, with fairly rudimentary editing functionality. It permits loading files of up to 10MB from PPT, though I found some cutting off happened of images and all animation appears to have gone. . . . [more]

I received a press release today for a lawyer social networking site called LawLink, which apparently aims to be LinkedIn for Lawyers, or maybe Facebook Without the Kids. Free registration allows you to “network with other attorneys, develop new business leads, share information with other attorneys, develop new business leads,” etc. A lawyers’ social network site is a fine idea — although many lawyers are still unfamiliar with or dismissive of LinkedIn/Facebook (according to an article we’ll publish next month), lawyers are networking and gossip mavens at heart, and I do think this will catch on within the profession . . . [more]