In an article in TQ, the Globe and Mail’s quarterly biz-tech glossy insert, David Komaromi, technical services manager at Fraser Milner Casgrain LLP, talks about the new internet phone system the firm has introduced. He says,

[I]t’s the video that’s the killer app. Practising law is about communication, and video on the desktop makes communication all that more clear.

It turns out that one of the ways in which video clarifies things has to do with the fact that, in Komaromi’s words, “There’s no place to hide,” and so you have to pay attention, or appear to at least. . . . [more]

About a month ago, Simon wrote about Google News allowing people to comment on news stories linked from their news page. I rely on Google News to gather stories for me to read, and have been seeing these comments show up over the last few weeks.

Some of the comments add value to the content in the stories. For instance:

• Congressman Vito Fossella comments on a story about a bill in New York addressing the health care issues caused by toxins from the 9/11 site.
• A Princeton paleontologist comments on a story about an asteroid that may have contributed

Microsoft launched a service for automatic translation called Windows Live Translator. The site lets you translate a text limited to 500 words or a web page from English to German, Dutch, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Korean, Chinese, Japanese, Russian.

Microsoft uses Systran to produce most of the translations, but also offers an option to translate computer-related texts using a machine translation system developed in-house. Microsoft’s translation technology has been used to translate technical materials, including MSDN Library.
Google Operating System

We’ve talked a bit about French-English translation here on Slaw, for obvious reasons, so I thought you’d be . . . [more]

I think September is the true New Year’s. Campus, the city, and life in general feel completely different than they did a few short weeks ago when Simon F. and I chatted about starting a legal education and technology column in Slaw. Since that chat the topic has been on my mind, and as I found myself back in class beginning my second year of the law program at Queen’s, I’ve been noticing that the intersection of these two concepts is a rather large, intriguing, and often humorous one. And that is why I’m kicking off this series with a . . . [more]

The question is now being asked in Western Africa. The International Development Research Center of Canada (IDRC) has engaged in an assessment of the outcome of free access to law initiatives in four African countries – Burkina Faso, Niger, Senegal and Togo.

The evaluation will be focused more specifically on the impact of free circulation of legal information on the competence of lawyers.

In all those countries, where access to legal information is limited, if any, the local Bar Associations supported by the IDRC are involved in free access to law projects. In two of the countries, free . . . [more]

Some of you may have encountered this ugly message instead of the Slaw you were expecting:

It seems that we’re a victim of our own growth in popularity, and the more readers we have who are commenting or otherwise asking Slaw’s php scripts to do their thing, the more we encroach on cpu limits we didn’t even know we had. I took steps last week, when this began to happen in earnest, to upgrade us to a server at our host, Bluehost, that gives us something like three times the cpu capacity. We’re on their list and I’ve been bugging . . . [more]

Maybe this will help us all. TALL has started a Quicklaw tips wiki. Considering the recent posts about the level of service provided by publishers, and the availability of one jurisdiction’s law in another, I wonder if I’m alone in wondering why it remains so difficult to find a copy of Donoghue v Stevenson in QL. We all know about the case, and some of the excellent resources available online, and in video. However, as a prelude to our annual eFair, where we are asking students to complete their prize ballots by finding information related to the . . . [more]

A few links to the 2007 survey released this morning.

It covers:

Collaboration tools
Web conference software
Wikis and extranets
Instant messaging
Wireless devices
VoIP
Vista
Automating Processes
Tech Support

Don’t overlook the detailed data either at
CIO’s Pleased as Punch

Communications Chart

Software Chart

Financial Stats Chart

. . . [more]

Catching up on my reading of The Hindu, a piece on Legal Knowledge Outsourcing should be read by everyone.

Even if you discount the ambitions massively, the challenge is still quite amazing.

A few quotes:

The majority of legal services in the West can and should be sent offshore, says Mr Russell Smith, President and Chairman, SDD Global Solutions Pvt Ltd, a Mysore-based legal services KPO (knowledge process off-shoring). “And we are talking about services that now fetch a price tag of $250 billion per year and growing”

. ((Mr Smith, a Columbia Law School graduate and former partner . . . [more]

At Saturday’s Annual Meeting of the College of Law Practice Management in Philadelphia, Susan Raridon Lambreth lifted the curtain on the first global survey of law firm associates and their attitudes and aspirations. It builds on the UK survey from earlier this year, but reaches far deeper – 20,000 lawyers worldwide.

As soon as Hildebrandt and Thomson release the results, I’ll flick the links.

But one teaser is that it upends conventional wisdom about associate dissatisfaction.

Watch this space. . . . [more]

This doesn’t have anything to do with any of legal research, legal information or legal technology, but there’s a marginal connection with legal miscellany.

I wrote the reflection, below, in July of 1991. I haven’t changed the text, just cleaned-up up the typing errors and added the image. The context? Last week, I went back to school – LLM grad school, so there’s my “legal miscellany” connection – for the first time in 32 plus years. Other than that it was a different school in a different millennium, it was as if I’d never left. I’m sure that means something. . . . [more]

Have you registered yet for the 4th Northeast Regional Law Libraries Meeting (NE2007)?? Time is running out!

Our theme is Libraries Without Borders 2, and it is gearing up to be THE outstanding law library learning, networking, must-attend event for 2007. Just a few of the many highlights:

• A grand opening reception at the Legislative Building at Queen’s Park. This is home to the Ontario Legislative Assembly, and an impressive building built in 1893, surrounded by park and University of Toronto campus.
• Keynote by Michael Ignatieff, internationally renowned academic, journalist, commentator, intellectual, and specialist in human rights