Did you know that if you attach a rock to a lightbulb and drop it into the ocean, the bulb will implode at about 100 metres with a peculiar “bang”?

I didn’t either. (If you’d like to hear that “bang,” click on this.)

More interesting, I suppose, is the fact that the undersea is a “blooming, buzzing confusion” of sounds, most of which are made by living beings. We, unfortunately, are responsible for noise pollution, causing distress to some ocean creatures, among them whales. These great beasts moan and whoop and click and pop, typically beneath the range of . . . [more]

3D printing would seemingly be mind-blowing for Access Copyright

How often do you have to capture the contents of websites, for use in presentations, as trial exhibits or to illustrate your fabulous slaw.ca posts? You can do the usual “print screen” function that’s built into your operating system, but that usually snags a whole bunch of other stuff (like your toolbars or other tabs that are open). Usually you want to show the web page only, without other distracting stuff that detracts from what you want to convey. In addition, using “print screen” it only captures the portion of the webpage what’s visible on the screen, not the entire . . . [more]

About a year ago, I announced the creation of a Canadian Centre for Court Technology (CCCT) “IntellAction” working group with the mandate to promote the modernization of court web sites in Canada by way of producing guidelines on topic. We have now finished our first draft and invite you to take a look, in upcoming weeks, to selected parts of the guidelines. Your comments and suggestions are welcome! . . . [more]

In a previous article, I discussed some issues with loose-leaf subscriptions and suggested that a number of them might well be replaced by eBooks. The term ‘eBook’ is used for electronic material produced in a wide range of formats. These formats include, but certainly are not limited to, HTML, PDF, AZW (Amazon’s proprietary format for the Kindle), EPUB (an open e-book format used by the iPad) and Mobipocket. Not all these formats are compatible with all devices. Wikipedia has an excellent list of the various formats, along with a table showing which format will work on what device. . . . [more]

It’s an issue that divides both generations and the tech-savvy from the not so tech-savvy… Gizmodo asks: Is it Ever OK to Leave Voicemail Anymore? Some of their acceptable uses included:

• When you want to stand out [against the noise of the email inbox]
• When dropping important news
• When you have many questions to ask
• or when you’re dealing with people who aren’t tech-savvy

For those under-30, voicemail usage is almost as loved as having to wear a watch — i.e. it’ doesn’t happen. And really, there’s must be a good percentage of older generations that feel the same way . . . [more]

Supreme Court of Canada Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin spoke last week at the University of Toronto’s Access to Civil Justice for Middle Income Canadians Colloquium about how ordinary people risk being priced out of the justice system. In her speech, she called on governments, academics, judges and lawyers to work to ensure better access to justice for all Canadians.

Her speech and the colloquium attracted some media attention:

• Access to justice becoming a privilege of the rich, judge warns (Globe and Mail, February 10, 2011)
• Legal system doesn’t work for ordinary people, top judge says (Vancouver Sun, February 14, 2011)

. . . [more]

Life lags a little behind CSI and the other forensic fantasies on the tube — but not so far behind as you might imagine. We’ve all heard about government-employed facial recognition software that, in theory, can pick a putative bad guy out of the madding crowd. Now that sort of knowing eye is headed everywhere, thanks to the race to employ face recognition capacity in mobile devices.

It’s all part of the current lust to know and be known — to “befriend,” “follow” and “share with” a wide range of people in (or near) one’s life. To see what will . . . [more]

The Quebec National Assembly announced during a sitting on February 15, 2011, a series of interim changes to the process for appointing Quebec judges.

[This is the fourth in a series of articles about the trends, theories, principles and realities that have influenced the redesign of the new library of Osgoode Hall Law School – part of the renovation and rebuilding of the School currently underway.]

A law library is different from other libraries not just in its collections, but in its function and especially in its role within its parent institution. In a law firm, the library and the librarians are an integral part of the firm’s practice. The librarians bill their time when working on client files. Increasingly, the library supports the . . . [more]

The things some lawyers get up to! Take Eben Moglen for instance. After working at IBM as a programmer, he attended Yale Law; then he clerked for Justice Thurgood Marshall, after which went back to Yale to get a Ph.D. in history; then it was on to Columbia Law and a professorship there. Enough laurels there for him to rest comfortably for pretty much ever, you’d think. But no: harking back to his early days in computers, he started the Software Freedom Law Centre in 2005 and now he’s launched the FreedomBox Foundation — which is what I want to . . . [more]

Several of us here at Slaw comment from time to time on tablets, and the paperless office – but usually not together.

All Things Digital has a post entitled Use a Tablet, Save a Tree that talks about a Morgan Stanley prediction that the increasing demand for digital content will result in a 2% decline in printer supplies revenue in 2011. It suggests that this trend is one reason that Hewlett Packard is getting into the tablet market.

For the record, I’m impatiently waiting for the iPad2, then will take the tablet plunge. While one doesn’t need a tablet . . . [more]