The much anticipated Iphone went on sale last week (June 29), south of the 49th (Wikipedia entry). So far, sales have reportedly been solid with 500 000 sold in the first few days. Reviews have been good as well, (more reviews) As for those of us in the Great White North, no date seems to have been given as to when we can anticipate laying out 500 plus dollars, but we know that will be giving this money to Rogers. If you just cannot wait, it seems that several entrepreneurs have cracked the . . . [more]

The Globe and Mail and the Beeb (and others) reported a couple of weeks ago that the French government has ordered its officials not to use BlackBerrys for fear that their communications are insecure. BlackBerry servers are located in the United States and Britain.

Now that RIM can sell in China, I wonder if the Chinese government will be interested. Seems there’s a possibility they’ll manufacture in China and perhaps locate a server or two there… . . . [more]

Every two years a Joint Study Institute is hosted in the U.S., Canada, the U.K. or Australia. Details of the 2008 Joint Study Institute, to be hosted in the U.S., have been announced. For more information about the Institute, click on “Read more” in the message below.

American Association of Law Libraries (AALL)
2008 Joint Study Institute: “Harmonization and Confrontation:
Integrating Foreign and International Law into the American Legal System”
Wednesday, June 25 – Saturday, June 28, 2008 Washington, DC.

Sponsored by AALL, the Australian Law Librarians’ Association (ALLA), the British and Irish Association of Law Libraries (BIALL), the Canadian . . . [more]

On Sunday, July 8, Slaw will celebrate its second birthday, so while you’re dozing in the hammock, mowing the lawn, taking the kids swimming, or just chilling, cast a happy thought our way. And, perhaps an eye, too: We’re toddling now, and you’ve got to watch us all the time or who knows what we’ll get into.

And sometime today we published our 2000th post, a month ahead of our 1000th post anniversary. Our membership has grown and strengthened, we’ve kept up the flow, and, I hope, we’ve made ourselves as near to indispensable as a blog might . . . [more]

The European Commission is now providing free access to its Taxes in Europe Database, a handy research tool covering the main taxes in force in the EU Member States. The database will be updated every year. . . . [more]

If you haven’t done so already you might like to check out the British Library’s Turning the Pages feature. This is software that enables you to leaf through old and rare volumes rather as if they were physically in front of you. The Library has just announced that it is licensing the Turning the Pages Toolkit to museums and libraries for no cost.

The user has to download a client application to see the full beauty of the software, only available for Windows Vista, alas. However, a few books can be seen using Shockwave instead, which still gives you a . . . [more]

Or, as Nicole Godin puts it, I am IM: 21st Century Information Management, which is a new blog by the Managing Librarian of Regulatory Information Services for Bell Canada. Nicole Godin, besides being a lawyer and information professional worth reading, seems also to be a bit of a glutton for punishment, having started not one but two blogs recently: her other venture is Librarian 2.0.

Welcome to the world of blogging, Nicole. . . . [more]

OASIS“(Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards) is a not-for-profit, international onsortium that drives the development, convergence, and adoption of e-business standards… Founded in 1993, OASIS has more than 5,000 participants representing over 600 organizations and individual members in 100 countries. http://www.oasis-open.org” members have ratified their Digital Signature Services (DSS) as an organization standard. DSS:

defines an XML interface to process digital signatures for Web services and other applications, enabling the sharing of digital signature creation, verification and other associated services, without complex client software and configuration. [press release]

Those with an understanding of this as . . . [more]

Around the house, my wife and I have lots of computer cables, old printers and screens lying around, in other words, “e-waste”. Do we throw it away, keep it, find some charity to recycle it? And if we replace some of it, how do we know which manufacturer to trust?

The international environmental NGO Greenpeace recently released its 4th Guide to Greener Electronics:

“The electronics ranking guide has been our answer to getting the electronics industry to face up to the problem of e-waste. We want manufacturers to take responsibility for the unprotected child labourers who scavenge the mountains

A brief exchange with Ian Kerr of the Faculty of Law at the University of Ottawa led me to a project he’s involved with there, On the Identity Trail. It’s a research project funded in part by the SSHRC and involving an impressive list of collaborators and partners aimed at “understanding the importance and impact of anonymity and authentication in a networked society.”

There’s an impressive list of published research you should visit, if you’re interested in privacy and ID, e.g. “Identity Theft: A Conceptual Analysis,” [PDF] by Steven Davis; “To Oberve and Protect? How Digital . . . [more]

A couple of weeks ago I blogged about the arrival of a do-not-call registry for mobile users in India. I considered whether I had missed something here in Canada, as it seemed to be that talk of the implementation of similar legislation for phone users in Canada happened ages ago but I’d heard nothing more of it. Although the legislative framework in ss. 41.1 to 41.7 of the Telecommunications Act received royal assent in November 2005, nothing had been done to implement the registry until yesterday, according to this CP story. Implementation is now underway with the CRTC’s release . . . [more]

Simon a déjà écrit à propos de la publication pour commentaires des Principes de Sedona Canada sur la “Production of Electronic Document”.

Finalement, après de longues heures de rédaction et de traduction (merci à ma conjointe!!) les Principes de Sedona Canada concernant l’administration de la preuve électronique (édition française!) sont disponibles pour commentaires. . . . [more]