Bruni v. Bruni, 2010 ONSC 6568 (CanLII), a recent decision of the Superior Court of Justice in a family matter, noted (literally, in a footnote (23)):

In recent years, the evidence in family trials typically includes reams of text messages between the parties, helpfully laying bare their true characters. Assessing credibility is not nearly as difficult as it was before the use of e-mails and text messages became prolific. Parties are not shy about splattering their spleens throughout cyberspace.

Is that your experience? Does a multiplicity of informal electronic communications help or hurt assessment of credibility? Is . . . [more]

There has been a firestorm of protest recently over the issue of usage based billing for internet access. 

It is widely recognized that the future of Canada is digital. This concept has broad government and community support. This future depends on cost-effective, easy access to the internet. 

Anything that inhibits internet access and use (either wired or wireless), such as the usage based billing we are now seeing, is counterproductive, and a step back to the stone age. We can’t afford to have have an environment where existing or prospective businesses or consumers have any hesitation to use . . . [more]

A couple weeks back I posted about the challenge of preserving web-based evidence. Sharon Nelson (of Sensei Enterprises and Slaw) has linked over to some great input from Ben Wright (of SANS Computer Forensics) on the topic, including a blog post and this video.

This seems to do a good job of meeting most of the requirements I identified. What do you think? . . . [more]

IBM's Watson and Wolfram/Alpha are different approaches to getting information out of data.

My firm sent a member to LegalTech in New York this year. I am a little (OK a lot) jealous, but with the wonders of the web I can get a feel for the conference buzz, even before my colleague returns.

One method for attending is registering for Virtual LegalTech. This would work well for those who need CLE credits.

There is also an “On Demand” option on the legaltech site which (after registering) plays a video of Mark Howitsons Keynote address.

For those of us unable, or unwilling to view video, a blog search of LegalTech . . . [more]

The Real Estate industry can rest a little easier knowing that Google won’t be coming to their rescue. Earlier today Google announced that they will be discontinuing their Maps Real Estate Search feature on Feb 11th; citing “low usage” as the major factor in the decision.

The change won’t disrupt those organizations that rely on Google as their mapping backbone, however — see the map-based filtering provided on MLS.ca as an example. Google will continue to offer their maps API for developers to innovate. Though I’ll presume the CREA will continue to be protective over its data, so that . . . [more]

Wired has an article today about how exactly Egyptian officials managed to shut down the internet there, in an effort to suppress speech. This happened yesterday, and while news is not hard to find (Al Jazeera seems to have the most complete coverage), I gather the shut-down has hampered protesters considerably.

As a result, the “Obama’s Internet Kill-Switch” issue has taken on new profile. Here are some leads into the Lieberman-Collins Bill.

And in related news, corporate control of internet traffic in the US faces an encouraging initiative from Senators Maria Cantwell and Al Franken: A . . . [more]

Just A Click Away, a Canada-wide initiative on public legal education and information (PLEI) being coordinated by Courthouse Libraries BC, is organizing a two-day intensive conference in Vancouver, British Columbia on February 23 & 24, 2011.

The conference is about how to use Internet and social media technologies to better educate the general public about the law and provide resources for individuals to solve legal problems.

As a run up to the conference, Just A Click Away has been running a webinar series that features different approaches being used to provide online PLEI.

So far, 2 webinars have been . . . [more]

People have expressed concern about behavioural advertising, in which advertisers watch what one does online in order to send out ads that are likely to appeal to the person watched. A number of big online services are now developing a ‘do not track’ command to allow their users to prevent their information from being collected for that purpose.

A more interesting, and more intrusive, usage of behavioural information collected online is by insurance companies that may decide whether someone is a good risk to insure based on that information. Fans of XXX’s double-cheese-and-bacon deep-dish pizzas may find themselves having a . . . [more]

From an announcement on the Facebook blog yesterday, Facebook has taken a big step to make your Facebook browsing experience far safer. I suspect this at least in part because someone was able to hack into Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook fan page.

If you’ve ever done your shopping or banking online, you may have noticed a small “lock” icon appear at the lower right of your browser or that the URL starts with a HTTPS. The HTTPS indicates that your browser is using a secure connection to communicate with the website you are on. This ensures that . . . [more]

Legal project management. Three words that are appearing together in sequence more and more often. I got a tip from a colleague recently about Onit. What is Onit?

Onit is a light-weight project management and business collaboration tool for legal and business professionals.

I signed up for an Onit account to gather information about what legal project management would look like on a day to day basis using a software tool. I learned a little more than I bargained for. The Onit website offers some good arguments for implementing an LPM structure over the provision of legal services under . . . [more]

I read with great interest a recent article by Chris Anderson in Wired Features how video on YouTube is having the unexpected effect of allowing people to learn–and innovate–at an accelerated rate. He gives the example of people learning from one another how to dance, developing skills previously unheard of. Take for example the Legion of Extraordinary Dancers:

According to Anderson, many of these dancers were self-taught through Internet video, bringing together tricks and moves previously unknown in dance. Part of this is accelerated learning and innovation, he says, comes from people sharing what they know, so that others who . . . [more]