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]

While Q&A sites have been around for as long as the web, the last year has seen a tremendous surge of innovation in this space. Quora is one of the hottest startups in the valley right now, and has experts in various fields answering questions on everything from “Why is Dropbox more popular than tools with similar functionality?” to “Why is honey dangerous for babies?”.

LawPivot brings the Quora concept to legal advice, allowing companies to confidentially ask legal questions of lawyers that have registered with the site. LawPivot employs a recommendation algorithm that will match . . . [more]

“If you have a big enough dictionary, just about everything is a word.”
Dave Barry

There is something lovely about opening a package and finding a new book. To my surprise, this feeling also occurs when you get an email saying that your eBook purchase from the “I want to buy this as soon as it is published” list receipt comes by email. Another remarkable new book thrill appear in my inbox today in a note about the newly revamped OED website.

Oxford is proud to unveil a dramatically new OED Online: a redesigned, reengineered site that offers

This week, we’ve continued to outline the biotech industry trends we’ve been following on the Cross-Border Biotech Blog and noting some recent developments and directions for 2011:

Transgenic plants and animalscontinue to generate some of the most fascinating new science and technology and continue to generate considerable controversy. Canadian expertise contributed to the AcquaVantage salmon and the Enviropig; but the regulatory and legal environment lags behind the science in this area, and things in the U.S. are getting worse instead of better.

Biosimilars are also growing in importance, with FDA guidance pending and even biotech stalwarts Amgen and . . . [more]

Slaw has always had an interest in publishing and in technology, so I’m using this track record as an excuse for telling you about Bibliotype, even though it has nothing whatever to do with law. My deeper reason is that we’re all in this together, and anything that might help improve the experience of reading materials online should interest lawyers. So much for the prolegomenon.

Bibliotype is the work of the niftily-named Craig Mod, a writer and book designer. I came across it because of Mod’s article in the online web designer’s publication, A List Apart. There he . . . [more]

Are you interested in finding out what’s going on in our courts… in terms of technology? If so, you can help the Canadian Centre for Court Technology (CCCT) developing an online clearinghouse on topic with just a few minutes of your time.

You can provide your input by filling this brief questionnaire:

http://ccct-cctj.ca/launch-of-the-clearinghouse-questionnaire/

On behalf of the CCCT… Thank you! . . . [more]

New details about the Stuxnet worm that spread through tens of thousands of computer systems in mid-2010 provide an in-depth look behind the most successful cyber weapon we’ve seen to date.

Widely believed to be designed by the US and Isreali governments, the main targets of the Stuxnet worm were industrial controllers made by Siemens. While used in thousands of factories for legitimate manufacturing processes, the Siemens controllers targeted by Stuxnet were also used to enrich uranium at Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility. To ensure Stuxnet did not cause any collateral damage, the worm’s programmers were careful to ensure only the . . . [more]

On January 13, 2011 I participated in a webinar by Finis Price, iPhone and iPad for Lawyers: Apps You Need to be Using. Price is a personal injury lawyer in Kentucky who blogs on TechnoEsq.

Price started by dispelling some misconceptions about the iPad, which is not just a bigger iPod Touch. Despite having the same screen type and operating system, the larger screen allows much more functionality than smaller mobile devices.

An iPad can help efficiency and lighten loads when traveling out of the office or going to court. Price accesses nearly anything in his office . . . [more]

Writers from Canadian Lawyer and Law Times magazines have co-launched the Legal Feeds Blog. And with close to 40 posts in their first four weeks, it’s great to see such strong early volume and blogging enthusiasm! [and yes Gail, I was hoping a Clawbies mention would inspire everyone to keep up the early pace!]

One attribute that really stands out for me, and it’s really more about editorial approach than anything, is the mixed delivery styles for their blog content. Whether it’s an early preview to the day’s story, a roundup of newspaper headlines, or a short opinion . . . [more]

The Consumer Electronics Show is one large convention. Preliminary numbers after the first two days of the conference had 132,000 people in attendance. Attendees can be found at hotels up and down the strip (hotel prices skyrocket during the convention period). The convention centre itself showcases thousands upon thousands of square feet of exhibit space, not to mention the space used for keynotes, sessions, and other events.

One of my goals was to spend time wandering the exhibits looking for products that are both cool and useful for legal practice. I only spent a few minutes looking at the items, . . . [more]