Ooh, the App Store is here!

For those of you who use Macs at home or (less and less rarely) at the firm, this is Apple’s new venture in vertical integration of the computer experience and world domination. Just as the iTunes Store sells products for iPads, iPhones and iPods, so this Mac application will front end the sale of a thousand apps (as of opening) with more to come.

Whatever else it turns out to be, it’ll be a boon for the small app developer who has had a hard time getting our attention up till now.

For what . . . [more]

If you’re not familiar with Instapaper, may I suggest you take a moment now to click on that link and get acquainted? Too busy? See, that’s the whole point. Instapaper is for you because you’re too busy — too busy now, at least. It’s a way to lodge the text of an interesting web find in a personal archive so that later, when you do have the time, you’ll be able to read it. It’s free and it’s easy.

And when “later” comes, you can read your saved gems in your computer (iPad, iPod, laptop), of course, or on . . . [more]

The annual Consumer Electronics Show is about to start in Las Vegas. The CES officially runs from January 6 to the 9th, but there are several press conferences today for new product announcements. The show is huge – 2700 exhibitors, and over 100,000 attendees. Most of the major electronics brands will be there showing off their latest computers, cameras, TV’s, home theatres, and accessories. (With the notable exception of Apple.)

One of the hot items this year will be tablets. As I’ve mentioned before, (and I’m certainly not the only one) tablets will forever change how we consume . . . [more]

The beginning of the year is a great time to look back and to look ahead. This week, I’ll look back at the top stories of 2010:

1. Canada’s 2010 Federal Budget had some juicy bits for biotech, venture capital and innovation, including the elimination of Section 116, which was long held up as an example of an unnecessary barrier to foreign investment.
2. The top three reasons why biotech companies should use social media — their customers, investors and peers all do.
3. Personalized medicine continues to attract tons of attention, not least because people expect it to be

At this time of year many legal bloggers are busy making predictions about what major trends, technologies and shifts we’ll be seeing in the legal space in the coming year. Here’s a roundup of what some of the legal blogosphere thinks is in store in 2011:

• What Surprised you in 2010 (and What Should Lawyers Expect in 2011)? by Adrian Lurssen on the JD Supra Scoop Blog
• 10 Legal Tech Predictions for 2011 by David Bilinski at Thoughtful Legal Management
• 2011 Tech Trends for Lawyers by Niki Black at Sui Generis
• 10 Legal Trends for 2011 by John Wallbillich at

You may have seen the recent Wall Street Journal article on the privacy implications of certain iPhone, iPod Touch and Android apps that disclose information to advertising networks without the explicit knowledge of the user. It didn’t take long, but now a class action lawsuit filed in California against Apple for allowing this to happen. See: Apple sued over privacy in iPhone, iPad apps | Apple – CNET News.

I think that this lawsuit is directed at the wrong party (Apple Computer Inc.) and, if it is at all successful, will be harmful to the internet.

This is similar . . . [more]

In the spirit of the season, here are some iPad apps of possible interest to SLAW readers:

• Dragon Dictation: I am excited to "train" this new version of Dragon Dictation for the iPad but have been too busy to do so. I have heard good things. I remember trying version 1 of Dragon Dictation on what I think back then was a 486 computer. One assumes this new version will work more smoothly.

• UTL Mobile App: Perhaps of more interest to those in the Toronto area is the free University of Toronto mobile app, which allows for searching

This week in biotech was all about surveillance:

Two Toronto scientists studied over two million tweets to assess the social network’s value as a public health surveillance tool and came away impressed. Even though social networks open some completely new avenues to gathering data and interacting, for the most part they are just valuable tools for use in traditional processes according to a recent Deloitte report. and .

MaRS CEO Ilse Treurnicht, doing a bit of surveillance of her own on some publication surveillance data, noted that China is now second in publication of biomedical research articles globally . . . [more]

A lawyer with the City of Ottawa was active in community activities, and with permission of his employer spent some time on those activities at the office. His email to and from one of the charities became the subject of an access to information request under the Municipal Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (MFIPPA). He resisted disclosure of the emails on the ground that they had nothing to do with government business, the disclosure of which was the purpose of the Act.

The Information and Privacy Commissioner held in April 2009 that the emails must be disclosed: . . . [more]

And now a post from snowbound London.

During the bail hearing of Julian Assange, the presiding magistrate, District Judge Howard Riddle, gave permission for journalists in attendance to use live blogging technology in reporting proceedings. In doing so, in the interests of practicality, he waltzed past provisions in the Contempt of Court Act 1981, which prohibited the use of recording media in court. It spurred a debate in England about the appropriate limits.

This spurred the senior judge in England – the wonderfully named Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, Lord Judge – to issue formal guidance to the . . . [more]

The US Department of Commerce’s Internet Policy Task Force has proposed a set of principles that collectively form the basis of what could be dubbed an online privacy “Bill of Rights” for US consumers. The proposed policies in the DoC’s “green paper” aim to “improve the state of affairs domestically and advance interoperability among different privacy regimes around the world so that, globally, Internet services can continue to flourish.” The DoC also proposes the creation of a “Privacy Policy Office” that would work with the Federal Trade Commission and other government agencies to create a “voluntary but enforceable . . . [more]