Word came down recently that the University of Montreal’s Centre de recherche en droit public won a six million dollar grant “to create a research infrastructure in which to develop different software solutions to the many problems currently plaguing the justice system.” You can read the CRDP announcement here. The Cyberjustice Laboratory project will comprise a research facility, a “virtual courtroom” and a “transportable courtroom” housed at McGill University. The project is headed by Professor Karim Benyekhlef, Director of the CRDP, and by Nicolas Vermeys, Associate Director of the project.

The chart below will give you some idea of . . . [more]

Jotwell is an online law journal titled Jotwell (The Journal of Things We Like (Lots) which is the brainchild of Professor A. Michael Froomkin. Its aim is to help lawyers and legal academics figure out what to read, not only in their own area of specialization, but also outside it.

Jotwell will “identify, celebrate and discuss” the best new legal scholarship in a variety of fields, as selected by a distinguished board of legal editors. It is a rare attempt by legal scholars to praise—rather than criticize—others’ work. “We will not be afraid to be laudatory,” declares the Jotwell Mission . . . [more]

Today and tomorrow, Toronto Innovation Showcase is bringing together City of Toronto staff, City leaders, and various groups of citizens to discuss the Open Government movement and what it should mean to the City. The question being asked is:

“How can we strengthen our democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness by making government more transparent, participatory, and collaborative?”

Part of the Showcase will be the Open Data Lab, taking place this afternoon 1:00 – 4:15 p.m. ET. This will be a unique opportunity for citizens to engage with City government. Today’s Open Data Lab will be led by consultant . . . [more]

Just like Google’s Street View feature, which followed a Canadian launch after being tested in the American market, Google introduced this month traffic levels for major Canadian cities after almost three years of use in the U.S. In the past week the service was extended from mobile devices to web browsing as well.

Toronto.com has offered much more limited traffic features for several years, but nothing even close to the level of detail or interactivity provided by Google.

Late this summer Google had expanded the service to include arterial roads, which was a major complaint among American users. They also . . . [more]

Or even والشبكة العالمية

The language of tomorrow’s web won’t be English – nor will the script.

ICANN’s website has a video that explains the system of Internationalised Domain Names.

The Press Release states:

Seoul: The first Internet addresses containing non-Latin characters from start to finish will soon be online thanks to today’s approval of the new Internationalized Domain Name Fast Track Process by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers board.

“The coming introduction of non-Latin characters represents the biggest technical change to the Internet since it was created four decades ago,” said ICANN chairman Peter Dengate . . . [more]

Here it is on Youtube: some wonderful metaphors.

Will the Slaw community do a rebuttal? . . . [more]

Yesterday, Los Angeles city council voted to become the largest city in the United States to rely entirely on Google’s gmail to run its e-mail system. The city’s 30,000 employees will now have their e-mail managed and stored by Google.

There are certainly concerns with handing over this type of function to a third party. Any gmail user will know that it sees its downtime, like any other service. I would guess, though, it’s probably no more often than any other employer-provided e-mail I’ve ever had.

Naturally, security is a huge concern. After all, it was just weeks ago . . . [more]

♫ Everyone has a secret
But can they keep it
Oh no they can’t…♫

Lyrics and music by: Adam Levine, Jesse Carmichael, recorded by Maroon 5.

The CBA has released: Laptop Searches at the Border: What the Revised U.S. Guidelines Say on their PracticeLink web page.

As they state:

For the frequent business traveller, it bears repeating: U.S. Customs officers have the authority to search and detain any device capable of storing electronic information for any reason; they can examine the electronic device without the traveller present; they can copy from the device or “detain” the device; . . . [more]

Google Social Search has now launched. An experiment from Google Labs, Social Search is one of four experimental options you can add to your regular search settings. (You may select only one of the four.)

From the Features page:

Google Social Search is an experimental feature that enables you to find relevant public web content from people in your social circle, when you’re signed in to your Google Account. For example, search for [ restaurants ], and restaurant reviews by your friends and other contacts may appear more prominently in your results.

I ran the suggested search — “restaurants” . . . [more]

Congratulations to Melissa Kruger, Publisher and Editor of the magazine Precedent: The new rules of law and style. Precedent magazine recently celebrated its second anniversary in real style with the invitation-only party Dressed to Bill, featuring a fashion show with new looks modeled by ten stylish lawyers. Precedent is an independent magazine aimed at young lawyers (aged 25-40) and distributed for free to over 20,000 lawyers and law students across Ontario.

You may recall Precedent started life over three years ago as a blog. The website has maintained its “bloggy” roots with additional blog posts and columns. . . . [more]

If you’re reading this, you’re on the internet. And it’s probably a good bet that you’re on the internet a lot — continuously, indeed, if you’re like me. This is by now unavoidable at the office and, it seems, unavoidable at the “office in your pocket,” whether BlackBerry or iPhone or some other portal to the work world.

But I’ve got a winking modem at home and a honking great (and beautiful) desktop computer sitting on my desk that glows like a persistent fire in the hearth, ready to answer my every question in millions upon millions of vibrant colours. . . . [more]

Simon Fodden predicted that the privacy complaints would begin once Google Maps Street View was launched. The maps have proven popular in Canada, with over 150 million views of other countries by Canadians in 2009 alone.

Google recognizes privacy concerns, but claims to address them through their collection and processing approach:

• public access images, no different than what would normally be seen walking down the street
• not in real time, so images can be months old before going live
• blurring of license plates and faces
• allowing removal requests, through the “Report a Problem” option in the bottom-left of all images