BBC is reporting the imminent demise of the computer mouse as a peripheral input device. The prediction is made by Gartner’s Stephen Prentice.

As one commentator called it: “Idiots Want to Replace Computer Mouse with Expensive New Gadgets …” . . . [more]

Here are links to a couple of American posts, which set out good practical advice about whether your next case is the one that would be right to deploy technology in the courtroom and dazzle the judge ((Being American pieces they’re focused on convincing the jury)).

Larry Cohan’s Using Technology at Trial, or Not, and Gregory P. Joseph’s A Simplified Approach to Computer Generated Evidence and Animations . . . [more]

Last year in May Steve Matthews mooted the idea of a virtual law firm and sparked interesting comments, a couple from folks who were in such practices. Now big hitter Craig Johnson has teamed up with some others to make a big splash with their Virtual Law Partners, based in San Francisco. From the bouncy (but effective) website, it seems that they’re aiming at individuals, families and perhaps small businesses.

Law.com has a piece on the startup, which will fill you in on the fees, the predictions, etc. — but not on who else is doing the virtual . . . [more]

Something that we haven’t mentioned here on Slaw is the new law blog monitoring website Lexmonitor. The site was developed by Kevin O’Keefe and Lexblog, who are normally in the business of building lawyer blogs, and now expanding into the world of aggregations & web publishing. If you subscribe to the make your own media approach, which I frequently do, then a monitor tool aligned with the company product makes a lot of business sense.

When I noted the launch of Lexmonitor a couple weeks back, the concept I thought the most of was the threaded discussion . . . [more]

While we have mentioned situations where important provisions have been dropped into miscellaneous statutes, the NYT, Volokh and the ZDNet blog is reporting a quite extraordinary case where the litigants and the US Supreme Court appear to have completely overlooked a relevant statutory provision¹, for a couple of reasons:

it got dropped into an elephantine budget measure for military appropriations
the major legal databases apparently scant the relevance of military law

Both sides and the Judges involved in a recent U.S. Supreme Court judgment missed the applicability of an explicitly on-topic Act of Congress: the military justice provisions

Can’t believe I am only just noticing this. The stellar law school blog Law is Cool is not just a blog, but also a podcast! They periodically put out audio with interviews and discussion targeted at law students.

I just listened to the recent Episode 10 discussing the 7 Year Law Degree with Jordan Furlong; using a law degree for alternative careers with David Aylward, founder and director of COMCARE Emergency Response Alliance; and access to justice and the Justice on Target program with Minister Chis Bentley, the Attorney-General of Ontario. Kudos to this episode’s . . . [more]

In the U.S., some Members of Congress have started reporting about their activities on the floor using social networking tool Twitter. In a blog comment, Texas-based Christopher Glenn explains the meaning of this to him as a U.S. citizen:

So in June, I was made aware that the House of Representitves Congressman for my district, John Culberson just started using Twitter. Just because it seemed interesting, I added him (www.twitter.com/johnculberson).

Shortly thereafter, he tweeted “I am on the House floor. I am voting yes for Community Health Centers which provide medical care to uninsured Americans.”

This completely

Apple’s new iPhone App Store (which allows developers to create applications for the iPhone) is now available on iTunes 7.7 (you can download it here). Once you have access to the store, you can browse “All iPhone Apps,” “All iPod Touch Apps,” and “All Free Apps.” . . . [more]

Last week, Simon insisted that he wouldn’t be getting an iPhone when it’s introduced this week to Rogers’ lineup. Turns out he’s not alone – 52,000 people have signed a single online petition, and there are more petitions out there. There were rumours – now debunked – that Rogers was blocking access to the petition site.

The rumour mill has really started to spin out of control, though, with stories about Apple’s response. First, there were stories that the company was limiting Canada’s supply to punish Rogers – leading to thousands of job cuts among Rogers temp staff who . . . [more]

bit.ly (that’s the whole URL) is a new URL shortening service. What may set it apart from the current faves, such as TinyURL, or any of the nearly 70 alternatives, are some special features such as your ability to use your own keywords, the fact that they show you your latest 15 shortened URLs when you visit their site, and the (promised) fact that they will save every page you shorten, and not just the URL, forever.

The URLs here at Slaw aren’t too bad: they’re typical WordPress links. But from time to time you may want to shrink . . . [more]

Small footnote to the SCC’s recent decision in Simpson v. WIC and Mair.

LeBel J’s concurring judgment mentions blogs:

[73] This is all the more true in an age when the public is exposed to an astounding quantity and variety of commentaries on issues of public interest, ranging from political debate in the House of Commons, to newspaper editorials, to comedians’ satire, to a high school student’s blog. It would quite simply be wrong to assume that the public always takes statements of opinion at face value. Rather, members of the public must be presumed to evaluate comments

A ruling released July 1st in the copyright infringement case Viacom v. Google has created a stir in the online world. Judge Louis L. Stanton in the U.S. federal New York Southern District Court ordered Google to produce to Viacom:

all data from the Logging database concerning each time a YouTube video has been viewed on the YouTube website or through embedding on a third-party website