Simon ((the other Simon)) reported from the Lexum Conference on Justice Bastarache‘s speech on the Supreme Court of Canada’s technology plans.

Completely unofficially, here is a picture from last Wednesday, showing the extent of the court’s commitment – every place at the counsel table is wired, the central desk from which counsel addresses the court looks like a command centre. [Click on the image to enlarge it.]

I didn’t have a chance to peek behind the judges’ area – I suspect that is permanently off-limit to mere mortals – but I suspect that the bench will be similarly wired. . . . [more]

Everyone knows the ubiquitous bar coding — though reading it might be another matter. But I for one wasn’t acquainted with it’s potential replacement, QR Code — QR for “quick response” apparently. What you see below is a large version of a QR Code symbol that contains the first 250 characters of the “About Slaw” page.

(I imagine, but don’t know, that the object could be shrunk considerably, the only limit being its readability by a scanner.) By comparison, a bar code can only contain 20 digits.

Invented in Japan in 1994, QR Code is gradually spreading throughout the world. . . . [more]

Read MacDailyNews

http://macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/comments/16120/

Read ZDNet

 http://asterikdotinfo.blogspot.com/2008/01/why-so-dumb-about-macbook-air-thinnest.html . . . [more]

Called “Law21, dispatches from a legal profession on the brink,” Jordan says of the new year’s baby:

In the 21st century, the practice of law is shaking loose from its traditional moorings and heading out into uncharted territory. Opportunities abound, but so do pitfalls. Most of the old rules won’t apply anymore, while some will matter more than ever.

Welcome to the new legal profession, powered by collaboration, innovation, and client service. This is your front-row seat.

The RSS feed for posts is http://law21.ca/feed/.

As readers of the National or Jordan’s column (Law21) in Slaw will know, . . . [more]

The Library of Congress announced on its blog that its partnering with Flickr to put photos from its collection online where users can interact with them. To start, the Library of Congress will post about 3,000 photos from two of its most popular collections on Flickr (there are about 14 million prints, photos and other visual materials at the Library in total). This project will include only photos for which no copyright exists. For more information about this project (and Flickr’s new tagging initiative called The Commons), read the announcements from Flickr and the Library of Congress. . . . [more]

Our (children’s) XO laptops arrived yesterday, and they are quite the hit already. They are fun for us, great learning tools for the kids – including learning why they were created in the first place. I hope they prove/have proved to be as successful with the children for whom the donated laptops are intended. (See earlier Slaw posts – for example, here and here.)

My son, 5, has figured out how to open it, power on and off, navigate around the screen, return to “home” and use a couple of the included applications: made a bit of music on . . . [more]

That’s Tom Hodgkinson talking, not me. (My feelings about Fakebook aren’t that strong.) Hodgkinson has a long and interesting article in the Technology section of the Guardian Unlimited that sets out his many reasons for reviling the vastly popular — what? — tool, environment, fad?

His points are, roughly:

• It’s unnecessary. Why would you need to connect to people through the mediation of “a bunch of supergeeks in California”?
• It’s isolating. The connection is more imagined than real.
• It perverts true friendship, encouraging lying about oneself and competition as to the number of “friends” one has.
• It’s got incredible mass

It feels like I have been following the development of the Anne of Green Gables brand my whole life. The librarian in me can’t believe I didn’t take to reading until my grade 5 teacher introduced me to Anne Shirley and her cohorts Diana Barry and Gilbert Blythe. I read every book in L.M. Montgomery’s series, and then continued on with her other fiction series. I fondly recall a family trip to PEI to visit L.M. Montgomery’s childhood home. Later in life I discovered her adult writings and, as a student of English literature at the University of Guelph, . . . [more]

intellectual property or international business, trade, and competition- regulation lawyers.

The European Commission opened a new antitrust probe against Microsoft on Monday into whether it unfairly tied its Web browser to the Windows operating system and made it harder for rival software to work with Windows.

“This initiation of proceedings does not imply that the Commission has proof of an infringement. It only signifies that the Commission will further investigate the case as a matter of priority,” the Commission said.

And provide more billable work of for its lawyers and billable hours or work for Gates’.

I must say that . . . [more]

These are excerpts from what appears to have been a New York Times column which you can now find at http://www.lexisone.com/balancing/articles/n010008e.html – Why Nobody Likes A Smart Machine – on human-machine interaction.

Dr. Norman, a cognitive scientist who is a professor at Northwestern, has been the maestro of gizmos since publishing ”The Design of Everyday Things,” his 1988 critique of VCRs no one could program, doors that couldn’t be opened without instructions and other technologies that seemed designed to drive humans crazy.

And the worse news is that the gadgets of Christmas future will be even harder to command, because

Okay Mac fanboys and -girls — and you wannabes (you three others can go back to work): the broadcast of Steve Job’s Macworld 2008 Keynote starts today at 9 AM PST (12PM EST). Nothing spectacular this year, so the betting goes. But we’re looking for a sub-notebook, which should raise some interest out there in the world of laptop schleppers like us. There’ll likely be an announcement about renting movies via iTunes, but that won’t be of interest because we won’t be able to get on board here in Canada. (No Netflix, no Amazon movie rental, no Google Grand Central . . . [more]

Dion Hinchcliffe’s Web 2.0 Blog has a great post about what we will probably see happening in 2008 in the Web 2.0 realm. Here are some of the more interesting predictions:

• As social media begins to mature and new online stars emerge, a new industry of Web 2.0 talent agents and production companies will form to provide professional help. YouTube star Esmee Denters is a perfect example of the potential of online talents.
• Ownership of data contributed to Web 2.0 sites becomes a growing PR issue. I like this quote of Hinchcliffe’s: “the more control you give up, the more