From the start, I’ve wondered how we will navigate in a linked data environment. How will we explore an information space where every data element is linked to every other data element? How will we keep track of where we are and where we’ve been? We won’t have physical cues anymore and the navigation systems we are familiar with grew out of our interaction with those physical cues (e.g. think card catalogue to online catalogue).

I happened on a rather obscurely named blog this week called, “The SemVis Blog.” The subtitle, or catch phrase, is much more telling: . . . [more]

About a year ago I wrote a post inspired by Thomas R. Bruce‘s article “GitHub: It Ain’t Magic Pixie Dust.” In that post I introduced Bruce‘s observation that “people are sticking legislation into GitHub at a furious pace.” I wanted to quickly revisit this idea and see if there was still interest in this area.

I found a short presentation* that V. David Zvenyach gave at iAnnotate 2014 in April called, “Annotating the Law.” (There is a bit of a buzz in the audio which is too bad)

Zvenyach introduces the document intensive process . . . [more]

Google’s new Video Quality Report tool allows you to compare video streaming capabilities between local ISPs.

By viewing this report, either at home or at work, you are able to see when the prime video streaming periods are. You can also see how your current streaming performance compares against other local ISPs competing for your business.

Here’s a screen capture from my report:

. . . [more]

The cloud has been touted as a significant revolution in computing – providing scalable, secure, and cost effective alternatives to owing and managing your own computing infrastructure. It has also been criticized for being insecure, unreliable, and a potential threat to the future of your business if something goes wrong.

So which is it? It can be both, actually.

Done right – with the right application, the right vendor, the right agreement, and with proper attention to issues like security, encryption, privacy, and continuity – it can work very well.

Done wrong – without those details being considered – it . . . [more]

Think outside the box.

Think of ways to use current tools creatively.

Think big.

Think niche.

Think of ways to blow up the current paradigm.

Think of ways to make the current paradigm work better.

… Essentially, opinions about how to transition into a future-ready legal profession are like vital organs – everyone alive has at least one that works for them, but there isn’t one that works for everybody.

Since the CBA Legal Futures Initiative was launched, many ideas about the challenges facing the profession have been postulated – their causes, their effects, and appropriate responses to them. One . . . [more]

I was at a presentation this morning by tech guru Carmi Levy who talked about 7 tech trends. If you watch national news broadcasts you will have seen Carmi.

1. Cloud. It aligns spend with need, and you can spend less time managing your infrastructure.

2. Mobile. More smart phones were sold last year than feature phones. Facebook revenue from mobile is more than 50% now. Just 3 years ago was zero. 25% of Facebook users are mobile only. This trend is similar for other providers – mobile is rapidly becoming a prime way to connect. Businesses need to address . . . [more]

That’s the first line in a recent article from the Fordham Law Review by John O. McGinnis and Russell G. Pearce, an article which I’ve added to my “must read” list.

There’s been a lot of talk about disruption and innovation in law practice. In “The Great Disruption: How Machine Intelligence Will Transform the Role of Lawyers in the Delivery of Legal Services,” the authors note that “the disruption has already begun” and take a look at “the weakening of lawyers’ market power over providing legal services.”

The article is presented in two parts:

“Part I describes

A Spanish citizen has compelled Google to delete links to online newspaper articles that described the person’s debt problems in the 1990s. The European Court of Justice held that the information was ‘no longer relevant’ and it thus violated the man’s privacy for it to be available through an easy search. (A Spanish court had earlier refused to require the newspaper sites to take down the information, which was perfectly true.)

So: does this ruling make any sense at all, to impose the obligations of a ‘data controller’ on a search engine?

How can the search provider know for sure . . . [more]

I am an avid reader of the website Lifehacker. Every day, there are new posts on an incredible range of topics with the single goal of making life easier. Yesterday, for example, there were hacks on communicating with seniors, peeling hardboiled eggs, getting roadside assistance for your bicycle and applying the GTD philosophy in dealing with your emails.

Lifehacker absolutely lives up to its motto:

Tips, tricks, and downloads for getting things done.

I’ve noticed that Lifehacker has a way of pinpointing issues in my daily life that I’ve not yet identified as issues, and in many cases, . . . [more]

Speaking of media neutrality … a US judge has ruled that a search warrant served on Microsoft in the US required the company to divulge records stored on servers outside the US. An account of the decision is here.

The company argued that the court could authorize a search only of premises within the territory of the court’s jurisdiction. The court held that a search warrant that applied to electronic records was in the nature of a subpoena as well as a search warrant. Since MS had control of the documents, it had to turn them over.

Does this . . . [more]

Many law firms manage their trust and regular bank accounts on the Internet, and some firms have the ability to initiate various banking transactions online, including account transfers and wiring funds. While the convenience and efficiency of online banking are huge benefits, the downside is that online banking exposes you to security risks. The steps outlined below will help law firms to understand, address and reduce online banking risks – for both your firm and personal accounts.

Know and understand the terms of your banking agreements: As a starting point, carefully read your bank account and electronic banking services agreements. . . . [more]

One promising metadata project dealing with the legal domain is URN:Lex (A Uniform Resource Name (URN) Namespace for Sources of Law (LEX). A proposal was submitted to the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) back in 2010 and was the product of a number of groups. The Institute of Legal Information Theory and Techniques of the Italian National Research Council led the charge and the initiative also involved Cornell’s Legal Information Institute.

“The purpose of the “lex” namespace is to assign an unequivocal identifier, in standard format, to documents that are sources of law. The identifier is conceived so that