There has been some controversy lately over comments on web sites. Far too often comments are toxic, bitter, uninformed, and irrelevant. Some popular bloggers such as Seth Godin simply turn the comment function off. Popular Science has just announced they are shutting off comments because they felt that “trolls and spambots” in their comments have overwhelmed intellectual debate. Some people have been critical of Popular Science’s decision.

At the same time, YouTube is about to make some changes to try to float the most relevant comments to the top, and push the nasty stuff to the bottom. This Washington Post . . . [more]

Apple’s latest and greatest operating system is launching today. There will no doubt be a rush for iPhone and iPad owners to install the update. Apple fans may scoff at this advice, but if you are updating anything other than a current model, it might be prudent to wait a few days before upgrading.

The odds are that all will go well, but sometimes issues appear in the real world that don’t show up in testing. Typically those issues are more annoyances than anything – such as sluggish performance, or incompatibility with some apps. And typically they are resolved quickly. . . . [more]

CanLII launched their new site today. After several months of beta testing, plenty of opportunities for feedback, and some direct user surveys, CanLII has a new look and new functionality.

I highlighted my favourite function, the ability to have a field based search functions right up front. My use of the system will most often be the “advanced” searching. I have to acknowledge that the wide searching offered by the single entry box search interface is backed up with some excellent filtering and narrowing options that make the system flexible and user friendly.

A nice feature fo the new site . . . [more]

I am interested to see what comes out of the CanLII hackathon that took place this weekend. F. Tim Knight kindly shared slides and notes from his presentation on Friday, Linked Data and Canadian Legal Resources.

Don’t know what linked data is? Tim walks us step-by-step through what it is, some of the theoretical background of this concept, how linked data could be used, and how it might apply to Canadian legal resources (such as case law), especially using CanLII.

I especially recommend his slides with notes. In them, he encourages more open contributions of legal data:

If

As he does each year at about this time, Rich McCue tipped us to the fact that the results of his survey of incoming law students are now online. The University of Victoria Law Student Technology Survey has run for ten years now, providing a nifty picture of how things are changing for law students — so far as technology is concerned. The executive summary of this year’s survey, which had a whopping 90% response rate, is as follows:

• 96% of incoming law students own “Smart Phones” that can browse the internet (up from 89% last year and 50% three

As I’m sure many Slaw readers comb through the Terms of Service for the websites they use, I’d like to highlight a new consideration. Surf on over to the WordPress.com TOS, and check out paragraph 16, Disclaimer of Warranties:

Disclaimer of Warranties. The Website is provided “as is”. Automattic and its suppliers and licensors hereby disclaim all warranties of any kind, express or implied, including, without limitation, the warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose and non-infringement. Neither Automattic nor its suppliers and licensors, makes any warranty that the Website will be error free or that access thereto

For a week now, users of the social media tool and Twitter data reseller Topsy have been able to search Twitter content from its 2006 beginnings; i.e., “every tweet ever”. (Direct messages not included in Topsy or other data.)

It has been widely noted that this extent of indexed data offers a more practically useful and more comprehensive reach than Twitter itself—and any other reseller—offers. Until last week, Topsy’s reach was to 2010, the middle of the brief period once covered by Google’s real-time search. That Google feature offered some historical research capability beyond the week or so . . . [more]

Apple revealed its latest iphone yesterday. Or to be more precise, two new iphones – the 5C and the 5S.

The 5C is similar to the current 5, and will be cheaper to buy than the 5S (hence some references to the iPhone Cheap – although cheap is a relative term). The iPhone 5S is the latest and greatest. It is the first phone with a 64 bit processor, has a much better camera (Apple has suggested it is as good as a DSLR), and a capacitive fingerprint sensor to authenticate the owner.

So it is the latest and . . . [more]

The Seventeenth Annual Canadian Information Technology Law Association (“IT.CAN”) Conference will be held in Toronto, October 24-25, 2013. The full conference brochure is available on the IT.CAN website, and registration is possible online in English and en français. The brochure contains details concerning CPD and CLE credits available.

As usual, the speakers’ list is a who’s-who of experts in IT law and includes a number of lawyers who write or have written for Slaw, namely: Daniel Logan, James Kosa, Andrew Terrett, Richard Austin, John Gregory, and David Canton.

If you have any questions about the program please contact Lisa . . . [more]

U.S. lawyer Stephanie Kimbro who writes about running virtual law practices shared an infographic she created last week with everyone — Technology in Legal Education (excerpt of the image below). It essentially shows why there is a need to teach law students and lawyers about technology, how the technology has been a “disruptive” force in the industry and its effect.

I especially like her outline of new roles people are playing in law firms today.

This is just an excerpt of her infographic. For the full graphic, visit her website Virtual Law Practice.

Hat tip ABA LTRC on Twitter. . . . [more]

Last week’s revelations that the NSA may be able to decrypt most of the traffic on the internet sent shockwaves through the global community. Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) encryption was thought to provide a secure and virtually impenetrable “tunnel” for sensitive internet traffic, such as credit card data or confidential client documents; the NSA, however, has reportedly circumvented the security of SSL connections through a combination of brute-strength computing power and a network of “back doors” inserted into the equipment and algorithms that provide SSL security.

These code-breaking capabilities have left many users of cloud-based services asking if traffic they . . . [more]

The most recent issue of the Weekly Checklist of Canadian Government Publications refers to a number of publications from the Canadian Judicial Council relating to court management and the management of case information.

They include papers on systems to manage digital court documents, the determination of costs in civil litigation involving digital information and e-discovery, as well as a comparative analysis of court administrative systems in Australia, Canada, England and Wales, New Zealand, Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland and Scotland:

• Court Information Management: “Traditionally, courts have relied on the availability of filed documents – both paper based or