Earlier today I followed from afar the US Library of Congress launch of the new Congress.gov, which is still in beta. As we watch the new site develop, we can also begin our good-byes to THOMAS, which, it was confirmed today, will be replaced. Andrew Weber of the Law Library of Congress posted the news – about the new Congress.gov and the eventual demise of THOMAS – at that institution’s blog, In Custodia Legis:

Today also marks the first public announcement of the eventual end of THOMAS. It isn’t going away today or tomorrow, but sometime in the

♫ Wake me up before you go-go
‘Cause I’m not plannin’ on going solo…♫

Lyrics and Music by George Michael, recorded by Wham!

There is much talk about the cloud these days and the innovation that it offers to lawyers and law firms. Well ioSafe, the manufacturer of secure, hardened hard drives (that are used in law offices and elsewhere) have announced an innovative way to bring their latest product to market.

First this new product: It is “A fireproof waterproof NAS/RAID – like an aircraft black box for data on your network – protect pictures, videos and . . . [more]

Slawers, take note! The Canadian Forum on Court Technology, a two-day conference held every second year in Canada, is coming to Montreal at the Hyatt Regency on October 24th and 25th with an excellent program, great speakers and a variety of court technology stakeholders in attendance.

If you haven’t done so yet, please mark your calendars; you can also register online! I look forward to meeting you there in person,

Patrick Cormier
CEO CCCT-CCTJ . . . [more]

Netflix Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos slammed Canada’s Internet Service Providers (ISPs) last week, calling the rates we’re charged “almost a human rights violation.”

Sarandos is referring to the high prices and low bandwidth caps imposed by Canada’s “big four” ISPs: Bell, Shaw, Telus and Rogers. If consumers exceed these bandwidth caps imposed by these ISPs, they are forced to pay an overage amount of several dollars per gigabyte.

The poor state of broadband internet has already prompted Netflix to lower the quality of streaming in Canada.

“The problem is [Canada has] almost Third World access to the Internet”

The dawn of the 21st century has been called the decade of the drone. Unmanned aerial vehicles, remotely operated by pilots in the United States, rain Hellfire missiles on suspected insurgents in South Asia and the Middle East.

Now a small group of scholars is grappling with what some believe could be the next generation of weaponry: lethal autonomous robots. …

From the website of the Chronicle of Higher Education . . . [more]

According to lawsof.com,

On Thursday last week, eight judges in South Korea’s Constitutional Court unanimously struck down a law requiring the use of real names online on the grounds that it violated the constitutional right to free speech.

Would the Canadian Charter or other law produce the same effect if Parliament passed a similar statute?

Is there any remedy against a private service provider sought to enforce such a policy? I know that Facebook states that users must use their real names, bit I also know that that rule is not universally applied. (It is a bit hard to . . . [more]

Apple just announced the new iPhone 5. Some of the features Apple is touting:

Thinner and lighter – apparently the world’s thinnest smartphone. A bit taller than before, which give a bigger screen (close to 16:9)and better colour. Apps designed for the current screen size will be letterboxed like a TV.

It includes LTE for most major US and Canadian telcos. (Apparently no NFC, though.)

It has a new, faster, more energy efficient CPU (the A6), and longer battery life.

Of course an improved camera.

Enhanced audio.

A new, smaller “Lightning” connecter replaces the current Apple connector. (It’s about time. . . . [more]

Gartner’s 2012 Hype cycle was revealed last month. It is interesting to watch the trends as technologies emerge and are discussed and adopted. As you might expect, “big data” is climbing the peak of inflated expectations.

Check out the graph:

Read the Gartner news release. . . . [more]

Dropbox has had more than its fair share of security issues over the last year, prompting many lawyers and technologists to advise against using the service, to employ additional layers of security, or to suggest alternative services such as Box. Despite all headwinds, Dropbox continues to be a widely-used service among lawyers, and is one of the fastest-growing cloud-based services anywhere.

To help address its perceived (and real) security issues, Dropbox has introduced two-factor authentication, a security update that it describes as “optional but highly recommended.”

I recently wrote about the benefits of two-factor authentication, and, . . . [more]

Apple fans will already know that Apple has scheduled an event for next Wednesday. While Apple did not specifically mention the iPhone 5, it is rather obvious from the invitation.

Rumour has it that the iPhone 5 will be available September 21.

This comes on the heels of the jury decision in the US that awarded Apple a billion (yes, that’s a “b”) dollars in damages against Samsung for violating Apple patents. No word yet on whether it will be appealed, but given the amount of the damage award, and what the decision could mean for the future of Android . . . [more]

In today’s Huffington Post Canada, Mitch Joel poses the question “Is Podcasting Poised for a Comeback?”

Podcasts, you may or may not know, are like internet-based audio or video shows, created in a series, syndicated via the internet often through iTunes, and portable i.e. viewable on computer or mobile devices such as iPods, tablets or smartphones.

Mitch points specifically to five podcasts that could help the medium make a resurgence:

• Foundation with Kevin Rose. 
• Here’s The Thing with Alec Baldwin. 
• Nerdist Podcast with Chris Hardwick.
• Pursuit of Spark with Julie Burstein.
• WTF with Marc

Here’s a fascinating description of the 50,000 foot view of “big data,” and its potentials. MIT professor Alex Pentland is one of the most prominent experts in the field, and in this interview he outlines what big data is: evidence of our behaviour (bank transactions and location logs), as opposed to records of our consciousness (as in facebook content). Deeply embedded in social realities and institutions, our behaviour reveals a lot about what works and what doesn’t.

Thus, big data invites, and even requires (by virtue of its granularity) new approaches to the construction, maintenance, and revision of markets, transportation, . . . [more]