Hot off the presses from Rich McCue, sysadmin at UVic Law: UVic Law Student Technology Survey 2010. There were new questions on this year’s survey concerning the mobile technology that UVic students arrive at law school with. Here’s the executive summary:

• 30% of students own “Smart Phones” that can browse the internet.
• 97% of students own laptops, and over 60% own both a laptop and a desktop computer.
• 39% of student laptops are Macs.
• The average laptop price dropped to $1,200 from $1400 in 2007, and from $2,100 in 2004.
• 82% of students bring their laptops to

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When a legally facilitated monopoly over the distribution of a certain economic good is judged to be operating against the interests of one substantial segment of the party on whose behalf that monopoly is granted, what recourse is there? In the case of deferential Canada, that recourse would take the form of an imaginative, slightly unrealistic, proposal for a cooperative work-around. And in this particular case, it would work like this, at least on a back-of-the-envelope or blog scale.

The segment of the party on whose behalf this monopoly has been granted is the Canadian academic community, and the monopoly . . . [more]

Some substantive law on issues involving criminal law and web access using the current means of access: a computer. 

R. v. Morelli, 2010 SCC 8

Fish J ( McLachlin C.J. and Binnie, Abella JJ concurring) 

[1] This case concerns the right of everyone in Canada, including the appellant, to be secure against unreasonable search and seizure. And it relates, more particularly, to the search and seizure of personal computers.

[2] It is difficult to imagine a search more intrusive, extensive, or invasive of one’s privacy than the search and seizure of a personal computer. 

[3] First, police officers enter

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The New York Times is the source of a great many wonderful things — as befits a newspaper that has been the doyenne of the American print press for generations. And, thankfully, not all of these wonderful things are serious or even news-related. As a signal example of this, I present Abstract City, a blog of illustrations by Christoph Niemann. Here, of course, words fail, but copyright reigns; in such a circumstance, perhaps, Wittgenstein would advise: “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.” But what did he know?

Having already pointed you in the right direction, I . . . [more]

Unroll the scroll, as the NLM says:

It’s a novel twist on NLM’s popular online system, Turning The Pages, which allows you to turn the pages of a rare book on your computer screen. Now, users can journey back to pre-book times and “unroll the scroll” or, more specifically, the Edwin Smith Papyrus, the world’s oldest known surgical document. The new offering is at http://archive.nlm.nih.gov/proj/ttp/flash/smith/smith.html.

Try it – it is very interesting, and make sure to read the translation and the comments. Also zoom in…

via Resource Shelf . . . [more]

You may have noticed a story in your favoured news source back in February about the Canadian Competition Bureau filing a motion to take the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) to the Canadian Competition Tribunal. In short, the Competition Bureau has targeted CREA for the practice of not allowing prospective sellers to list their home on the MLS system unless the seller signs on for the full real estate agent service, including commission, which the Competition Bureau labels an “anti-competitive practice”. To which the CREA has responded.

If you have bought or sold a home in the . . . [more]

This morning’s Globe and Mail contains a story about the application of the Toronto-Dominion Bank to obtain approval of the trademark WOW. Apparently, TD (having bought the New Jersey bank Commerce Bancorp) already has the trademark to WOW and WOW! in the United States.

A search of the Canadian Intellectual Property Office Trade-Mark database reveals that WOW, alone and in phrases, shows up in 180 applications, variously approved, expunged, abandoned etc. WOW, all by itself, has been approved as a trade-mark of, among others, Novartis AG veterinary preparations, Playtex in connection with “ladies’ underwear and foundation garments”, and for . . . [more]

This is very cool and very scary! A professor at the University of Tokyo, Masatoshi Ishikawa, is developing a rapid book scanner that will scan a 200 page book in about one minute.

Using a “Super Vision Chip” that will scan the flipping pages faster than the human eye can process, its camera operates at 500 frames per second. Check out the embedded video below:

While it’s unclear exactly how the technology will account for skipped pages, or if it would destroy archival quality materials, this is indeed the future of book digitization – and all the positives . . . [more]

The Infographic of the Day site has a fantastic item with some amazing graphics comparing the 100 Largest Sites on the Internet.

The BBC charted the top 100 sites by unique users in January 2010, encompassing the U.K., France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, Brazil, U.S., and Australia. Oops – Canada didn’t make it, but suspect we are not that different.

If you think Google and social networking own the Internet – think again – and it isn’t shopping either. Yes these three types of sites are among the more widely visited – but all together they only account for . . . [more]

My family is building a house, again. A dislike of reality TV has the effect that the P. and S. Mireau family builds things. One of the features of our new building will be a 38 foot long, full wall height library area extending down a wide hall from the door into the garage past bedrooms and bathrooms and taking up one wall of the living room. It will be lovely, clear fir shelves filled with our large collection of reading material. And I do mean filled. We last packed and moved in September 2008 and 39 boxes of books . . . [more]

Statistics Canada released today a report on “Legal Aid in Canada: Resource and Caseload Statistics.” [HTML, PDF] The report consists, essentially, of some 30 tables of data; however, there is a helpful page of “highlights” that verbalizes some of this information. Thus, for example, we learn that:

In 2008/2009, legal aid plans spent approximately $730 million on providing legal aid services in 11 provinces and territories [excluding NL & PEI], which amounts to approximately $22 for every Canadian. After adjusting for inflation, legal aid spending was up about 6% from the previous year

The federal

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Bill 37, the Child Pornography Reporting Act will amend the Child and Family Services Act to require Ontario organizations who find child pornography on their computer systems to report it to the authorities, or face serious penalties. The bill received Royal Assent on December 10, 2008, but has not received proclamation to come into force. However, this may change in the near future.