A week full of money: the Ontario Budget was announced Thursday, and it contained about $700 million of spending on innovation, including $300 million for research infrastructure and $250 million for the previously-announced Emerging Technologies Fund. Reactions were pretty positive, but badly in need of a thesaurus. The proof of the pudding is in the allocation though — in terms of benefits for biotech — the first commitment from the $205 million Ontario Venture Capital Fund turns out to be to a new VC that is more interested in software than soft tissue.

Here’s $100 . . . [more]

George Galloway, the controversial British MP scheduled to speak in Canada this week, and parties supporting him, sought an injunction at the Federal Court today.

Although I don’t agree with everything Mr. Galloway says, his views as it relates to non-military solutions to problems largely grounded in social and economic conditions, are ones that in my opinion should be heard.

I attended the hearing at the Federal Court today, where a session was conducted via videoconference to Ottawa.

Barbara Jackman, counsel for the Applicant, noted that in her 30 years of immigration practice she had never seen a case . . . [more]

The news is full of the revelation from the universities of Toronto and Ottawa that a significant internet spy network has infiltrated more than 1,200 computers in over 100 countries, an operation seemingly run from China. (See the New York Times story and the BBC story.) The report, “Tracking GhostNet: Investigating a Cyber Espionage Network,” a product of cooperation between the SecDev Group at Ottawa and the Munk Centre for International Studies at Toronto, is available online via Scribd. . . . [more]

I’ll be at Computers in Libraries all next week, the premier technology conference for libraries. Since some libraries are pretty leading edge in using technology to reach their clients, and generally to support their missions, it may be interesting for Slawyers to have some updates, which I’ll try to supply.

This year Web 2.0 is still a pervasive topic, but since libraries have been using social software for a few years now, the content seems pretty down to earth. Presenters are looking at how to marry library strengths, such as in-depth personal reference interviews with mobile and other technologies that . . . [more]

… is practically a one-liner today. And a line (or two, or three…) that you yourself can draw, at that.

It goes by the inelegant name of BallDroppings. And it’s a game in which you draw lines in order to catch and deflect the balls that, well, drop from the sky. These make “pings” and “pongs” as they carom to your bidding, just the sort of tiny universe one wants on a Friday afternoon, one that is wholly within one’s control. Even “gravity” is subject to your whim. So satisfying. . . . [more]

I posted on SLAW over one year ago on the issue of Copies of cases for court – official print reporters versus online versions.

I continue to hear of a “preference” for copies of cases photocopied from print case law reporters, often in terms of “the judge prefers print copies.”

Although Simon Fodden correctly pointed out in a comment to that post that the Ontario Court of Appeal formally allows electronic versions of cases, as per s. 10.5 of their Practice Direction Concerning Civil Appeals in the Court of Appeal, is there a need for the Ontario legal . . . [more]

The Toronto Association of Law Libraries (TALL) held an event on Thursday evening at the University of Toronto Law School called Charting Our Course: The TALL Publishers’ Forum.

The publishers panel was comprised of representatives from CCH, Irwin Law, Canada Law Book, Carswell, LexisNexis and SOQUIJ. TALL had provided them a series of questions in advance and those questions were posited at the session, covering such issues as open access, pricing, licensing, digital rights management, and customer support. To their credit, the publishers participated despite being potentially exposed to a crowd of law librarians who have been concerned over . . . [more]

In a slick marketing move (and I mean that in the best sense of ‘slick’) to demonstrate the raw computing power of its Web MD product, Sun Microsystems has moved the Internet Archive into one of its modular data centers – or as they aptly describe – the Internet in a box.

They’ve also produced an interactive tour of the product, complete with IA founder Brewster Kahle describing the bi-monthly copying of more than “three petabtyes of information”. The press release kindly explains those three petabytes as “roughly equivalent to about 150 times the information contained in the Library . . . [more]

I received an email a while ago informing me of the European Counsel Awards.

The International Law Office, with the support of the Association of Corporate Counsel Europe, has conducted in-depth analysis of in-house lawyers and legal departments worldwide for its second annual European Counsel Awards. Over 3,000 individual nominations from corporate counsel and law firm partners make the European Counsel Awards unique in clearly identifying those in-house counsel, both teams and individuals, who excel in their specific roles. Our primary aim is to recognize lawyers for demonstrable achievements across the full spectrum of in-house responsibility, not simply those who

Google Docs has just introduced a feature that lets you insert a drawing that you can create using their own in-browser tool. While this isn’t exactly momentous — especially for a profession where a thousand words are preferred to a picture — it can be a useful feature if you need to create a diagram on the fly, for instance.

The actual program works really well, having all the expected features such as grouping and rotating and colour fill, with a roster of ready-made shapes to suit most purposes.

Doodle on. . . . [more]

The Ontario E-Discovery Implementation Committee (EIC) has just released eight model e-discovery precedents, as well as additional e-discovery best practices documents.

The EIC is a joint committee established by the Ontario Bar Association and The Advocates’ Society. It is composed of litigators from both the private and public sectors, and members of the judiciary in Ontario. The mandate of the EIC is to implement best practices with respect to electronic discovery within the Ontario court system and litigation bar. One of the keys tasks of the EIC is to inform and educate lawyers and the judiciary regarding the “how” . . . [more]

From Eagan today, an announcement of a free podcast featuring Justice Scalia and Bryanb Garner who wrote the excellent Making Your Case: The Art of Persuading Judges.

Justice Scalia and Garner, editor of Black’s Law Dictionary, led a CLE seminar at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. last July. All profits from the event were donated to Legal Aid. . . . [more]