I’m delighted to be hosting the next edition of Blawg Review (#207) on Monday, April 13 at Law21. For those not familiar, Blawg Review is a weekly collection of the best of the legal blogosphere, assembled each week by a different law blogger. This post is to invite all Slaw readers to nominate great posts made during this week (April 6-12) for consideration for Blawg Review #207. Not all entries will make the final cut — there’s a tremendous amount of content submitted for these things, and I’m actually hoping that my version will be a little briefer than . . . [more]

As of this morning all European internet service providers must store details of user e-mails and net phone calls for at least a year. This is due to Directive 2006/24/EC of 15 March 2006 on the retention of data generated or processed in connection with the provision of publicly available electronic communications services or of public communications networks. It applies to traffic and location data on both legal entities and natural persons and to the related data necessary to identify the subscriber or registered user. It doesn’t cover the content of electronic communications, including information consulted using an electronic . . . [more]

Hat tip to Dario Bonacina at the New Blog Times for a report on Vic Gundotra’s remarks at the Web 2.0 expo on Google’s migration to voice activated searches, which would be a killer app for mobile phones.

According to a report on CNET: Mobile is central to Google’s work. The company already offers a search application for the iPhone and some other models that lets people issue queries by speaking rather than just typing. The accuracy of the speech recognition has improved 15 percent in the last quarter, Gundotra said, and usage of the service is growing fast. . . . [more]

A number of our Slaw bloggers were down at the ABA Techshow this past week, including a few of us captured on video by the newly launched LexConference website. For those that missed the event, I’m embedding the videos for Dominic Jaar, David Bilinsky and myself.

ABA TECHSHOW 2009 Interviews: Dominic Jaar, Legal Counsel at Ledjit Consulting from LexConference on Vimeo.

ABA TECHSHOW 2009 Interviews: David J. Bilinsky of Thoughtful Legal Management from LexConference on Vimeo.

ABA TECHSHOW 2009 Interviews: Steve Matthews of Stem Legal from LexConference on Vimeo.

You can see all of the videos . . . [more]

Apparently fed up with judges who sit on decisions for ever and ever, the government in Guyana is bringing in legislation, the Judicial Decisions Bill, that will place a 120 day absolute limit on how long after the conclusion of a civil trial a judge may take to release the decision. The statute requires a judge to give a decision as expeditiously as possible after the end of a trial, and persistent failure to abide by the ultimate limit may result in the judge’s removal from office.

Are there any such legislative requirements in Canada? I couldn’t find any with . . . [more]

A number of great things are emerging from “library land” following last week’s Computers in Libraries conference in D.C.. As a pre-conference event to the upcoming Canadian Library Association conference in Montreal May 29-June 1, 2009, the CLA Emerging Technologies Interest Group has organized some workshop sessions with prominent emerging technologies librarian Jessamyn West for the morning of Friday, May 29th. In the afternoon they will be holding a “Library Camp” of unconference sessions. This will be a fantastic opportunity to bring some of our brightest minds together to nudge Canadian libraries into the future. Cost is $100 . . . [more]

I hope that where you are is not as grey, cold and wet as Toronto is this morning. Not an inspiring way to start a new week. But this post on the Darien Statements on Libraries and Librarians (from blyberg.net) is enough to compensate for the lack of spring on this April morning. . . . [more]

Last week Canada was all about new funding for VCs; but this week in the U.S. saw Essex Woodland Health Ventures close a new(-ish) $900 million bio fund , and even Google will apparently put some of its new $100 million venture fund into bio investments.

This week also saw one of my personal annual Canadian highlights: the 2009 Gairdner Award winners were announced. Here’s one area where we don’t need to trumpet anything to be world-class. 73 Gairdner winners in the last 50 years have also become Nobel laureates. Keep an eye out for the 50th . . . [more]

If you haven’t seen and heard Kutiman’s efforts, be prepared to be blown away.

Ophir Kutiel, his real name, is a 27-year-old Israeli musician who spent something like a month straight in his room/studio scanning YouTube for music videos that would lend themselves to being mixed together, layered, looped and generally mashed into a coherent, attractive — no, better: really good — piece of music. In that time he married many bits into seven songs, all of which you can hear (and see) at Thru-You.com.

For me, there’s a sense of joy here that is completely infectious. All seven . . . [more]

CBC News this morning, “Canadian Private Member’s Bill Targets Cyberbullying,” tells us this:

A Vancouver MP wants to amend the Criminal Code to target children and teenagers who use mobile phones and the internet to bully others. Currently, the code makes harassment, libel and spreading false messages criminal offences.

Do we need a law on harassment by electronic media, to go along with the general Criminal Code prohibition [s. 264]?

Do we need all our laws amended to say “by electronic means”? or a general statute that says “whatever the law prohibits, that prohibition applies as . . . [more]

Lawyers often need to know what people are saying. This became apparent to me today when gathering material for sentencing submissions and I was asked to gather material on the scope of publication of the offence.

I looked at the usual suspects:

• Canadian Newsstand – a ProQuest database available to me through my public library
• Infomart
• Google (web and blog search)
• Facebook groups
• Twitter

During my peek I found a couple of text articles on radio station websites. I know that Slaw readers will share my Ah Ha moment.

The web is filled with different types of media, including streaming . . . [more]

As reported in the Globe and Mail, among other media outlets, the Canadian Judicial Council has recommended to the Minister of Justice that Justice Paul Cosgrove be removed from office. Pursuant to s.99 (1) of the Constitution Act, 1867:

…the Judges of the Superior Courts shall hold office during good behaviour, but shall be removable by the Governor General on Address of the Senate and House of Commons.

The Judicial Council’s full report is available in PDF and there is a summary on the Council’s website.

The Council acts under the authority of the Judges Act R.S., 1985, . . . [more]