KM Space, the excellent BLOG of Doug Cornelius, has a post today on the Microsoft purchase of a 1.6% interest in Facebook.

It’s easy to stop at the fact that this purchase values Facebook at $15 billion. Discussions with colleagues have yet to reveal the importance of Facebook in the business world (admittedly, I also thought that the internet would never last.) On what basis did Microsoft come to the conclusion that this investment makes sense?

Doug’s post suggests that an enterprise version of Facebook, delivered on the SharePoint platform, may be the goal. While SharePoint doesn’t have the name . . . [more]

The ICT Regulatory Decisions Clearinghouse (ICTDec) is an online resource that provides a one-stop access point to decisions originating from ICT [information and communication technology] decision making bodies such as telecommunications regulators, industry ombudsmen and specialized dispute resolution tribunals. Currently, ICTDec provides unified and simplified access to thousands of decisions available on the Web, as well as to selected decisions unavailable online.

…thanks to the World Bank and LexUM working together. . . . [more]

Some of us might find this handy:

The Canadian federal government just launched a website with information on unhealthy and unsafe food and child products. I haven’t used it yet, but the Globe and Mail says we can search for information by keyword, date, or product or company name. We can also browse product recalls going back 10 years. . . . [more]

I’m blogging from the LexUM conference Conférence Internet pour le droit / Law Via the Internet Conference, live. At the moment, Justice Bastarache is telling us that the Supreme Court of Canada is planning to make factums available online next year, at least in some measure. He is explaining all of the issues that the Court is currently considering, as it struggles to develop a workable policy concerning the electronic publication of these documents. The Court has not yet decided whether and how to “clean” the files of sensitive business or personal information; they are still consulting, but a . . . [more]

[Bill SB 362] would prohibit a person from requiring, coercing, or compelling any other individual to undergo the subcutaneous implanting of an identification device, as defined.

California Senate Bill 362, made law October 12, 2007

I had no idea that anyone was considering the insertion of chips into employees, but I find I’m not surprised by the revelation. Apparently, a Cincinnati video surveillance company, Citywatcher.com (seemingly no longer online), required that employees be so branded.

[via Deeth Williams Wall E-Tips] . . . [more]

The Winnipeg Free Press is reporting that Manitoba’s chief provincial court judge wants to allow live broadcasts of court decisions.

In an article entitled Live broadcasts urged for courtroom decisions, the daily writes that Ray Wyant, a former journalist and the current chief provincial court judge “is planning on meeting with every provincial court judge in the near future to discuss his proposal further and will likely table a policy that will give each judge the discretion to allow audio and possibly videotaping of court cases”.

Wyant originally wanted to start allowing live coverage next week of his sentencing . . . [more]

According to the Times Online, the United Kingdom’s new Supreme Court will allow cameras to broadcast hearings. The new high court is set to open in 2009. It is being created under the Constitutional Reform Act 2005.

“The move could see some of Britain’s most high-profile appeals being shown on television. Such appeals have included the legality of detaining terror suspects without trial, whether the deaths of six Iraqis at the hands of British soldiers was covered by the Human Rights Act, and the extradition of General Pinochet”.

“But Mr Straw [Justice Secterary Jack Straw] has indicated to

Following my jubilant post on Thanksgiving about all major English Canadian legal publishers now having new title RSS feeds, in her recent post Why Can’t We Be More Like Canada? UK librarian lo-fi librarian bemoaned that UK publishers are behind and have not equally taken up the call.

In response, legal publishing consultant Nick Holmes has now put together his own sample RSS feeds for Sweet & Maxwell and Jordans in an effort to urge the publishers on. He discussed the effort on his blog Binary Law in the blog post Feeding the five thousand (2) . lo-fi seems pleased . . . [more]

If IMAP’s your thing, you might be interested to know that Gmail is in the process of making it available to all who have a Gmail account. Check yours to see if the prezzie has already arrived.

If you’re not clear what IMAP is all about, pop over to the IMAP Connection for a lesson, or get the full 9 yards from Wikipedia. . . . [more]

The James Lewtas Lecture will be delivered today by David Vaver, a former colleague of mine and now Professor of Intellectual Property & IT Law, University of Oxford on the topic “Chocolate, Copyright, Confusion: Intellectual Property and the Supreme Court of Canada”

You can watch David live at 1pm EST — the link will be present on Osgoode’s home page. Or you can catch the archive, the link to which will be available in due course on Osgoode’s Conferences and Seminars page.

David Vaver is an excellent speaker — clear, insightful and witty — and I’d heartily recommend . . . [more]

I earlier commented on the blog called Precedent-The New Rules of Law and Style, as did Jordan Furlong, here.

Well, that site has now been revamped as part of the launch of a new magazine under the same name published by Law and Style Media Inc. and edited by Melissa Kluger (she was key in getting Ultra Vires, the U of Toronto law student law school paper off the ground).

I unfortunately missed the magazine launch last night since I was not feeling well. I suspect, however, the magazine will do well since it fills a gap by . . . [more]

In plenty of time for the holiday gift season, Wired Magazine has released Wired Test in PDF, free to download. There you’ll find the results of tests on an advertised “300+ New Products,” gadgets all. The fun of cruising atop our society’s excess aside, this issue of Wired has some real value, given that firms must evaluate and buy a wide range of tools, that, seen from the outside might be labelled gadgets. So you or your firm may well want to know which is the best Camcorder or DSLR camera, the best laptop or smart phone. And, yes, there . . . [more]