The NYT has a provocative op-ed today on whether students are being so spoon fed by search engines that they lose their ability to research and think for themselves.

We have to warn articling students about the dangers of Googling, but after a while, they’re back on the engines.

Are we just too trusting about web-based research? . . . [more]

1. Honda (U.K.)
2. CAUT Bulletin: Canada to Investigate Use of Thumbprint for Law School Test.
3. Toronto Star: M. Geist: U.S. Patriot Act’s long reach
4. Wikipedia: cage match
5. Patriot Act
6. PIPEDA
7. Newsweek: S. Levy: (Some) Attention Must Be Paid!
8. Encyclopedia Brittanica: response to Nature
9. Nature: Brittanica and Wikipedia
10. TaxProf Blog: Supreme Court Releases Transcript of Oral Argument in Cuno
11. U. S. Supreme Court: oral arguments
12. Ordering SCC transcripts from Canadian Parliamentary Affairs Channel
13. New York Times: L. Greenhouse: Roberts Dissent Reveals Strain Beneath Court’s Placid Surface
14. New York Times: A. Cowan: Librarian Is Still John Doe, Despite Patriot Act Revision
15. chaos kitty’s

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As befits a Friday Fillip, this one has the merest connection to the law, let alone to legal research — though somewhat more to IT. The connection is the voice. Law is/was an oral discipline in part and this is all about the marvel of the human voice.

It’s a Honda ad, in which a choir impersonates a car, so to speak. No trivial “zoom-zoom” here. Here we have the full experience. You go to http://www.honda.co.uk The intro – Discover the New Honda – starts you off, but then you find yourself in a garage. When you get there, click . . . [more]

From the March issue of the CAUT Bulletin: Canada to Investigate Use of Thumbprint for Law School Test. And Michael Geist in a February article in the Toronto Star.

Personally, I think it is time for a cage match pitting the Patriot Act vs. PIPEDA. And because I’m in a ranting mood, why don’t we start giving our acts catchy stage names? Think of the possibilities, PIPEDA could be the Beaver Libertarian Act. The Criminal Code could be the Evildoers Disincentive Act, you get the idea. I’m sure we can come up with lots of catchy names that will get . . . [more]

One of my IT colleagues, who freely admits that he does not carry a Blackberry because of its addictive nature — even in the evenings when with family, brought to my attention a Newsweek article that recaps a presentation by Linda Stone, a former Apple and Microsoft executive, on the social implications of a syndrome she calls continuous partial attention. At a technology conference who’s theme was The Attention Economy, where speakers were reportedly competing with laptops and Blackberries for their audience’s attention, this speaker apparently struck a nerve.

The article says:

Stone first noticed the syndrome a decade

. . . [more]

As a footnote to the earlier posting on Wikipedia and Ted’s follow-up, Encyclopedia Brittanica shot back today with a comprehensive rebuttal to the earlier Nature article. . . . [more]

Mr. Enrich: In a footnote in Flast [v. Cohen], the Court specifically says, “Having now decided that there's Establishment Clause standing, we can also reach the free-exercise question without discussing whether there would be independent standing.”Justice Scalia: I had not recollected that footnote. I will -- I will find it.

Revisions to the U.S. Patriot Act still don’t adequately protect the rights of American librarians and readers of library materials. As set out in the New York Times story today, under the original version of the legislation:

[a] Connecticut librarian …was visited by the Federal Bureau of Investigation last year and presented with what is known as a national security letter demanding patron records.

The subpoena, issued as part of a counterterrorism investigation, not only barred him from disclosing the target of the inquiry, but also forbade him and others at his place of work to ever discuss the letter

. . . [more]

Courtesy of chaos kitty’s WebZen site, have a gander at the Google Image Quiz, which will doubtless amuse many Slaw readers.

. . . [more]

Please welcome Martha Foote to Slaw as an occasional contributor. Martha, a law and business librarian, is, as many of you will know, currently president of the Toronto chapter of the Special Libraries Association.

I look forward to Martha’s special contributions. . . . [more]

For those of you auditioning for reality shows, the prepixilated t-shirt may give you the edge you need (linked through Sivacracy). One comment points out that pixilated logos on TV are about “not wanting to give free advertising, and wanting to perpetuate this rights clearance culture”, not about IP law. Supporting this opinion is a guide to best practices for documentary film makers produced with counsel, which states that (in the US),

…the most common situations where producers have fair-use rights:
“[…]”Capturing copyrighted media content in the process of filming something else.” The producer unintentionally catches incidental sounds or

. . . [more]

As reported today, Microsoft is delaying the launch of their new OS Vista until January 2007: story.

Does this mean anything for the widely held belief that Google is trying to replace the notion of an OS? . . . [more]