Here are excerpts from the most recent tips on SlawTips, the site that each week offers up useful advice, short and to the point, on technology, research and practice.

Technology

Go for a Fresh Start With a Device Reboot
Dan Pinnington

Smartphones, tablets, laptops and computers are more reliable and stable than ever before. Most of us take this for granted and we leave our devices turned on 24/7. However, that . . .

Research

New Articling Students – Legal Reseach Methods Cafe
Shaunna Mireau

Most law firms have an orientation program for articling students. I am certain that . . . [more]

The results of the 2013 In-House Counsel New Media Engagement Survey conducted by Greentarget, InsideCounsel and Zeughauser Group in February 2013 reveal that among the 379 in-house counsel who responded, social media use and consumption of information on mobile devices are on the rise.

Here’s a breakdown of some of the results and what lawyers can do to get the attention of in-house counsel online.

Most Popular Media for In-House Counsel

LinkedIn, the “professional network,” is the one in-house counsel turns to most to obtain information and to expand their professional contacts. Two thirds of all respondents . . . [more]

At the “Smartphones and Tablets: What’s Right For You” session at the Law Society of Upper Canada’s Solo and Small Firm Conference last week (archived webcast is available for purchase), there were a number of questions on syncing Android devices with MS Exchange/Outlook. In response my co-speaker Mike Seto prepared the following. As these questions appear quite common, I thought it would be helpful to share Mike’s answer with a wider audience.

If your calendar/email/contacts are on a Microsoft Exchange server, you can set up current Android phones to sync over the air without further software.

1. Add your exchange . . . [more]

Touchscreens have made a difference. Until fairly recently, the assumption could normally be made that people would provide input to their machines using a keyboard or a mouse. But not now.

The people have spoken: we want touchscreens. Touchscreens more than justify the disruption they have caused. We need calm too, though, and that’s still a work in progress. This posting reviews some recent developments on the software standardization front concerning “pointer events” and “touch events”.

Background

Touchscreen technology has actually been around since the 1960s. A great review of the history is available in Bill Buxton, “Multi-Touch Systems that . . . [more]

I just heard Duncan Stewart speak about the Deloitte 2013 TMT predictions at an event held by the London Economic Development Corporation. A couple of things have been mentioned on Slaw before. Here are some more things to ponder.

As we start to rely on more data in the cloud, carrier promises for uptime guarantees will be as important as the volume of data on our plans.

The hype over voice and gesture control for PCs and TVs is overblown. A remote control has an error rate of about 2 per 10,000 uses. Voice and gesture error rates . . . [more]

There’s an unmistakable trend in software and it’s going to change how firms and users handle technology in the future. The trend is for far more frequent upgrades – often as part of a Cloud or subscription package — and the result is going to be a higher tempo of IT testing and user training.

Numbered are the days when you’ll sit comfortably on 8 year old software doing what you’ve always done. Coming are the days when your computer acts more like your mobile phone or tablet – with new software updates (including feature changes and additions) coming on . . . [more]

The wireless industry has a trade show this time each year in Barcelona. Cellphone manufacturers announce their newest tech at the show. 

Phablets are a big trend. Several are included in this CNET slideshow of phones that were introduced. Phablets are smartphones with screens between 5 and 7 inches that are half way between a phone and tablet. So think of them as either smartphones with huge screens – or small tablets that can make phone calls.

Many people ridicule phablets by saying that you would look stupid holding it up to your ear to make a phone call. But . . . [more]

On February 7, 2013, LegalForce opened up a three-level retail store called BookFlip, in Palo Alto, California, that sells books, holds classes and connects customers with attorneys for legal advice.

We always assume that the digital transformation will be lead by the youth. Or at least Mitch does.

Kevin O’Keefe came across a recent study which indicates that older readers needed less brain activity when reading on a tablet than on paper or e-Readers. The authors used EEG devices to monitor (theta band) brain activity and tracked eye movement. In fact, the older readers, aged 66-77 years, were actually able to use the tablets better than younger participants.

The point here is that the readers’ subjective preference of print over tablet was irrelevant, for all age groups. Most of the . . . [more]

Here’s a question raised on a US legal technology list that seems relevant to Canadian law too.

What’s the duty of care of mobile devices as pertains to patches/updates provided by the vendor and/or provider?

Example:

I bought an Android phone in June 2012, which received an over-the-air OS upgrade in late July to Android 4.0.4. This release was provided to me well after the version was released to the public. Also, since that time, 2 other versions of Android (4.1 and 4.2) have been made available. There are known security vulnerabilities in the 4.0.4 release.

Yet I’ve certainly not

. . . [more]

This article talks about things in the Anti-Spam Act that are not directly related to spam.

This is the third of a series of 5 articles that will introduce the Act, describe what spam is and is not, talk about collateral provisions, what we can do now, and some of the challenges going forward.

Spyware

The Act contains anti-spyware provisions – the goal being to eliminate spyware, malware, and other malicious software.

You may recall the Sony copy protection rootkit scandal from 2005 where Sony music CD’s automatically installed digital rights management software on users’ computers without their knowledge or . . . [more]

At New York Legal Tech this week, Thomson Reuters will unveil an interesting basket of software products for the legal market. While a lot of hard innovative work has gone into the products to be released at the start of February, the most notable feature is the elements that they share in common.

The most significant development was not the suite of products that were unveiled but the change in strategic direction that they embody. I’ve commented before on how Thomson Reuters acquisitions appear somewhat disjointed. But this was evidence that the central vision of products like Serengeti has . . . [more]