The release of the iPhone 5 has seen hundreds of reviews flood the web. The consensus? The iPhone 5 is amazing. It is both thinner and lighter than the iPhone 4S, all while delivering a larger, more vivid screen coupled with an even better 8MP camera. The bad? Apple Maps is the most half-baked piece of software Apple has released since MobileMe.

For lawyers on the go, the iPhone 5 offers a compelling new feature that most reviews mention only in passing: LTE support. LTE (Long Term Evolution) is a new wireless data standard, and offers speeds in excess . . . [more]

This is a post in a series appearing each Friday, setting out some articles, videos, podcasts and the like that contributors at Slaw are enjoying and that you might find interesting. The articles tend to be longer than blog posts and shorter than books, just right for that stolen half hour on the weekend. It’s also likely that most of them won’t be about law — just right for etc.

Please let us have your recommendations for what we and our readers might like.

The worldwide patent litigation between Apple Corporation and Samsung Electronics is a perfect illustration of the “lose-lose” nature of high-stakes IP litigation.

While the headlines have focused on the $1 billion U.S. jury award Apple won at the end of August, in the long run Apple may turn out to have been a loser in this struggle as well.

Some brief history.

Apple and Samsung are long-time business partners. Samsung holds many patents on touch screen technology. It supplied screens for the iPod and iPhone. Samsung still makes the touch screen for Apple’s iPad tablet computers. It won the contract . . . [more]

This week Microsoft shipped the RTM (Release to Manufacturing) build of Windows 8, the next version of their flagship operating system. This is the build that Microsoft is sending off to have burned onto DVDs and installed into new computers. In about 60 days you’ll be able to walk into your favorite electronics store and buy a box with Windows 8 in it.

Like a good technologist I promptly got my copy from MSDN (the Microsoft Developers Network) and set about installing it on my desktop to give it a good workout. In the interests of full disclosure I should . . . [more]

Back in July I promised to post about the results of my Summer Writing List project. I determined that there has long been a need, based on reference questions, for an annotation to the Alberta Insurance Act. Proving that all things happen when they are meant to, a recent major revamp of Part 5 of our act dealing with Insurance Contracts was finally proclaimed in force as of July 2, 2012. I say finally because these amendments were published as S.A. 2008, c.19. This post is the story of the process of creating an Annotated Alberta Insurance Act.

First, I . . . [more]

In today’s Huffington Post Canada, Mitch Joel poses the question “Is Podcasting Poised for a Comeback?”

Podcasts, you may or may not know, are like internet-based audio or video shows, created in a series, syndicated via the internet often through iTunes, and portable i.e. viewable on computer or mobile devices such as iPods, tablets or smartphones.

Mitch points specifically to five podcasts that could help the medium make a resurgence:

• Foundation with Kevin Rose. 
• Here’s The Thing with Alec Baldwin. 
• Nerdist Podcast with Chris Hardwick.
• Pursuit of Spark with Julie Burstein.
• WTF with Marc

The more I discuss change in the legal profession, the more the same question is asked of me: what will drive the change than many in the profession agree is long overdue. And when I say “many in the profession,” I mean young lawyers. The established, older set of partners in charge of many of this country’s firms have no reason to change what they are doing and are simply eyeing the finish line of their careers. Add to that, the fact that large established firms are weighed down with legacy IT systems, as well as an antiquated partnership and . . . [more]

You’re off for a week’s holiday to Halifax. You’re on a five-day business trip to Vancouver, L.A., and then Chicago. You’re headed to Rio on the spur of the moment and a last-minute cheapo ticket. And so you’ve got to pack some . . . stuff: clothes, shoes, reading matter, a discreet pharmacopeia, tablet computer with associated wires and adapters, and then that small collection of odd things such as your eye mask, your alarm clock, your hotel door stopper . . . . The mound grows. And the question presents itself: what do you pack it into?

Carry-on is . . . [more]

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, / Searches.
(With apologies to Omar Khayyám)

Google’s just made a new feature available for searching on mobile or tablet platforms. “Handwrite” allows you to write your search terms with your finger on any portion of the screen. You have to enable the function by going to “settings” at the bottom of your Google search page, where you’ll find the option. You can then turn it on or off from the basic search page, as you wish.

I’ve tried it on my iPhone and find that the writing recognition function is quite . . . [more]

July has brought some relief to my workload. A few major projects have moved to the done list and there are only 5 items on my July projects list. Connie’s Summer Reading List is a great idea, but I can’t copy it, so I have decided to create a Summer Writing List.

My writing list has been rattling the cage for some time now. It consists of material that is frequently requested by lawyers in my office and will be crafted for use by my law firm. Can you guess what it is?

A hint: there are not enough annotated . . . [more]

An almost overwhelming amount of information is generated and stored in disparate places in our digital world. Email, documents, tweets, posts, status updates, reports, and other data flow through our computers, tablets and smartphones. Cataloging and retrieving this information is a challenge. Fortunately there are a variety of tools that make simultaneously searching through these data mines a little easier.

At Your Command

Operating system search tools, including MS Window 7 and Apple’s OS X Lion Spotlight, allow users to search files and emails locally and on external drives. They both can also be extended to search Web sources, . . . [more]