Web 3.0 explained

If you're just getting comfortable with the concept of Web 2.0, hold onto your hats because Web 3.0 is here.  But not to worry, Amit Agarwal explains the differences between Web 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0 in plain english on his Digital Information blog. He says: "Web 1.0 - That Geocities & Hotmail era was all about read-only content and static HTML websites. People preferred navigating the web through link directories of Yahoo! and dmoz.

Web 2.0 - This is about user-generated content and the read-write web. People are consuming as well as contributing information through blogs or sites like Flickr, YouTube, Digg, etc. The line dividing a consumer and content publisher is increasingly getting blurred in the Web 2.0 era.

Web 3.0 - This will be about semantic web (or the meaning of data), personalization (e.g. iGoogle), intelligent search and behavioral advertising among other things."

Digital Rights Management empirical study

Ars Technica reports on a study (208 page pdf) by Cambridge law professor Patricia Akester entitled "Technological accommodation of conflicts between freedom of expression and DRM: the first empirical assessment." Prof. Akester was awarded a Leverhulme Early Career Research Fellowship to undertake a project looking at the impact of technological measures on the ability of users to take advantage of the statutory exceptions to copyright. She spent several years interviewing dozens of lecturers, end users, government officials, rightsholders, and DRM developers to find how DRM and anticircumvention laws affected actual use. She found that DRM actually persuades citizens to infringe copyright and circumvent authors' protections. Prof. Akester published a summary of her findings on Intellectual Property Watch. Ars Technica describes her findings as "DRM is so rage-inducing, even to ordinary, legal users of content, that it can even drive the blind to download illegal electronic Bibles."

Consumer's Guide to Intelligence

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence has just posted its latest update to the Consumer's Guide to Intelligence. According to the introduction, " In order to enhance our relationships, it is important for consumers to understand the mission, background, opportunities, and challenges facing the Intelligence Community (IC). We have published this handbook with this very thought in mind—to broaden your understanding of our work and to help us become stronger partners in protecting our Nation. The "National Intelligence: A Consumer's Guide" (114 page pdf) gives a thorough overview of the Intelligence Community and intelligence process and has lots of information about all the federal organizations, agencies and departments involved in gathering intelligence, from the National Clandestine Service (NCS) to the Weapons of Mass Destruction Directorate (WMDD). It includes a glossary of intelligence terms and long list of acronyms and abbreviations.

Cyberspace policy review

The Obama Administration has released the results of its cyberspace policy review in a document entitled "Cyberspace Policy Review: Assuring a Trusted and Resilient Information and Communications Infrastructure" (76 page pdf). Additional items that may be of interest: A list of all the documents consulted during the policy review, a White House fact sheet on the policy review including a list of participants at the White House briefing, and "Securing Our Digital Future - Remarks" by Melissa Hathaway, Cybersecurity Chief at the National Security Council.

Bill tracking for states legislatures

The AALL Government Relations Committee has created a page on their website devoted to Bill Tracking in state legislatures. It has links to state sites where you can track bills for that state. It also includes information about the dates of state legislative sessions.

Friday fun: Electronic Frontier Foundation and fair use parody

Brad Templeton, chairman of the EFF, made his own parody using Downfall footage; he explains it on his blog.

G20 Summit to be held in Pittsburgh

The Associated Press reports that White House spokesman Robert Gibbs today announced that Pittsburgh will be hosting the G20 Summit on Sept. 24 & 25, 2009. The summit is a gathering of the leaders of the top economies of the world representing 85 percent of the world's production and 80 percent of the world's trade.
Why Pittsburgh? The Wall Street Journal economics blog explains that this is the approach often followed by the Group of Eight, the organization of big industrialized countries, whose summits have been used as an economic development tool and as a way to bring businesses to cities outside the host nation’s capital.

hat tip: Karen Shephard

3 new legal ejournals on SSRN

Three new legal subject matter ejournals have been added to SSRN:
1. Animal Law, sponsored by the Syracuse University College of Law, provides a forum for posting both completed works and works in progress on legal, policy, and jurisprudential issues relating to animals.It includes within its scope wildlife, domestic animals, and farm animals. Subject matter includes, but is not limited to, torts, tax, public heath, family law, commercial transactions, contracts, agricultural law, law and rhetoric, international business transactions and international trade, constitutional law, criminal law, property, insurance, estates and trusts, comparative law, foreign law, or other areas of the law, as they relate to animals. They welcome abstracts on practice, theory, and empirical research as related to the topic.
2. Energy Law & Policy, sponsored by the Institute for Energy and the Environment at the Vermont Law School, will publish abstracts, working and policy papers, forthcoming articles, and recently published articles dealing with the production, transmission, distribution, conservation, and use of energy, as well as the environmental and social implications of these issues, both in the U.S. and internationally. The journal will discuss questions related to electricity, heating and cooling in both residential and commercial settings, the transportation sector, and energy policy as it relates to industry and economic activity generally. Although the primary focus of the journal is law, materials will also be published that focus on economics, engineering, finance, and the social sciences when they affect the development of energy-related law and policy.
3. Natural Resources Law & Policy, sponsored by the Environmental Law Center at the Vermont Law School, will publish abstracts, working and policy papers, forthcoming articles, and recently published articles dealing with the regulation, management, and distribution of natural resources. The journal will discuss a diverse array of natural resource topics such as public and private land use, wildlife and biodiversity, forest protection, mineral rights, parks and wilderness, the public trust doctrine, water and wetlands, and tribal lands and resources.

Internet privacy webcast: Gmail users beware

Yesterday the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard had a very interesting lunchtime webcast with Christopher Soghoian on the topic Caught in the Cloud: Privacy, Encryption, and Government Back Doors in the Web 2.0 Era. Mr. Soghoian, a Berkman Center fellow, spoke for over an hour about internet privacy, especially the privacy of all sorts of personal information.  The vast majority of Internet users still transmit their own personal information over networks without any form of encryption and the rapid shift to cloud computing exposes end-users to an increased risk of privacy invasion and fraud by hackers. He argued that this increased risk is primarily a result of cost-motivated design decisions on the part of the cloud providers (he especially pointed the finger at Google), who have repeatedly opted to forgo strong security solutions already in widespread use by other Internet services. 

If you would like to see the webcast it is available as video and/or audio on the Berkman website. 

If you don't have the time or inclination to view the whole webcast, here's one important tip Mr. Soghoian gave to anyone who uses Google's gmail:  Go into your Gmail account. Click on "Settings".  Scroll down to the bottom of the page.  In the box that says "Browser connection" click "Always use https" ; https is a secure protocol that provides authenticated and encrypted communication.  

Mr. Soghoian argued that Google should automatically make all Gmail secure, but that they don't because it's expensive for them to do so. 

Technology news in the NY Times

The New York Times had a trifecta of interesting technology articles today: 

1. Texting May Be Taking a Toll is an article in the "Health" section that talks about health effects of the teen texting phenomenon ("American teenagers sent and received an average of 2,272 text messages per month in the 4th quarter of 2008").  Although "the rise in texting is too recent to have produced any conclusive data on health effects", the article discusses concerns about the psychological effects as well as the possible effects on, um, teens' thumbs. 

2. The Idea of the Day column today was titled The Case for Taxing E-Mail ; it points to  an article in the British magazine Prospect suggesting that taxing a few cents per email might cut down on the estimated 90% unwanted junk e-mail that we all receive (though one might point out that charging postage on snailmail hasn't stopped the original junk mail from arriving on our doorsteps).

3. Roger Cohen's Op-Ed column, Peaceful Evolution Angst, discusses the effects of social technology in repressive communist countries: "Technology has taken the “total” out of totalitarian. The Stalinist or Maoist dark night of the soul has been consigned to history by wired societies...communication and the online world serve as safety valves for one-party states ...Students don’t do sit-ins, they blog and use Twitter.”

hat tip: Tom Bruce

Westlaw program for deferred grads

Word is out that Westlaw has heard from many in the law school community about the Lexis ASPIRE program (blogged last week) and will be launching its own plan for those soon-to-be law school graduates impacted by start date deferrals and similar circumstances.  The program will be called YourLegalCareer dot com and the website will bring together a number of useful Westlaw resources including links to free CLE courses through WestLegalEd Center, a discount subscription to Attorney Jobs, and options to request a free password for pro bono or other work. It is expected to be up and running by the end of May, so stay tuned.

Slaw wins award

The Canadian blawg Slaw has won a well-deserved Lawford award for Excellence in Legal Publishing from the Canadian Association of Law Libraries.  Slaw has nothing whatsoever to do with cabbage or coleslaw; it's  a Canadian co-operative weblog about any and all things legal.  But you don't have to be Canadian to find Slaw useful - the excellent writing and reporting cover many topics of interest to practicing lawyers, legal librarians, legal academics and students, wherever they may be.  One of today's posts, for example, takes a close look at social networks' Terms of Service agreements (TOS) and discusses how TOS are impacting the very rights and freedoms we as individuals enjoy while interacting and communicating in the Internet environment.

Law schools: cheating 2.0

This week's National Law Journal (subscription required) has an article about cheating in law schools entitled "Cheating 2.0" ( Cheating 2.0 is also available on Westlaw, password required) .  The article reports on how technological developments have affected the way students cheat and also the way students view cheating.  It looks at both cheating on exams and plagiarism, and how various law schools are addressing challenges to academic integrity.  

The Virtual Chase

Attention TVC fans: The Virtual Chase is back in business! Ballard Spahr, which hosted TVC for creator Genie Tyburski, has annouced that that legal information publisher Justia has acquired The Virtual Chase and intends to continue its development. According to the announcement, they "look forward to working with (Justia) to make this transition as smooth as possible. Watch the site for upcoming details."
For the uninitiated, The Virtual Chase was founded in 1996 by law librarian Genie Tyburski as a website that offers articles, guides, teaching materials, an alert service and more on Internet legal research strategies and resources for legal professionals. Several months ago Genie announced that she was "closing" TVC because of the increasing demands on her time. Let's hope Justia can keep up the high standards that Genie always maintained.

Libraries and ebook readers

The LIS News blog recently posted an article about libraries and the Kindle and other ebook devices. According to the article, these devices are a failure: not because of the technology, which continues to improve, but because e-book reader companies do not consider libraries as a viable customer. Their terms of service severely restrict usage so that you cannot "lend" an ebook to anyone. The author suggests that the ebook industry needs to realize that they have to somehow address the needs of libraries. As he says, "(Libraries) are in the intellectual enhancement business, no matter the medium. Libraries are the allies of the e-book reader devices. Start treating us like it."

New search engine presents results visually

There's a beta release of a new search engine called Spezify that presents your results visually in a large collage. It aggregates search results from many sources including Flickr, Amazon, Yahoo and Twitter. Try searching for "chocolates" and look at the yummy results. Of course you could also search for something more law oriented and see what you get.

Librarians respond to the Google book settlement

Ars Technica reports that the Google book settlement has created concern among professional library organizations. The concern is not so much about what is in the settlement as what is NOT in the settlement, namely provisions addressing two primary concerns of libraries: public access and patron privacy.

Data Dot Gov for Data

Data Dot Gov is a new government website  developed by the Federal CIO Council as an interagency Federal initiative and is hosted by the General Services Administration.  It's got a collection of government datasets and is encouraging users to suggest more datasets.  Browsing through the site provides links to a variety of information from government agencies and a number of informational tools like widgets for the FBI or airline on-time performance records. You can search the datasets by category, government agency, or both. 

University of the People is free

Technology Review reports that there is a new online university called "University of the People" that offers a tuition-free education. Shai Reshef, the Israeli entrepreneur who founded the UoP, says he hopes the effort will expand education to less fortunate people around the world.  So far there are 150 people from 35 countries enrolled in the university that offers undergraduate degrees in business administration and computer science in English. Mr. Reshef said he hopes to have 15,000 people enrolled within 4 years.  The university is seeking accreditation in the United States.