Wikiality – Part III

Posted on by — No Comments ↓

Bit of an elaboration on a previous post on the use of Wikipedia in judgements. I cited part of a New York Times article, which had in turn quoted from a letter to the editor from Professor Kenneth Ryesky. The portion cited by the NYT article suggested that Ryesky was quite opposed to the idea, which wasn’t really the case. He was kind enough to exchange some thoughts via e-mail:

In his New York Times article of 29 January 2007, Noam Cohen quoted a sentence (the last sentence) from my Letter to the Editor published in the New York Law Journal on 18 January 2007. You obviously read Mr. Cohen’s article, but it is not clear whether you read the original Letter to the Editor from which the sentence was quoted.

Which exemplifies the point that Wikipedia, for all of its usefulness, is not a primary source of information, and therefore should be used with great care in the judicial process, just as Mr. Cohen’s article was not a primary source of information.

Contrary to the impression you may have gotten from Mr. Cohen’s New York Times article of 29 January, I am not per se against the use of Wikipedia. For the record, I myself have occasion to make use of it in my research (though I almost always go and find the primary sources to which Wikipedia directs me), and find it to be a valuable tool. But in research, as in any other activity, one must use the appropriate tool for the job; using a sledge hammer to tighten a little screw on the motherboard of my computer just won’t work.

Wikipedia and its equivalents present challenges to the legal system. I am quite confident that, after some trial and error, the legal system will acclimate itself to Wikipedia, just as it has to other text and information media innovations over the past quarter-century.

Needless to say, quite a different tone than the excerpt in the NYT article. Thanks for the clarification, Professor Ryesky.

ITAC – First Canadian Municipal Wireless Conference and Exhibition

Posted on by — No Comments ↓

Wow – lots happening the last week of May. Also forgot to mention previously the First Canadian Municipal Wireless Conference and Exhibition being organized by ITAC at the Direct Energy Conference Centre at the Canadian National Exhibition in Toronto, May 28-30, 2007:

Whether you live or work in a large urban municipality, a small rural town or village, the impact of wireless applications has already or will soon impact the quality of your life and the services you offer your community. If your organization engages in digital electronic services to customers, e.g., taxpayers, suppliers, emergency service providers, other levels of government, non-profit organizations and associations, you need to learn about the latest proven strategies to ensure the success of your wireless programs.

ITAC’s 1st Canadian Municipal Wireless Applications Conference and Exhibition will not only update you on the latest initiatives of Canadian Municipalities, but will provide you with real case study insights, proven strategies, commentary from leading wireless experts and techniques for deploying wireless applications in your communities. If you are currently engaged, or plan to be engaged, in a municipal wireless project, your attendance at this event is essential.

Mesh Conference

Posted on by — No Comments ↓

Will be taking place the same week as Toronto Technology Week. What is it you ask?

mesh is Canada’s Web conference, being held in Toronto on May 30th & 31st, 2007. You will hear from thought leaders, connect with peers, and get a better understanding of the impact of new developments online. mesh brings together people who are passionate about the potential of the Web to change how we live, work and play. Meet the next generation of Web ideas, leaders and companies at mesh.

See the mesh site for more details. Taking place at MaRS.

Toronto Technology Week

Posted on by — No Comments ↓

Just catching up on a few things. Very quick entry on upcoming Toronto Technology Week:

Toronto’s Information and Communication Technology (ICT) industry cluster will come together to celebrate being the largest high-tech hub in Canada and the third largest in North America. During this event, named “Toronto Technology Week” (TTW) a series of activities will be undertaken to showcase the depth and breath of Toronto’s high technology sector. These will include trade shows, seminars and business networking functions, job fairs, an ICT business open door program, school projects, special exhibits and other ICT sector-related activities. An organizing committee formed by ICT industry stakeholders representing a cross-section of this industry, in both the private and public sectors, has been formed to implement this initiative. This event is hosted by ICT TORONTO.

Belgian Court Slaps Google News

Posted on by — No Comments ↓

The short story: a Belgian court has ruled that Google must remove headlines and links posted on its news site for which it did not obtain permission to post, based on copyright law.

Rather unfortunate, I think. Sure, there are cases where some links and even partial reproduction should be prohibited, but in the context of what Google was doing its difficult to see the harm. In fact, I’m a bit surprised that the content owner would have pursued the claim. Google’s take:

“We believe that Google News is entirely legal,” the company said in a statement. “We only ever show the headlines and a few snippets of text and small thumbnail images. If people want to read the entire story they have to click through to the newspaper’s Web site.”

Google said its service actually does newspaper a favor by driving traffic to their sites.

But the court said Google’s innovations don’t get exemptions from Belgian data storage law.

“We confirm that the activities of Google News, the reproduction and publication of headlines as well as short extracts, and the use of Google’s cache, the publicly available data storage of articles and documents, violate the law on authors’ rights,” the ruling said.

If Google News violates authors’ rights, there will be a lot more that does as well. Tons. It will be interesting to see what happens on appeal as it could have rather far-reaching implications – at least in Belgium.

The Virtues and Evils of Open Source – Part II

Posted on by — No Comments ↓

Found the article that triggered my previous post – was a piece written by Suzanne Dingwall Williams in her blog. The nub:

If you want to sell your own proprietary software, make sure you have a strictly enforced policy against using open source. Here’s why: even if you agree that open source has crossed the chasm in the lifecycle that is technology adoption, your investors have not. Even the inclusion of an inconsequential open source tool can cause headaches, or stop a deal altogether.

Here are the concerns often raised about open source at the due diligence stage:
– there is no meaningful warranty or indemnity for this portion of the product
– how do we know the open source license is enforceable?
– do the terms for this piece of open source contaminate the rest of your product?
– if this was inadvertently incorporated into the product, what else was?

I should emphasize that I don’t necessarily disagree with the concerns she notes. They are concerns. Particularly in the specific instance she notes – i.e. selling proprietary software (as opposed to using an open source business model). That being said whether or not the benefits will outweigh the risks will depend on many things, including the business model of the startup (even if one chooses to go the route of developing proprietary software), the license governing the open source code and of course how its used. I don’t necessarily think that companies (including startups) should just have a flat policy not to use open source. But I’ve already rambled on about this in my previous post.

But then again, I’m not a VC. And Suzie apparently used to be one. It would be interesting to know what VCs generally think. Are you a VC? If so it would be great if you could go to the poll at the bottom of the left column. Nothing super scientific, admittedly, but I’d be interested in seeing what the general sentiment is.

Big Bad Law Firms

Posted on by — No Comments ↓

Ran across this at robhyndman.com:

More and more I hear that many people in business – and in IT in particular – find the behaviour of large law firms and other professional service providers to be alienating and unresponsive to their business problems. And they’re right – large firms are increasingly gearing themselves to focus only on high dollar value work and their culture and the billing philosophies do not lend themselves to a “roll up your sleeves and help me grow my business” attitude. It seems to be getting more and more difficult for businesses to find advisors who understand the client’s problems, and who genuinely want to help.

Ouch. Mr. Hyndman is certainly entitled to his views but being in a somewhat largish firm I would, with respect, not agree. At least not when it comes to the firm I work at. I also don’t think its very fair, to paint all large firms the same brush and imply that lawyers at such firms are only interested in money (and not much else), don’t care about their clients’ business, don’t understand their problems, and don’t want to help.

I think its rather unfortunate that these types of things are said between lawyers and law firms these days. And perhaps I’ll just leave it at that.

Thoughts on Quantum Computing

Posted on by — No Comments ↓

Interesting article in Wired News where they interview David Deutsch who they refer to as the Father of Quantum Computing. He has a kind of low key but interesting take on the recent demonstration of a real, live 16 qubit quantum computer by D-Wave, a Canadian company based out of Vancouver.

Low key insofar as he doesn’t seem particularly enthused about the potential of quantum computers, other than perhaps their ability to be used to simulate quantum systems and of course encryption:

Deutsch: It’s not anywhere near as big a revolution as, say, the internet, or the introduction of computers in the first place. The practical application, from a ordinary consumer’s point of view, are just quantitative.

One field that will be revolutionized is cryptography. All, or nearly all, existing cryptographic systems will be rendered insecure, and even retrospectively insecure, in that messages sent today, if somebody keeps them, will be possible to decipher … with a quantum computer as soon as one is built.

Most fields won’t be revolutionized in that way.

Fortunately, the already existing technology of quantum cryptography is not only more secure than any existing classical system, but it’s invulnerable to attack by a quantum computer. Anyone who cares sufficiently much about security ought to be instituting quantum cryptography wherever it’s technically feasible.

Apart from that, as I said, mathematical operations will become easier. Algorithmic search is the most important one, I think. Computers will become a little bit faster, especially in certain applications. Simulating quantum systems will become important because quantum technology will become important generally, in the form of nanotechnology.

(my emphasis). Interesting thought about being retrospectively insecure. Particularly given spy agencies have, in the past, been sufficiently bold to transmit encoded messages on easily accessible shortwave frequencies.

I imagine the spook shops already have their purchase orders in for quantum crypto stuff (or have developed it already internally). Was a bit surprised by the statement above regarding existing technology for quantum computing. I had heard of some demos a while back, but didn’t realize that there are actually several companies offering quantum cryptography products.

Changes in Daylight Savings Time

Posted on by — No Comments ↓

Most of you are probably already aware of the legislative change affecting daylight savings in North America. In any event, the nub from an internal note:

The U.S. Energy Policy Act of 2005, passed by the U.S. Congress July, 2005, extended Daylight Saving Time (DST) in the U.S. by approximately four weeks. This change was similarly adopted by the Government of Canada in order to harmonize time zones across North America. As a result, beginning in 2007, DST will start three weeks earlier on March 11, 2007, and end one week later on November 4, 2007, resulting in a new DST period that is four weeks longer than previously observed.

(slight correction by the way – time is governed by the provinces in Canada – see for example the relevant Ontario regulation).

Apart from changing your clocks, you should make a note of whether any patches or updates to your computer systems are required. I know I’ve already seem some traffic on how MS Outlook and Blackberry stuff might need patches as a result of the change. You might also want to highlight this when making appointments during the changed period.

In addition to that, there are also some articles, such as the one in Technology Review, that warn of other potential glitches:

Cameron Haight, a Gartner Inc. analyst who has studied the potential effects of the daylight-saving bug, said it might force transactions occurring within one hour of midnight to be recorded on the wrong day. Computers might serve up erroneous information about multinational teleconference times and physical-world appointments.

”Organizations could face significant losses if they are not prepared,” the Information Technology Association of America cautioned this week.

Dave Thewlis, who directs CalConnect, a consortium that develops technology standards for calendar and scheduling software, said it is hard to know how widespread the problem will be.

That’s because the world is full of computer systems that have particular methods for accounting for time of day. In many, changing the rules around daylight saving is a snap, but in others, it may be more complex.

”There’s no rule that says you have to represent time in a certain way if you write a program,” Thewlis said. ”How complicated it is to implement the change has to do with the original design, where code is located.”

…and don’t forget international stuff:

Also, the change originated in the United States and is being followed in Canada, but not most other nations. That could befuddle conferencing systems and other applications that run in multiple countries at once.

Update: A great and concise article on slaw with more details and better links on the changes in DST.