Is it just me, or have we seen an unusual number of new product announcements recently?  Sure, some have been in the mill for a while and are just getting closer to launch, but here are some things that have been getting attention recently.  They all seem to be getting a lot of positive press/hype so far.

Wolfram/Alpha computational engine,  Microsoft’s Bing decision engine, Google wave communications tool, Palm Pre  (it eats iPhones for breakfast, you know) , Zune HD, HTC touch pro 2 

Now if only I had enough free time and money to always get all the latest stuff and play with it …

Add this to inconsistencies I don’t understand.  Google street view often gets lambasted for privacy issues.  That happens when an individual or a car license plate is visible.  Since these street views are one time images – one only gets captured if one happens to be in view of the camera at the specific time and place it happens to be.   Privacy commissioners, including in the UK, generally want faces and license plates to be blurred. 

But the UK police get away with implementing a system where cameras log all car travel and keep records of where all cars are when they pass by each of the huge network of cameras for 2 years.  As Wired Gadget lab puts it:

UK police are on the verge of a a huge surveillance coup which will make 1984’s telescreens look as dumb and benevolent as a corner-store CCTV rig. Britain’s network of spy-cameras includes a fleet of Automatic Number Plate Recognition cams which read around 10 million license plates a day. These will soon be piped into one central computer which will compile and share this intelligence across the nation.

Remember: This isn’t being used to scan and log already suspect automobiles. It is recording the movements of every road user, whether a suspect, a criminal or an innocent traveller.

Perhaps I can understand a system that looks for license plates that the police are looking for, records that and alerts officers – but recording that info on every vehicle that passes by, and keeping it for 2 years is just wrong.  

Two basic privacy principles are that no one should collect more personal info than is necessary to do what needs to be done – and  any personal information one does have  should be kept no longer than it is needed.   I just don’t get why these principles are not applied more heavily to government collection of information.

That’s the title of my Slaw post for today.   It reads as follows:

Canadian futurist Jim Carroll (@jimcarroll)just spoke about innovation at the London TechAlliance AGM. Here are some of the points that got my attention. (We used to call these sound bites or bullet points – I’ve already seem some of these show up in Tweets from the audience – so lets call these Slaw Tweets.)

Change is so rapid – 65% of public school children will be in a career that doesn’t exist yet.

1/2 of what science grads learn in first year is obsolete when they graduate.

Product lifecycles used to be measured in 2 digit years. The product lifecycle of a digital camera is 3 -6 months.

Big doesn’t beat small – fast beats slow.

We should choose not to participate in the recession – use it as an opportunity for growth.

A brand is no longer what you say it is – its what they say it is.

Experiential capital (accumulated experience trying to do things we have not done before) is crucial.

David Fraser points out that:  “The federal government introduced legislation in Parliament to “modernize” criminal procedure in Canada. What it means, among other things, is that police will get the authority to fingerprint suspects even before charges are laid. Bill C-31 amends the Identification of Criminals Act (but oddly doesn’t rename it the Identification of Criminals and People We Don’t Have Enough Evidence to Charge Act). “

Not exactly friendly on the privacy and right to not self-incriminate fronts.

For the London Free Press – May 25, 2009

Read this on Canoe

Online alternative dispute resolution (ADR) may be the future of dispute resolution.

ADR has been used for many years to resolve disputes outside the court system. It involves parties agreeing to mediate or arbitrate their dispute rather than pursue it through the courts.

ADR has become increasingly popular as parties find themselves frustrated by prolonged court cases and rising costs.

Arbitration works much like a court trial, in that the arbitrator makes a decision based on evidence presented by the parties.

Mediation is more like a facilitated negotiation, in which the parties reach a decision based on the efforts of the mediator to help them find common ground.

ADR, especially mediation, can offer participants numerous advantages. It’s more cost-effective and significantly faster than going through the courts.

Mediation also can preserve the relationship between the parties. That can be vitally important, whether it be a martial dispute in which disputing parties must be able to maintain a civilized relationship for their children, or a business relationship both parties hope to continue.

As technology advances and our global economy grows, more and more people are expanding ADR beyond in-person mediations and arbitrations and conducting them by phone or video conference. Telephone and video ADR presents significant cost and time advantages, whether the parties are across town or in different countries.

As the costs of the tools and programs that allow such virtual ADR drop, this will be a growing option for the future of alternative dispute resolution. What used to require very expensive video conference facilities can now be done with tools available to most of us on our desktops.

Some people are skeptical about the efficacy of virtual ADR, especially over the phone where you can’t see the other party. Missing key body language cues or facial expressions may hinder effective ADR.

On the other hand, that disadvantage affects both parties equally and thus creates a level playing field to which both parties must adapt. And much of the problem can be addressed by using video technology.

In many instances, these disadvantages are outweighed by the numerous advantages of ADR.

Ultimately, as the world keeps getting smaller, and parties do business with clients around the world, online ADR offers a sensible, efficient and cost -effective way to resolve disputes. And it means difference can be addressed early before they escalate and become harder to settle.

Online ADR has the potential to significantly change the way disputes are resolved.

Perhaps we’ll see a world where virtual ADR is used, subject to cooling-off periods, for almost instantaneous mediation of disputes, whether they’re business, political, or personal.

Given the right factual situations and the right parties, the use of virtual ADR could positively influence Canada’s legal landscape.

Outlaw.com has an article about a British family that was having trouble selling their house.   So they sold £25 tickets and raffled it off.  They were successful enough that others are trying it too.  They apparently sold 46,000 tickets for a total gain of £1.15 million.  (The article doesn’t say what the house was actually worth.)

There are some wrinkles to this approach.  It captured the attention of the Gambling Commission, given the gambling/lottery laws.  One would have to take a close look at those laws in your jurisdiction.  And of course you set yourself up for a real loss if you don’t sell enough tickets.

That’s the title of my Slaw post for today.  It reads as follows:

In a recent speech Bill Veghte – senior vice president, Windows business, for Microsoft – advised that if a business is now in the testing phase to upgrade from XP to Vista, they should stop and go direct to Windows 7.

The Windows 7 release candidate is now available for testing purposes, and Windows 7 is expected to be available this fall.

Conventional wisdom for operating systems in the enterprise is that we should wait until the first service pack is released to deploy, to give more time for initial bugs to be worked out. Early reviews and commentary on Windows 7 are positive and suggest it is not necessary to wait.

See the text of his speech, and an article in Computerworld.

The London Free Press series  Beyond Crisis: A Free Press series exploring our region’s next economy has an article today entitled Prime Location for Changes that explores the thought that one of London’s key strengths going into the next economy is our location. 

That holds true for traditional industry - such as the Original Cakerie, which is now building a 130,000 square foot plant.  ”It’s cakes and dessert bars will be made at an Innovation Drive plant and from there roll across eastern Canada and the eastern U.S., to restaurants, grocery stores and institutions such as schools and hospitals.”

Its also true for the “next gen” economy – such as life sciences, IT, and advanced manuafacturing.

Several sources are reporting that a French court refused to hold eBay responsible for counterfeit L’Oreal products sold on its site.  That is contrary to earlier French cases – but consistent with the North American position.

eBay does suspend sales of counterfeit goods when advised of them by the rightful manufacturer, but it does not pre-screen or otherwise take steps to ensure everything sold on its site is legitimate.

In my view, this is how it should be.  While I do have sympathy for brand owners, eBay and others like it are intermediaries.   They are no different in that regard than a phone company – and no one would think of making phone companies liable or responsible for policing illegal activity occuring during phone conversations.

Making intermediaries like on-line auction sites or job posting sites responsible for policing all the activity between the people they bring together just isn’t practical.

Mike Masnick of Techdirt has a post entitled  How Long Can You Go Without Infringing On Copyright? that  points to a post on Dvorak.org, discussing how hard it is to not infringe on copyrights, noting that the original system was not built for a digital world.   The point is that when copyright laws were first made, it was not easy to “accidentally” violate copyright.

Michael Geist points to a post by Princeton Professor Ed Felton on his Freedom to Tinker blog entitled A Modest Proposal: Three-Strikes for Print that mocks the French proposal to create a “three-strikes” system that would kick people off the Internet if they are accused of copyright infringement three times by suggesting it should apply to print as well.

UPDATE:  Also take a look at Cory Doctorow’s post on Boing Boing entitled  Copyright protects critics, but leaves fans out in the cold  refering to his Guardian column that looks at the fact that copyright protects critics who want to talk trash about creative works, but gives no real protection to people who want to say nice things about them.