That’s the title of my Slaw post for today.

It reads as follows:

Bill Gates has been quoted as saying: “We always overestimate the change that will occur in the next two years and underestimate the change that will occur in the next ten.”

To put that in perspective, lets compare some specs. The space shuttles will soon be retired – they were first launched in 1981 – almost 30 years ago.

In 1981 an example of a computer available then was a PDP11. It cost US$110,000, had 192 KB of memory, 5MB disk packs, and the footprint of a large desk.

Today, we buy cellphones for around $200 or so that weigh a few ounces and fit into our pockets that have 500MB (that’s about 2000 times more if my math is correct) of internal memory. You can add perhaps another 16GB (that’s about 20000 times more than the disk pack if my math is correct) of memory by sliding in a microSD card the size of a fingernail. And they include cameras, GPS, touch screens, Intenet access, several radios (voice, data, GPS, Wifi, Bluetooth).

Its hard to imagine what we will have within the next decade or 2.

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

Recent Slaw posts talk about Blackberry’s, the ABA Techshow, social media, online ADR, and online legal resources. Richard Susskind talks about how technology is fundamentally changing the practice of law, and how we will provide services in the future. One point he makes is that this is not a big bang change, but a creeping change.

That’s quite true. As I think back, I entered law school after being a computer science major. That was before computers were used in law firms (except perhaps for accounting purposes), and before the Internet. At the time, most people thought it was truly strange to go from computer science into law. There was absolutely no perceived connection between the two.

Fast forward to today. My practice focuses primarily on technology companies and technology issues. The tools I rely upon every day didn’t exist then. The concept of communication through a blog wasn’t even on the radar screen a few years ago – let alone the topics listed above being relevant to lawyers.

I knew back then that technology was going to lead to fundamental changes in the way business was done, and the way we communicate. In hindsight I wish I had taken those thoughts further at the time – but then I guess its never too late to do that.

That’s the title of my Slaw post for today.

It reads:

A few weeks ago Simon Fodden wrote about the “Ontario in the Creative Age” report that basically says we need to turn more to creative work to be successful economically. That builds on the creative class theory that says communities with a higher % of the creative class tend to do better economically.

Especially in light of that, its dissapointing to see that an ITU report that measures the use of information and communications technologies in more than 150 countries dropped Canada from 9th in 2002 to 19th in 2007.

Michael Geist comments that:

No country in the top 50 declined as rapidly as Canada as we were passed by the U.S., Australia, New Zealand, many Asian countries (Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong), and European nations (UK, Luxembourg, Germany, Ireland).

The decline in a sub-index on ICT use is even more dramatic. The sub-index measures Internet user penetration, fixed broadband penetration, and mobile broadband penetration. Canada ranked 4th worldwide in 2002. By 2007, we dropped to 21st worldwide. While the survey also includes data suggesting that Canada has relatively inexpensive fixed broadband (2nd worldwide), the declining numbers are consistent with other studies that indicate that any advantages that Canada had in the late 1990s have long since disappeared.

Canada used to be a world leader in communications technology. The evidence confirms our anecdotal frustrations at, for example, new smartphone technology arriving in Canada long after other countries.

Somehow we need to reverse this trend.

Michael Geist points out that Bell’s expandable PVR that adds an external hard drive for more storage would run afoul of bill C-6.   C-61 allows time-shifting, but not archiving.

Another example of vacuum tube politicians in a microchip age.

Read Michael’s post

I received an email yesterday from the publisher of the Shelly Palmer blog pointing out a post entitled Senator Ted “Tubes” Stevens Indictment is Appropriate Metaphor for U.S. Communication Power Shift .  It uses Senator Ted “Tubes” Steven’s famous remarks to focus on the question of how tech savvy our political leaders are.  As the post points out, its scary that “Tubes” is the Vice Chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation and a member of the Subcommittee on Science, Technology, and Innovation. 

The post states:

Taken together, I started to wonder how would our current presidential candidates describe the Internet and its associated technology? Do they have a firm grasp on the issues surrounding our telecommunications future? Do they know what the technical limitations of the medium are? Is either candidate ready to lead us past the information age into the age of cloud computing, reduction mapping and explosive data?

The context of the post is the US presidential election – but its something we in Canada and indeed every country should ask ourselves.  To take it one step farther, we should ask if in addition to the technical issues, our elected officials understand the related social issues, and the expectations and understanding of a younger generation that has grown up knowing nothing but the Internet and the tools and opportunities it brings.

While Stevens’ “Tubes” remarks refers to pipes, the equivalent electronic metaphor might be vacuum tube politicians in a microchip age.

For example, there are many things in recent Canadian copyright bills that suggest the answer to those questions is no – and that no seems to be accross party lines.

Its all kind of scary if you ask me.

Cloud computing – where we store or data, and/or run our apps out there somewhere – has some compelling advantages.  I’m nervous about depending on it though.  Maybe I just like control, but trusting your data and its reliability, security and confidentiality to others in the cloud gives me pause.  And if for some reason one can’t get to their data – either temporarily or permanently …   Then again, perhaps those are issues to be sorted out, not a full stop.

Take a look at this post from Gigaom entitled 10 Reasons Enterprises Aren’t Ready to Trust the Cloud.

But contrast that with Ernie the Attorney’s recent posts  (and here and here) on his goal to operate in “ATM mode”.  He wants to keep as much as possible in the cloud – largely based on his Katrina disruptions. 

And by the way, the proposed Canadian copyright bill C-61 gets in the way of the cloud computing mode for storing your media.

Slaw.ca posted a good article recently entitled Revisiting the Paperlesss Office that contains some history on the topic, and some tips for reducing paper.

It comments that we have the technology and tools to do it – what we need is a change of mindset. I agree with that sentiment. I use less paper than most lawyers – but I can still do better.

In addition to saving paper, most of the tools used to save paper also increase productivity.

Read the article

I’ve commented before about how frustrating it is to see that Canada’s wireless prices are higher than other countries, and that our devices and services lag other countries.

I use an HTC Windows mobile smartphone, and while its a great device, I find that I don’t get as much use as I could from it, as I’m always concerned that data charges will get out of hand if I use the net too much.

Michael Geist just wrote an article, and posted a speech he just delivered on the state of wireless in Canada, using the iPhone as a starting point.

Its worth a read/listen

This article is getting some attention in the blogosphere. Its worth a look if you are interested in where the Web might be headed, and how it might affect your organization, or how you might take advantage of it.

Of course like any predictions, its hard to know how, when, or if these will pan out, and whether they will be evolutionary or revolutionary. Good food for thought nonetheless.

On the device front, Apple announced a slew of new iPod models yesterday that will make any iPod owner want to upgrade. Microsoft announced a new media extender platform, with new hardware to follow shortly, to connect PC to TV. Note to self – need to buy lottery ticket to fund all these toys.

Read the Read/Write Web article

Read an engadget post about the new iPods

Read a gizmodo article about the media extender

CNet has an interesting interview with Verizon’s chief technology officer about their approach of bringing fiber right to their customer’s homes, rather than use the traditional copper for the last mile.

They now have over 1,000,000 subscribers to the service. While it costs more for them to create the infrastructure, they feel it is paying off, and will contine to pay off even more in the future.

Frankly, I wish we had a similar approach here in Canada. Where I live, for example, anyone with an HDTV has to use satellite, because while the cable system in our area works well for high speed Internet, its not capable of delivering more than 3 or 4 hi-def channels. Now if only the cable company would go direct to Verizon type fiber…

Read the CNet interview