The Official CASE Blog

A fascinating story involving British villagers (the rich kind, not the poor kind) preventing Google from taking photos of their houses over security concerns. I guess it’d make it harder for a burglar to plan from the comfort of their own home. But blocking Google’s doesn’t stop the criminals  from driving their own cars up and down the streets!

“The Google Street View car was blocked from filming last week by angry residents, led by Paul Jacobs, who alerted neighbours after spotting the car from his window.”I don’t have a problem with Google wanting to promote villages. What I have a problem with is the invasion of privacy, taking pictures directly into the home,” Mr Jacobs told the BBC.”

Villagers block Google mobile – Technology – theage.com.au

CASE is interested in mobile computing technology that assists education. ABC News is reporting that, in a massive development for students in NSW:

“The New South Wales Government says more than 200,000 laptops will soon start rolling out to secondary school teachers and students, after it awarded a $150 million contract to a Chinese computer maker.“

Chinese firm wins school laptop contract – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

The Sydney Morning Herald is reporting that

“The national competition watchdog has read the riot act to the nation’s telephone companies, telling an industry conference that the overall poor level of consumer service remains unacceptable. Addressing the Australian Telecommunications Users Group annual conference today, the chairman of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, Graeme Samuel, ordered the industry to lift its game or face the commission’s wrath – backed up by beefed-up consumer protection laws set to come into effect next year.”

$1m fine threat waved at shoddy telcos | smh.com.au

The ACCC could be in a position to place fines of up to $1million on Telcos that aren’t up to scratch. With over 4000 complaints a year, this sounds like a step in the right direction…

ConnectingUp has published a comprehensive survey of Information Technology within the not-for-profit sector in Australia. The report comes with some very interesting statistics. There’s a simple summary and a more detailed analysis of the numbers made more important by the fact that this is the second time around ConnectingUp has done the survey – some of the changes are intriguing!

Some interesting stats are as follows:

99% of respondent not-for-profit organisations are using at least one computer, 95% have a broadband connection to the Internet but only 46% of these have an interactive website of some kind!

To access this fascinating study (a must read!) click this link.

CNBC is reporting today that, following in the footsteps of Apple, Microsoft plans to launch a series of stores where people can come in person to see and try various Microsoft products.

“Microsoft announced plans Thursday to open its own chain of stores and hired a DreamWorks Animation executive to run them…The company did not say how many stores it was looking to open, or when, or which products would be available.” (source)

An interesting move! We will keep track of developments…

There’s a cool little video floating around right now that gives a very brief introduction to how the Internet was formed. It contains attractive animation and good voiceovers and for those new to the history, a whole bunch of terms to google later! It runs for almost 9 minutes and is well worth the watch:

Crikey is carrying a story on an academic report regarding Australia’s Clean Feed controversy reminding us of the fact that eyes are on this country, learning from our actions. The Crikey article is long and in depth. The report itself is heavy going but it’s essential reading for anyone wanting to stay informed on the topic. From Crikey:

The rest of the world has been smirking at Stephen Conroy’s ill-conceived plan to censor Australia’s Internet for a while now, but a new study published by Brooklyn Law School entitled “Filtering in Oz: Australia’s Foray Into Internet Censorship” is a serious embarrassment.This report is important. Not only is it authored by a reputable and neutral foreign observer but it also focuses more on the legitimacy of the scheme than the technical concerns, and it finds some serious problems. Despite the sober language, phrases like “troubling”, “worrisome”, “politically motivated” and “unaccountable” are common.

Crikey – The world smirks at Conroy’s censorship plan

The One Laptop per Child project, due to the financial crisis, has had to reduce its operating costs like so many other companies. From the official Wiki:

“Like many other nonprofits that are facing tough economic times, One Laptop per Child must downsize in order to keep costs in line with fewer financial resources. Today we are reducing our team by approximately 50% and there will be salary reductions for the remaining 32 people. While we are saddened by this development, we remain firmly committed to our mission of getting laptops to children in developing countries. We thank team members who are departing for their contributions to this important mission.” (Source)

Google (a main contributor of money to OLPC Inc.) has also cut costs this week demonstrating the big and the small are all subject to this global financial crisis. However, the cuts shouldn’t have any impact on the day-to-day lives of those involved with the OLPC project.

Joomla, a free open source content managment system, has been of interest to CASE for quite some time. We’ve been developing a service that allows members to upgrade their existing, old, webpages to Joomla in order to reap the benefits of this platform. Joomla 1.5 has a significant developer presence in Melbourne and that’s where this year’s Joomla! Day is to be held. The day is only $75 to attend and covers things like installation, templating, administration and tips and tricks for users, designers and administrators. I’ll be going along and will report my findings on this blog. If you’re in the area or sufficiently interested, make sure to come along to Melbourne Joomla Day running on Febuary the 7th 2009, followed up by a smaller second day of workshops. Registrations are open now, so get in quick!

Whirlpool, a long standing and reputable source of broadband industry news in Australia is once again running a survey that will outline the state of affairs in broadband for Australia. Because this isn’t a marketing survey people always seem more inclined to participate, last year an amazing 18,000 respondants gave their opinion on their Interenet connection. The survey is open until January 31st 2009, so if you’re a broadband user consider registering your opinions at the Whirlpool Australian Broadband Survey.