Yearly Archives: 2011

Challenging Open Data

The Open Data Challenge 2011 was the largest ever open data competition in Europe, in which there was a large cash prize. Over 430 participants from 24 EU Member States attempting to create the most interactive and influential apps using public sector information to reinvent the way we govern and live in our community. TheRead… Read more »

The End of the World and Journalism in the Era of Open

For those not in the United Kingdom a massive scandal has erupted around allegations that one of the country’s tabloids – the News of the World ( a subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation) – was illegally hacking into and listening in on the voicemails of not royal family members and celebrities but also murderRead… Read more »

Emotion Reading Technology Matures

Image via CrunchBase “The system can tell that a man comes by a preschool every day at recess,” an executive at a video monitoring software firm once explained to me. “It can even tell that he’s smiling. But it can’t tell whether the smile is creepy or not,” meaning that current Video Content Analysis technology,Read… Read more »

Golden Gate Ferry installs automated ticket machines

Officials have moved to an automated ticket system for Golden Gate Ferry (CA), replacing full-time ticket agents at the Larkspur, Sausalito, and San Francisco terminals. The move eliminated seven positions, although five of the agents have been offered or accepted jobs within the Golden Gate Bridge Highway and Transportation District. Twelve ticket machines were installedRead… Read more »

Papaloi and Gouscos on E-Parliaments and Novel Parliament-to-Citizen Services

Aspasia Papaloi and Dr. Dimitris Gouscos, both of the University of Athens Faculty of Communication and Media Studies, have published E-Parliaments and Novel Parliament-to-Citizen services, JeDEM: Journal of eDemocracy and Open Government, 3(1), 80-98 (2011). Here is the abstract: In an era of citizens’ discontentment on democratic institutions, parliaments as a democratic cornerstone, are constantlyRead… Read more »

Social knowledge and learning at BT

I spoke at an Open University event last week on behalf on Learning Pool, discussing the role on communities in social learning and how they can help improve engagement. More on the specifics of my talk on the LP blog in due course. One of the other presentations, which I found really interesting, was fromRead… Read more »

Electric wok syndrome

In an acerbic review of Google+, John Naughton explains electric wok syndrome, which is always worth having in the back of your mind: A spectre is haunting the technology industry. It is called “electric wok syndrome” and it mainly afflicts engineers and those who invest in their fantasies. The condition takes its name from theRead… Read more »

Oh, Google+!

Well hell Google. You can’t do GIS. I’m sorry but you can’t. But when it comes to social networks… Actually, I’m going to confess something. Firstly, I seem to be in some kind of weird group on Google+ that a very nice person suggested I be in which means I get messages telling me I’mRead… Read more »

Updated (as of July 2011) Conference Calendar: Legal Informatics and eGovernment

The legal informatics conference calendar has now been updated. The calendar lists primarily scholarly conferences that focus on legal information systems, or that are known to welcome papers on legal information systems. The calendar includes the major scholarly e-Government conferences. Click here for a list of events just added to the calendar. If you knowRead… Read more »