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Showing posts from September, 2010

The Future As Seen By Me In 2010

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Well looky here, things one has scanned in eh. (ignore the photo, that's some guy that made some accounting software, not sure what became of him ;) MIKE RIVERSDALE is fuming. The expensive headphones he bought in Sydney three weeks ago have just died. His first reaction is not to randomly spill expletives into his coffee, but to use his iPhone to vent his frustration to his Twitter con- tacts, under the moniker Miramar Mike. "I will also put, 'What should I do?' It's a conversation. I'm reaching out to the people following me." The council predicts hand-held digital devices such as smartphones will rule the world in 2040. They already rule the life of Mr Riversdale, whose company WaveAdept helps businesses adapt - their computing sys- tems to allow staff to work from anywhere - and with anyone. In order of fre- equency, he uses his iPhone to tweet (1136 followers; 8363 tweets since joining), e-mail, make phone calls and use online services, such as checki
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International Software Freedom Day 2010

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So let's chop up International Software Freedom Day a bit: International = this is happening ALL over the world Software = the stuff that makes your boxes, wires an touchscreens actually do stuff Freedom = aha, the nub Day = a focus but not to be taken literally eh Christchurch :-) Freedom, that's the key. Freedom from what? Freedom to do what? Users' freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software. You can read more about the four freedoms on the GNU website . Open source software is a part of what is known as FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) and I can guarantee you are using a piece of FOSS software right now. It might not be the application as a whole but deep inside there will be a little piece of something that has come from the FOSS world. That's right, someone somewhere has allowed others to build upon their work - amazingly awesome eh. And yes, Microsoft do use FOSS software and even have a whole team based around open source. If yo
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Public Attitudes to the Sharing of Personal Information in the Course of Electronic Public Service Provision

We can all assume that openess is "good", that the government should share and that we "know" NZ citizens are happy to provide personal information to the Government ... but is that actually what people think? Professor Miriam Lips, Dr Elizabeth Eppel, Amanda Cunningham and Virginia Hopkins-Burns from Victoria University of Wellington have recently published their findings of their research paper entitled, "Public Attitudes to the Sharing of Personal Information in the Course of Electronic Public Service Provision " . The summary ( view on web | PDF ) states: Our research findings demonstrate that the majority of participants had a benign view of information sharing intentions and practice in the New Zealand public sector. Generally, the participants in this study had a high trust in the New Zealand government and its agencies and thought that they are working in the best interests of citizens. Exceptions could be found among participants with a high depe
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