news aggregator
These days it’s assumed that you know a lot of basic technology information–how to use a mouse, how to search on Google, and how to turn off your computer–pretty simple actions you need to use a computer effectively. But it is also assumed that you know a lot of information that is more nuanced. Unfortunately, [...]
The International Consumer Electronics Show ("CES") is less than a week away. Running from January 7th through January 10th in Las Vegas, the convention will feature 2,700 exhibitors filling 1.7 million square feet of exhibit space. Many companies use CES as an opportunity to unveil new products or to showcase emerging technologies. Keynote speakers include Microsoft's Bill Gates, Comcast's Brian Roberts, Intel's Paul Otellini, and General Motors' Rick Wagoner.
For a more detailed preview of this year's convention, check out Forbes.com's CES Preview.
Signed into law on July 26, 1990, the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 ("ADA") may be the most significant piece of civil rights legislation enacted since the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The ADA has led to new fields of practice within the American legal profession and to broad accessibility initiatives that have transformed the American landscape. As we move towards an increasingly technology-based society and workplace, however, questions have arisen as to the applicability of the ADA to various technologies -- particularly web sites.
In a recent article published on Law.com's Legal Technology, Sherry Karabin explores the issue of accessible web sites and the legal battles being waged over ADA compliance. Karabin focuses particular attention on the ongoing litigation between Target and the National Federation of the Blind, as well as some of the out-of-court settlements with companies ranging from RadioShack to Priceline.com. While the controversy thus far has revolved around major retailers, it is an issue that may ultimately impact all businesses and organizations -- including law firms -- with a presence on the web.
In light of these concerns and in an effort to promote further integration of the legal profession, the American Bar Association's House of Delegates recently passed a resolution urging that "websites intended for lawyers, judges, law students, and other individuals or entities associated with the legal profession ... be created and maintained in an accessible manner." Click here to read the full text of the resolution.
Interested in learning more about web site accessibility? Check out these resources:
The Kaiser Family Foundation recently updated their Medicare and Medicaid factsheets, which highlight who is eligible and what services are provided. Thanks to the Minnesota Legal Services Coalition for pointing this information out in their e-newsletter, JUST NEWS. - K
Posted in Community Education/Legal Information
It may not have quite the media cachet of the Oscars or Emmys, but the annual Webby Awards are no less prestigious for those who create or follow Internet-based technology. Now in their 12th year, the Webby Awards recognize excellence in websites, interactive advertising, online film and video, and mobility. The awards are judged by The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, a 550-member body that includes a range of leading Web experts, business figures, and celebrities from David Bowie to Anil Dash to Matt Groening. In addition, a People’s Voice Award is also determined for each category based on a public vote via the web.
Nominees are broken down into nearly 70 categories with websites representing the majority of nominees. Some of this year’s nominees include Eyes on Darfur (Activism Category), HowStuffWorks (Best Copy/Writing), Apple (Best Use of Video or Moving Image), Yahoo! Sports (Sports Category), and the ABA Journal website (Law Category).
The Webby Awards’ website offers a full list of nominees (as well as nominees and winners from the past 11 years). As a research and reference tool, the list of former winners and nominees offers a great directory of high quality websites by category. If you’d like to vote for your favorite Webby Award nominee, you can visit the public voting page now.
The Wall Street Journal reports that the FCC has proposed a plan that would provide free wireless Internet to Americans, but both telecom providers and consumer advocates object to it. Consumer advocates dislike the plan because the service will be required to filter out pornography and material not suitable for children; the telecom providers object [...]
The American Bar Association has jumped on the social-networking bandwagon with a networking site of its own, Legally Minded. I wrote about it earlier today at Legal Blog Watch. As I said then, a bug in the site is preventing me from completing my registration. Fred Faulkner, the ABA's manager of interactive services, told me earlier today that they'd experienced this log-in problem in earlier testing but thought it was resolved. That was just after 9 a.m. As of 7 p.m., I'm still not able to log-in. Not a great start, but the site looks good and I look forward to getting access at some point so that I can provide a more complete report. Meanwhile, check out my write-up at Legal Blog Watch and then try Legally Minded for yourself
The ABA Standing Committee on the Delivery of Legal Services is currently seeking nominations for the 2009 Louis M. Brown Award for Legal Access, which “recognizes programs and projects that have made innovative and/or substantial contributions toward meeting the legal needs of people with moderate incomes.” Details about the Award and [...]
The ABA Standing Committee on the Delivery of Legal Services is holding hearings on the use of technology to provide personal, civil legal services over the Internet and the policies that govern that use. Specifically, the Committee will examine: - The range of providers who are using technology to provide legal services through the Internet and the scope of those services. - The benefits and detriments that have resulted from the use of technology to provide legal services over the Internet. - Emerging trends and possible future directions of technology providing legal services via the Internet; and
- The policies and authorities (rules, statutes, case law, ethics opinions, etc.) that have emerged to govern the use of technology for the delivery of legal services and whether those policies are consistent with the need to balance consumer protection with access to affordable legal services and justice. The hearings will be held as follows: - May 9, 2008, Noon to 3:00 PM, in conjunction with the Equal Justice Conference, Hilton Minneapolis, 1001 Marquette Ave South, Minneapolis, MN 55403; - Friday, August 8, 2008, hotel TBD, in conjunction with the ABA Annual Meeting in New York.
- Virtual Hearing, Date to be announced. Those interested in appearing and/or submitting materials should contact Janice Jones at 312/988-5787, janicejones@staff.abanet.org. Further details and on-going hearing archives are posted at http://www.abanet.org/legalservices/delivery/techhearings.html
Just a heads up for those of you trying to develop media contacts. My Creative Team has developed a wiki of media outlets and journalists on Twitter, and another list is available from New Media Strategy. Check out the people who are local to your area. Chances are that if you follow them they’ll follow [...]
Blogging is the simplest, fastest way to open more lines of communication with the people who care about your nonprofit. What's more, it offers the people who care about your nonprofit more opportunities to introduce their friends and colleagues to the work that you do.
Do you prefer rack-mounted or workstation servers? Let us know what kind of server works best for your organization.
Check out the first seasonal report on ethics in virtual worlds from Global Kids’ learning hub, RezEd.org.
Spam messages are annoying, unsolicited email messages. In addition to violating the law by sending you emails that you didn't ask for, spammers often use their messages to perpetrate fraud on the people who respond.
This article
focuses on anti-spam technologies, also known as spam filters, and offers valuable resources to learn how to fight spam at your organization.
Two projects of mine, a blog and a podcast, are included on the ABA Journal's second annual listing of The Blawg 100, the editors' picks of the best legal blogs. Legal Blog Watch, the Law.com-sponsored blog I cowrite with Carolyn Elefant, won recognition in the News category, and Lawyer2Lawyer, the podcast I cohost with J. Craig Williams, won a place in the Podcast category. Still to come are the readers' choice awards. The winner in each category wins admission to the ABA's annual Techshow. Head on over and cast your ballot before voting ends Jan. 2.
When it absolutely has to be there and you also want a good price, these websites will allow you to compare the delivery options and prices of several competing carriers. Simply input your ship from and ship to locations and you’ll be provided with a selection of shipping options by carrier, earliest delivery possible, and price. Note: ABA members have discounts (up to 26%) with UPS through our member advantage program. at: http://www.abanet.org/advantage/ups/ RedRoller, allows you to compare several carriers and ship with any of them from a single location. You can setup a free RedRoller account, import your address book and add a payment method. RedRoller also lets you customize your shipments with your preferences, set package details and delivery options. If you frequently ship similar types of packages or to the same location, these packages and locations can be tagged for quick shipments. This is a good option if you want to do a rate check but appreciate the time savings of being able to ship to multiple carriers from a single site. ShipGooder compares shipping rates for local, regional and national courier companies and provides a link to each carrier’s website to complete shipping. This is great if you already have accounts setup with various carriers but just want to do a quick rate check. You can display shipping rates by delivery dates or carrier/courier. Additionally, Ship Gooder will allow you to print your comparison results, e-mail the results to someone or quickly download the information to a spreadsheet.
Law Technology News has posted my latest column, Tweet Sixteen: 16 Ways Lawyers Can Use Twitter. (LTN requires registration to read articles, but it is free. When it comes to social media, I tend to be an evangelist. But even I could not grasp why so many lawyers were all atwitter over Twitter. What value could there be in a microblogging tool that limits each post to 140 characters? So I strapped on some wings and gave it a try. In no time at all, Twitter turned me into a songbird ready to sing its praises. Read the rest.
As you may have guessed, my Internet access was spotty at the NLADA Annual Conference. Neither the hotel nor NLADA provided Internet access in the conference rooms, and I didn’t spend enough time awake in my hotel room to use the connection there. But I promise that I took lots of notes and will share [...]
The American Bar Association Legal Technology Resource Center recently posted a comparision of three major blogging platforms. - K
Posted in Web 2.0/Social Networking
In a controversial move on September 5, 2007, Facebook launched a “public listing search” which allows anyone to search for a specific person. A public search listing provides, at most, the name and profile picture of any Facebook member that has their search privacy settings set to “Everyone.”According to The Facebook Blog; "we are making limited public search listings available to people who are not logged in to Facebook. We're expanding search so that people can see which of their friends are on Facebook more easily. The public search listing contains less information than someone could find right after signing up anyway, so we're not exposing any new information, and you have complete control over your public search listing". On Fast Company magazine's website, a blogger notes that this decision by Facebook creates a de facto whitepages directory of its members. To avoid being "outed" by Facebook, simply login to your Facebook account, and from the Search Privacy page edit your profile and change your privacy settings for "Who can find my public listing outside of Facebook". By default, the settings for "Allow anyone to see my public search listing" and "Allow my public search listing to be indexed by external search engines (ex. Google, Yahoo, MSN) are enabled. Which begs the question, was this always Facebook's intention? On this page you can also specify which Facebook users can find you in a search and what people can do with search results. The Center for Digital Democracy is committed to preserving the openness and diversity of the Internet. The advent of Web 2.0, open source and Google apps is the fruit of this preservation. However, in an open, creative and capitalistic society this also breeds the likes of Rapleaf and Upscoop, sites designed to exploit the information provided by Social Networks. Cause for real concern however is the Google acquisition of DoubleClick. This pairs the Internet's most popular profiler search engine and Internet's largest targeted advertising company. The potential for abuse is staggering. Already questions have arisen regarding anti-trust issues and privacy safeguards. Facebook's blog doesn't name a specific date but says that “in a few weeks” they will allow these Public Search listings to be found by popular search engines. As of July 2007, according to Wikipedia, Facebook had the largest number of registered users among college-focused sites and non-collegiate networks with over 34 million active members worldwide. In light of the recent security breach of Monster.com and the resulting fraud due to violations of privacy, it remains to be seen what effect, if any this decision will have on Facebook's popularity. While the situation at Monster.com was a clear case of thieves sneaking in the back door, the very nature of social networking is to throw the doors wide open.
|
