Business & management:
• Organisations that have embraced writing in plain English can take part in the WriteMark Plain English Awards, with the winners to be announced in September. The awards will include a “People’s Choice Award”.
Education
• Schools in the US are registering with the US Green Building Council’s LEED certification program, showing that they intend to build and operate schools that are more energy and water efficient.
Environment & sustainability:
• The Sustainable Development Commission in the UK has produced a report “Health place and nature. How outdoor environments influence health and well-being:
a knowledge base”.
• The suggestion has been made that degradation of the mangrove forests on Myanmar’s coast may have played a part in the seriousness of the current disaster. Since the 2005 Indian Ocean tsunami, mangroves have received greater attention for their potential in protecting coastlines against storm surges, although there is still dispute amongst scientists over their role.
• A US Dept of Energy feasibility report says that 20% of US electricity could be provided by wind power by the year 2030 – the same proportion of power generated now by nuclear power plants.
Health & wellbeing:
• Cigarette vending machines that can recognise the age of the purchaser are waiting for approval to be introduced in Japan, to help in preventing under-age smokers.
• A Canadian analysis that looks at the relationship between health records and sales receipts alcoholic shows that hospitalisations for assault go up in direct relation to increased alcohol sales near the victims' homes.
Law & Government:
• Winners of the Association of Local Government Information Management Best of the Best Web Awards have been announced, with Northland Regional Council winning best website design in 2008, while Inland Revenue has won best government site in the People's Choice NetGuide web awards for the second time in three years.
• District planning could be challenged by a small London parish, as residents claim their parish still has “liberty” status in an attempt to prevent the construction of a high rise development.
• The London Thames Gateway Development Corporation is leading a regeneration programme to the east of London, that will see over 8000 new homes built and almost as many new jobs.
People, culture & diversity:
• Research has shown that although NZers don’t know their neighbours well, most would like to – if time pressures and an overall reduction in community friendliness and trust weren’t an issue.
• Facebook announced a series of changes last week that it will be making to its site to increase security for young web users, in an agreement with 49 attorney generals of US states. At the same time, a debt charity in the UK is warning about credit card advertising on Facebook, targeted at young people.
• In NZ, Netsafe’s Hector’s World has been available to all primary school children since 2005/6, teaching them about internet safety. The animated dolphin has now been launched in primary schools in the UK.
• MySpace is now allowing its users to share their public profile content with any other website, rather than restricting it to only other MySpace users.
• Online or virtual worlds aimed at children under the age of 13 are increasingly popular, giving them freedom to express themselves. One virtual child’s site has 90 million account holders.
Science, technology & transport:
• A technical fellow from Boeing has described a hybrid plane-car under development that could make “aviation available to everyone as a daily means of transportation”, at the Electric Aircraft Symposium in California.
• Bournemouth is to be the first town in the UK to have super-fast broadband fibre laid via the sewers, a method of laying the cables that is considered to be cheaper and more environmentally friendly, as roads do not have to be dug up.
• Google has announced the launch of its move into the social side of the Internet, with its Friend Connect tools.
• Should the Internet be divided into 2 zones, one “safe”, and one a free environment? This is one of the ideas put forward in a recently published book on possible future directions for the Internet.
• Internet telephony fraud is showing a new trend, where usernames and passwords for voice-over-IP phone accounts are being sold for more than stolen credit cards.
Thursday, 15 May 2008
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