Business & management:
• Fairfax Media has announced that it is purchasing Waiheke Marketplace to add to its Auckland community newspapers.
• The suggestion has been made that Enterprise 2.0 “will not fulfil its potential unless its foundation is more than just web technologies or networked businesses. We need to integrate [a] democratic organising principle into our discussions…”
Education:
• Some universities in the US are giving their students free Apple iPhones or Internet-capable iPods (students choosing the iPhone pay for the phone service), but all the uses and impacts aren’t yet known.
• Free software that allows people to create online learning courses on Facebook is now available from a company called Udutu.
• Abertay University is teaching an MSc Ethical Hacking and Computer Security course that will explore the methods criminals use to attack networks, and will teach students how to test systems for vulnerabilities and find ways to protect them.
Environment & sustainability:
• The Business Council for Sustainable Development has just released their report “New Zealand faces full allocation of fresh water in next four years” The Council has also released a survey of NZers, showing that there is strong support for proposed reforms.
• As part of World Water Week last week, a collaborative paper has been released that shows that 50% of food produced world-wide is wasted, which means a lot of wasted water to grow it.
• The LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification system of sustainable architecture is going to go through sweeping changes in 2009.
• Researchers at a Massachusetts polytechnic are looking at how to use the heat from asphalt roads to provide electricity and hot water.
Health & wellbeing:
• A group of UK MPs is calling for sex and relationship education to be compulsory for primary school children, as a way to help reduce teenage pregnancy rates, abortion and sexually transmitted diseases.
• The director of a US non-profit organisation that aims to stimulate discussion on alcohol in the American culture has a message about the unintended consequences of the US age restriction on alcohol to those over 21: binge drinking, the possession of fake IDs, the frustrating difficulty of enforcement and the ineffectiveness of the abstinence-only message.
• Clinical trials are being done on a “robotic suit” that will allow some people paralysed from the waist down, to walk again.
Law & Government:
• Just released – the 2 mandatory standards “Create and maintain recordkeeping standard” and “The electronic recordkeeping metadata standard”.
• The UNEP is calling for cuts in fossil fuel subsidies that benefit the poor in a new report “Reforming energy subsidies: opportunities to contribute to the climate change agenda”, arguing that many of these subsidies benefit wealthier portions of society and divert national funds from policies to help the poor.
• “Positive squatting”, where squatters manage to make a formal or informal agreement with a landlord to make productive use of an empty building, is still unusual in the UK, but “community-based squatting” that allows for “building recycling” can bring local community benefits.
• The UK Home Office is introducing interactive crime maps (similar to those used in US cities. However, since the maps rely on reported crimes, there is concern that wide variations in reporting rates across the UK may skew the view of an area.
• A report by the UK Electoral Commission says the electoral system is "stretched to breaking point" and unfit for the challenges of the 21st century.
• The Ministry of Social Development has released its 2008 Social Development Report today. The Families Commission is concerned about work-life balance - the report shows that those people most likely to have young families (employees aged 25 to 49) are least likely to be satisfied with their work-life balance.
People, culture & diversity:
• In spite of concerns in the EU about the impacts of an ageing population, Britain’s greater birth rate out of the biggest six EU countries (Germany, France, Britain, Italy, Spain and Poland) means the UK has less to fear about any "generation wars" brought on by the "demographic time bomb" of ageing and shrinking populations. In spite of this, there is still concern that attitudes to the ageing in the UK need to change and that policy changes need to happen as well.
Science, technology & transport:
• Intel and Yahoo are going to collaborate to produce TV access that will include Internet applications, without interfering with the viewing experience.
• Intel is also working on magnetic induction technology that will mean the end of cables, wires and wall sockets to power your electronic appliances.
• Microsoft watchers believe that Internet Explorer 8 will include a privacy mode, which limits how much information is recorded about where users go online and what they do. Apple already has a privacy mode in its Safari browser and Mozilla are working on it for future versions of the Firefox browser.
• The 50th anniversary of the invention of the microchip is next month.
• As long as you have a signal or a wireless connection, you can now play music, watch photos and read documents as if they were local. Free access to 1 terabyte of storage space is available on a Web-based digital media content hosting and management system, called Oosah, which also features a version optimized for the iPhone.
• Apple has been reprimanded by the UK Advertising Standards Authority over an ad that implies that the iPhone gives full Internet access. However, the iPhone has not been enabled to use programs like Flash and Java, affecting viewing of pages using such programs.
• Researchers in the US have developed a fast new process for the production of biodiesel that has huge benefits over conventional production, including the lack of any need for water or any dangerous chemicals.
Thursday, 28 August 2008
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