Science Library Pad

CLA 2007 and preconf in St. John's

This is the best presentation description I've read in a long time

Rick Anderson is convinced that the future of libraries will be a dismal one if we don't let go of certain cherished assumptions and traditional mindsets and realign our thinking in some radical and far-reaching ways. He likens library patrons to a river, and the traditional library to an expensive, unwieldy and, ultimately, fatally flawed system of dams and levies designed to force patrons in unnatural directions, a system that is already cracked and leaking and threatens to give way entirely. Among the topics he addresses are:

    * How the OPAC is destroying the library profession
    * Why most serials management tasks are a waste of time
    * Why it's better to give a man a fish than to teach a man to fish
    * Why we should stop thinking like good librarians and start thinking like bad patrons

CLA 2007 TSIG-SIG preconference - May 23, 2007 - Keynote - Restructuring Our Thinking: New Mindsets for Librarianship in a Radically Changed Information Environment

The main CLA 2007 conference site is

http://www.cla.ca/conference/2007/

PS that's Canadian Libraries, not Californian

Canadian scientists prep for International Polar Year

The top and the bottom of the world will become much busier places over the next two years as more than 50,000 international scientists are expected to trek there to poke and prod and study the effects of climate change.

The International Polar Year program officially kicks off tomorrow in Paris, but events will also be held around the world, including in Ottawa and Whitehorse.

The multimillion-dollar research will take place through March of 2009 to ensure that scientists from 63 countries can work for two full seasons in both polar regions on a wide range of research, including studies on ocean currents, reindeer, glaciers and Arctic human health.

...

The federal government has contributed $150-million toward the Canadian IPY program, the most of any participating country.

...

the more than 2,000 Canadian researchers participating in this polar year will be gathering and analyzing evidence about how human-induced climate change has transformed the Arctic region. Some of those larger projects include studies of polar bears, the disappearing permafrost and Arctic glaciers and the ecosystem in Yukon's Kluane National Park.

Globe and Mail - Polar-year scientists go with the floe - Wednesday February 28, 2007

UPDATE: There is a map server showing polar year projects available at

http://www.ualberta.ca/~ipy/CANIPY/

Dyson Canada $5000 Student Design Award

Participation is open to full time students enrolled at a recognized college, CEGEP, or university in Canada or to individuals in their first year of work (within one year of graduation). Entrants must be Canadian residents. The entry must be received by 5:00 pm Eastern Standard Time on November 15, 2007.

...

Entries are not restricted by theme or product group, rather the product submitted should reflect the Dyson philosophy of ‘complete design’ – a concept that focuses on the total product

Dyson Canada Student Design Award

shall all have photography prizes?

The Musée de l'Elysée in Lausanne Switzerland wants to put your work on their gallery walls. You can upload your photographs via the web and if selected, they'll email you a photograph of your work on display in the gallery. Check out We Are All Photographers Now! for more information on how to participate.

via FlickrBlog

advanced use of Yahoo Pipes for carbon calculation

The Blog based, RSS using, Yahoo pipe executed Carbon footprint calculator

Some fantastic work from Service Architecture.  I plan to investigate it a lot more, as my attempts to geocode using Yahoo Pipes were not very successful.

from scientific imagination to running instrument, via machine shop

An extensive article in the Ottawa Citizen today about how the NRC Machine Shop transforms scientists' ideas into working instruments:

A machine built on a scientist's dream

PS I don't know where they got "150 scientists at NRC", maybe they meant at the Sussex location?  Because while not everyone at NRC is a scientist, with a total staff around 4000 I'm sure we have several thousand scientists.

Previously:
March 7, 2006  building the most accurate clock on the planet

in search of Autumn - a real-world quest

Anyone who has obsessively searched for a piece of information will appreciate this tale from Vanity Fair, about the search for the location of a treasured desktop wallpaper

Autumn and the Plot Against Me

via Digg

Suzuki using myclimate to offset carbon from cross-Canada tour

The Globe reports that Canadian environmentalist David Suzuki is offsetting the carbon pollution from his current cross-Canada tour using Swiss provider myclimate

https://www.myclimate.org/EN_ticket/ticket_insert1.php

Just out of curiousity, I compared a YOW-YHZ roundtrip (how geeky am I to remember airport codes, sigh)

myclimate (ticket star - "the full impact of your flight on the climate is compensated"):

Ottawa (CA)   -   Halifax (CA)   -  Ottawa (CA)
this flight covers a distance of 1'908 km.

One myclimate ticket costs 22.00 Swiss Francs and compensates for the emission of
567 kilograms of CO2

Total price     CHF 25.00
[Google says 22 Swiss Francs = Can$20.60]

Green My Flight:

OTTAWA - YOW to HALIFAX - YHZ: 955.7 km

Total Distance: 1911.4 km
Total Emissions: 259.8 kg
Program Cost: $7.00

So I'm guessing that basically myclimate considers full impact to be double raw CO₂

my review of the Sony K790 cameraphone

Summary

This is a very full-featured phone, with a lot of great capabilities.  If you're looking for a phone plus an MP3 player, FM radio, and camera, this may be a good choice for you.  The phone does not have built-in GPS.

As low as $200 from Rogers if you take a first-time three-year contract.  As low as $300 from Rogers if you have an existing contract and extend it for three years.  $410 direct from Sony Style Canada, without any contract.

Minimum user available memory: 64 MB (mine actually had about 74MB free).  Expandable with Memory Stick Micro (M2) card.  Used a 1GB card, $55 from Sony Style Canada.  Current maximum available is 2GB.

Headphones, power, USB etc. connect with proprietary Sony Fast Port connector.  Power cable has passthrough to connect another Fast Port accessory while charging.  It also charges automatically when plugged into USB (which may save you hauling around the power cable, e.g. if you have a laptop).  Adapter to use regular headphones is available.

You can semi-automatically geocode photos, but only with the addition of an external Bluetooth GPS (not included) and added software

May be available unlocked from various vendors, in the US you can try e.g. Amazon, searching Sony k790.  Here's a link to one result I found:

Amazon.com - Sony K790a (unlocked) from Soar Dime

Details

This phone has a huge number of features, I will walk through the ones of interest to me item-by-item.
As some background, I had a number of drivers.  I wanted to see what the state of the art was for cellphone as integration platform.  I wanted to have a camera all the time, without having to remember to bring my Canon PowerShot, so that when I'm walking down the street and think "hey, that would be a great shot" I can actually take the photo.  And I dreamed that perhaps the phone GPS + camera capabilities might let me automatically geocode photos.  I also wanted international roaming, but most any Rogers GSM phone on a contract plan would have given me that.

First I did a quick comparison survey to see what advanced phones were available and coming, and picked the K790.  Check the survey for more info about the K790's capabilities.

I learned a few things: one, there is a "conceptual" base unlocked phone, and then there is the actual phone as modified by your wireless carrier - not all features the phone supports may be available.  Also, wireless Internet over cellphone from Rogers is bloody expensive, which limits a lot of the Java Internet stuff you may want to do.

Here's the phone (with strap attached) and the M2 memory card, next to a pen for comparison

It comes with lots of accessories: power cable, USB cable, headphones/handsfree microphone.

(above photo taken with the phone itself)

Computer Features: Supplied Windows Software

It comes with a CD, many many drivers are installed, including modem and Ethernet capabilities.

It does not include the Sony Picture Motion software that comes with some Sony Cybershot cameras, which means that the automatic map integration provided by the Sony GPS-CS1 is not available (you can still use the Sony GPS software and software like RoboGEO - see my GPS-CS1 review for more info).

There are two modes for connection: "Phone mode", in which the phone continues to operate and in which you can do file transfers.  Then, confusingly, USB "File Transfer" mode, in which the phone ceases to operate (in terms of receiving calls), and which is required in order to use the music transfer (Disc2Phone) and photo download (Adobe Photoshop Album Starter 3) software.

Features: Digital Music Player

They provide an application Disc2Phone to move music to the phone. Many formats: MP3 etc. (Although it supports AAC, don't interpret that to mean Protected AAC; it will not play DRMed files from the iTunes Music Store.)

The interface on the phone is the usual navigation by Artist, Track or Genre.  You can also make playlists.

Features: Flight Mode

Can you listen to your tunes on the plane?  Yes.  There is a flight mode that turns off all the radio features (cellphone, FM radio, Bluetooth).  This may seem like a somewhat obscure need, but I actually bought my iPod mainly to listen to audiobooks on the plane.

Features: FM Radio

Requires the headphones (the headphone cord is the antenna).  Works well, nice clean interface.

Features: Blogger

Built-in Blogger integration (mainly intended for photo blogging)

http://www.sonyericsson.com/product/blog/

is not supported by Rogers.

Features: Google Search

Does have built-in Google Search, available from "Activity Menu Key", * Internet->Search Internet

Features: Email

UPDATE 2007-05-08:

Rogers

If you want to avoid data charges, Rogers has an SMS-to-email bi-directional gateway.  Simply compose a text message:

[email protected] (subject) body of message

and send it to address 0000000000

Your email address will be [email protected] where aaabbbcccc is your phone number.  (The client is actually a bit more sophisticated, you can send it a message to set an alias so you can change it to e.g. [email protected] - text alias yourname to 0000000000 - you can also set your name by texting name Firstname Lastname to the same address.)

Built-in Client

The built-in email client is actually quite powerful.  It's available under Messages->Write New->Email or you can access your email inbox and settings (separate from your text message inbox and settings) under Messages->Email.  Note that this will use your data plan.  I set up a Rogers Internet secondary account for my phone, but presumably you could use any POP or IMAP accessible email account (e.g. Gmail).

You may need to get connection settings.  You can go to www.sonyericsson.com/support and get sent basic settings by SMS.  Once you have those settings, here is an example for a Rogers email address.  (Note: You probably don't want to do this with your mail Rogers account, since you'll end up with some of your email permanently on your phone.  That's why I created a new secondary account.)

Messages->Email->Settings

Create a new account - Account Name of your choice

Connect Using: Rogers Internet (there are many choices, this seemed the most logical one)

Email Address: [email protected]

Connection Type: POP3 (I chose this for Rogers) or IMAP

Incoming Server: pop.broadband.rogers.com

Username: foo

Outgoing Server: smtp.broadband.rogers.com

No Advanced Settings need to be set (although you might want to set Your Name).

That's it.  You should now be able to send and receive emails, including sending photos.

Note: Sending photos by email doesn't work from the photo browser (Cyber-shot->View->Send->As Picture Msg.) - even if you select an email address, it will send the photo to picturemessaging.rogers.com and send an email to the selected address to check out the photo there (Rogers trying to lock you in to their online photo service).

In order to email a photo, you need to either

1) use the file browser: File Manager->Camera Album (select image) More->Send->As Email

or

2) select as a file attachment to an email: Messages->Write New->Email select Attachments Add->Picture

ENDUPDATE

Features: Camera

Turn sideways.  Open camera lens cover.  Press focus button - focus button has a slight metal bump next to it - sometimes press bump by mistake.

Flickr

You can upload to Flickr directly, using mobile Internet to

m.flickr.com

Entering in your username and password (and any textual information) is quite tedious though.

The phone seems to have a bit of a split camera/phone personality.
For example, it would seem logical to do

Flickr->Upload a photo
Select

(Phone Menu that came up automatically) Select File->Camera Picture

but when I do that, I get "Another application is running.  Close it, and then start the camera."  What the heck?  So ok fine, I go to the next logical

(Phone Menu that came up automatically) Select File->Picture

but none of my photos are there, just some pre-loaded little images.
It transpires that I have to do

(Phone) Main Sony Menu->File Manager->All Files->Camera Album

then select the image I want, then More->Manage File->Copy->Phone->Pictures

Well, that wasn't confusing or anything.  I have to copy pictures from the... phone... to the... phone.
All completely logical.
Why doesn't Camera Album come up as a choice in the Select Files automenu?  What's the difference between "Camera Album" and "Camera Pictures"?

Anyhoo, once you have the image copied into Pictures it can be... slowly... uploaded.  It is NOT automatically geotagged/geocoded.

Rogers

Rogers has its own, rather confusing, online picture service.

You go to rogers.com/mypix which takes you to

http://www.picturemessaging.rogers.com/

Pictures I had sent were in Messages->Stored Messages, and could be copied to a photo album from there.  It's not clear to me whether "photo album" images can actually be shared on the Internet, or only sent to other phones via MMS.

Sony Ericsson

Provides free storage space, I haven't tested it much.  Go to

http://www.sonyericsson.com/fun/wxhtml/overview1?cc=CA&lc=en&lf_res=ca&remove=?

Photo Quality

Here are two photos, roughly the same shot, taken in nice bright sunlight, first one from the K790 (set to "normal" quality) and then one from my Canon PowerShot S70

I'm afraid I have to characterize the camera in the K790 as merely adequate.  This is not too surprising - there is not much room to put in good lens optics - as it is, the lens is a bulge on the back of the phone.  I find the K790 tends to have substantial blur on edges, rather than having clean sharp lines.  And I am not a particularly picky photographer.  That being said, the camera is more than fine for sending picture messages or even taking casual pics - which is all I wanted.

(I don't think this is a megapixel issue, I took thousands of pictures with my 3 megapixel Canon PowerShot S20 and they were sharp even when blown up to huge 20"x30" prints.)

UPDATE 2007-03-02: There is an option to choose between "normal" and "fine" (higher-quality) photos, in Settings->Picture Quality.  I believe that "fine" mode just adjusts the JPEG compression, thus resulting in larger image files where more of the fine details should be retained.

The camera has many settings, just like a regular digital camera, I won't go into them all.  I recommend the extensive review of the photographic capabilities from Mobile-review.com, as part of their detailed examination of the K790.

ENDUPDATE

On Flickr

Unfortunately Flickr considers all the variant models of the K790 (K800x and K790x) to be completely different.  You can see photos from the various models at

http://www.flickr.com/cameras/sonyericsson/k790a/ (North America)

http://www.flickr.com/cameras/sonyericsson/k790i/ (international except NA and China)

http://www.flickr.com/cameras/sonyericsson/k790c/ (China)

http://www.flickr.com/cameras/sonyericsson/k800i/

Automatically Geocoding

This is a bit of a dream of mine: take a photo and have it automatically stamped with its location.  For more details, see my geocoding photos page.  I can report that we are... almost... there.  Although I had seen the K790 reported as having a GPS, there certainly weren't any Java-accessible built-in GPS features available to the software I downloaded.  (All cellphones must have positioning capability for enhanced 911, but it gets rather obscure rather quickly how many of them have full GPS built-in.)

The software that was best was j2memap.  A bit difficult to get the right version installed (I managed to get 0.914 eventually) but then very smooth - it requested access to the Internet (I assume this is combination of the phone and Java doing the request) and then was able to locate the Bluetooth GPS I had paired with the phone (my Holux GPSlim236).  Pulled down the Google satellite image of where I was standing, very cool (and as I mentioned before, unfortunately very expensive due to Internet costs on the phone).   You can take a picture using the software and it will send it to Flickr  along with the geotags for your location.  Therein lies the "almost" automatic bit.  It's not clear whether Flickr will, in the background, convert machine geotags (geo:lat, geo:lon) into a map link, or whether you have to manually run Flickr's (hidden feature) Geo Import each time.  It also doesn't appear to be possible to set either photo privacy or location privacy when uploading.

Anyway, kudos to the j2memap people for an amazing application - it's a shame I won't be able to use it much, due to the outrageous 3 cent to 5 cent per kilobyte Internet data charges from Rogers.

I also attempted to use Shozu, but it asked for a whole bunch of Java rights settings, and then wanted me to enter a bunch of APN info for Internet access that I know nothing about, and I'm pretty sure they asked for my phone number too.

Features: Strap

The strap itself is thick, but it connects to the phone via a very thin string; I am dubious about the ability of this string to withstand much abuse.  Worst of both worlds - thick inflexible strap with thin connection to actual phone.

Computer Features: Automatic Update

The ability to automatically update the software on the phone is provided.  I do not recommend this procedure, unless you either have a major bug you know will be fixed, or a major feature that will be added.  You are basically doing a firmware replacement - anyone familiar with this term will already be shuddering.  You have to remove the SIM card and place the phone in a special update mode.  The problem: if the update fails, your phone may be dead.  Totally dead.  No power-on, no way (AFAIK) to reset.  As you may guess, this happened to me with the update process, which reported rather bizarre completion percentages, then died partway through, declaring "your phone software is up-to-date".  My phone was, in fact, totally dead.  Very fortunately, I was able to reboot and re-run the update, which completed successfully and brought my phone back to life.

Features: Expand Memory with M2 card

This is easy to do, just stick the card in the side.  As with many such devices, it has quite a strong partitioning between the memory card and the internal phone memory - you have to designate stuff to go to one or the other.

Compatibility: Mac (as USB drive)

While there is no Mac software, you can just plug the phone in as a USB drive on the Mac, if you want to download photos or upload music.  You don't have to do anything special, just put it in file transfer mode and plug it in.  The phone and memory card show up separately.

(I assume it will also work in Linux in the same way, but I haven't tested it.)

Feature: Remote Control (using Bluetooth)

UPDATE 2007-02-24: This phone has so many features I'm sure it will take me months to explore them all.  One I just tried is using the phone as a remote control, over Bluetooth.  The whole procedure went very smoothly (the way these technology things should work, but usually don't).  Turn Bluetooth on in the cellphone, make the phone visible.  Then on my Mac PowerBook (OS X 10.4.8) laptop also turn on Bluetooth and discover the phone.  The Mac detected and paired with the phone no problem, and gave the following capabilitity options: address book, modem and remote control.  I clicked to agree and that was it.  Set the phone into Remote Control - Presenter mode

The above shows the screen that comes up in Presenter mode, showing the remapping of various phone keys.

The main controls for slides are the up/down buttons on the right side of the phone - very nice ergonomics if you're holding the phone in your hand - just use your thumb, no need to even look down at the phone.  Fired up Keynote 3 and started playing a presentation - clicking the slides back and forth just worked automatically.  Also worked fine with Mac PowerPoint X.  My preference when presenting is to be able to walk around, and I've always wanted one of those clickers that some presenters have, but I was never willing to shell out for one, particularly without being sure that it would work with the Mac.

I will definitely be trying this out in my next presentation.  (Although I wonder: what happens when you get a phone call in the middle of your presentation?)

A nifty addition to the phone, and kudos to Sony Ericsson and Apple for making it all work more or less automagically, although it's not entirely clear to me how to reconnect for Remote Control without having to re-do Bluetooth discovery on the Mac again.

Another potential external device consolidated into the phone.

You can find it under Menu->Entertainment->Remote Control

And for the sharp-eyed amongst you, yes, Remote Control - Desktop option makes the phone work like a remote mouse, the mini-joystick on the phone can be used to remotely control the mouse pointer, and you can do mouse clicks and access a limited number of keyboard keys as well.  Also kind of cool although I'm not sure I will ever use Desktop mode in practice.

ENDUPDATE

Other Comments and Notes

Phone so good at power saving it's difficult to tell when it's on. Very quick to black screen.  No time or charging display (when in black screen powersaving mode).  "Themes" create somewhat distracting screen - time for some reason either tiny and hard to read, or larger but faint and hard to read - would prefer to have nice bright clear time on the display.  Couldn't find a built-in theme that didn't interfere with reading the time.

UPDATE 2007-03-01: When the phone is in standby (black screen) mode, you can press the up/down (zoom in/out) buttons on the right-hand side of the phone to briefly display a plain grey screen that shows just the current time (in black).  ENDUPDATE

Yahoo Go is not supported on any Sony Ericsson phones, neither is Yahoo ZoneTag.

You can download MP3 ringtunes from Sony for free, but it won't let you set them (Rogers prevents you from using MP3s as ringtones).

UPDATE 2007-04-17: In response to a comment, the easiest way to get downloads for your phone is to go to

http://www.sonyericsson.com/

then select your country and phone, and go to "Fun & Downloads".

The specific link for Canada K790 is

http://www.sonyericsson.com/fun/wxhtml/download1/download1_1?cc=CA&lc=en&products=K790a

There may also be a built-in link on your phone itself, check your Internet links (click the button on the right face of the phone, between the right -- and the C key, it's the * tab in the display that comes up).

ENDUPDATE

Developer Info

http://developer.sonyericsson.com/site/global/products/phonegallery/k790/p_k790.jsp

Java - Sony Ericsson's Java™ Platform 7 (JP-7) / Java Micro Edition - appears to be the main platform for K790 applications.

In Conclusion

I really am pleased with the phone overall.  I am hoping I can use it in many cases to eliminate carrying an iPod, and in some cases to eliminate carrying a camera.  It's unfortunate that in-phone GPS capabilities haven't caught on yet, but I'm sure this is coming within the next couple generations of phones (the Nokia N95 puts a big emphasis on GPS).  It's also very unfortunately that the extremely high cost of the Rogers data plan means that I will not be running many otherwise cool Internet/Java applications.

PS The Memory Stick Micro M2 really is the size of my thumbnail:

Here are some options for M2 memory from Amazon.com.  UPDATE 2007-08-13: Added 4GB card.

Note: Do not confuse Memory Stick Micro with MicroSD, a completely different, incompatible memory card format.

UPDATE 2007-05-05: In the US, you can get cell phones and plans directly through Amazon; the specific offerings depend on your location.

Internet on a phone: be very afraid

I remember a while back in a course watching a presentation about the wonders of 3G cellphone networks to come and saying something along the lines of "why is 1 megabit per second [1000 Kbps] to your cellphone a big deal when you can already get 10 megabits per second with WiFi?"

Now that there's WiMax, the situation is even stranger.

In Canada, from a single vendor, Rogers, you can get (ignoring modem/device cost):

Home Internet over cable - most expensive plan (Extreme) is $52/month for up to 100GB, at 6000 Kbps down, 800 up

Portable Internet (using WiMax AFAIK, requires a lot of power e.g. walljack) - most expensive plan is $50/month for up to 30GB, at 1500Kbps down, 256 up

Cellphone Internet: either 5 cents per kilobyte, or get a "navigate mobile Internet" plan for $5/month with 2 megabytes free, then 3 cents per kilobyte

Let's say you want to send/receive just 1 gigabyte per month, 1000 megabytes, 1,000,000 kilobytes.  This is not exactly a lot of data these days - 1 gig will fit on a memory card the size of my thumbnail.

Home Internet: $52 and you could still send/receive another 99GB

Portable Internet: $50 and you could still send/receive another 29GB

Cellphone Internet: 1 million x 5 cents = $50,000.  That's right.  Fifty thousand dollars.
Or, if you subscribe to the Rogers data plan, $5 + 999,998 x 3 cents = only $30,004.94 $5 + 998,000 x 3 cents = only $29,940

If you don't think this is a real concern, a single photo sent to Flickr might be as much as 100 kilobytes.  A single Java application download is often about 1000 kilobytes.

So I don't think I'll be exploring much of the exciting world of cellphone Internet any time soon.

UPDATE: You might say, why not do all kinds of stuff through SMS/MMS text/photo messages?

Yes, of course Rogers does offer text messaging.  Which, I assume, confusingly, includes photo and video messages.  But its worse than that.  Usually to e.g. upload to Flickr, I want to MMS to an email address.  No problem.  Except the phone interface doesn't provide any information whatsoever about whether you're sending an MMS message (cheap) or whether you're sending an Internet email (outrageously expensive as indicated above).  Are all emails sent and received as SMS?  Are only some?  Not clear.

When I send an email, I get a cute little email icon on my screen... and the ominous world globe that I see when I access the Internet.  This is ridiculous.  I have tons of screen realestate.  I would like to see the following: if SMS/MMS, display harmless cute little icon.  If Internet, display large red label

WARNIN: Internet access.  You have just spent x gazillion dollars.

And yes, you can in theory download Java apps to your PC and then transfer them to your phone, but there is no documentation whatsoever on how to do so - it's not even clear if it's supported - the Applications folder doesn't show up as a possible destination on the phone file system when connected to the PC.

Ontario mulls banning incandescent lights too

Ontario is considering becoming the first province in Canada to follow Australia's lead in banning old-fashioned, energy-sucking light bulbs, Environment Minister Laurel Broten said Wednesday as the province draws up a plan to cut its greenhouse gas emissions.

Conservative Leader John Tory and environmental groups are urging the government to ban incandescent bulbs in favour of energy-efficient ones, saying it's the push people need to save electricity...

By [Liberal] Premier Dalton McGuinty's estimate, replacing every old-fashioned bulb with an energy-efficient one would allow the province to shut down one coal-fired power plant.

...

Ontario would be breaking ground in Canada if it started phasing out incandescent bulbs. The province has to do something to reduce harmful emissions, Mr. McGuinty said.

“We'll take a look at a host of options that might be available to us to help Ontarians better understand that we're entering into a new era,” Mr. McGuinty said.

But Conservative Leader John Tory said the Liberals should stop mulling over options and act now.

(Apologies to Americans if our conservatives sound more environmentally "liberal" than some of your liberals.)

Globe and Mail - CP - Ontario may ban old light bulbs - February 21, 2007

Previously:
February 20, 2007  Australia to ban incandescent light bulbs

DRM and legal music in Canada

I haven't been tracking this issue much lately, I'm afraid I'm such an early adopter that my interest started in 2001

http://web.archive.org/web/20010607052414/http://www.chebucto.ns.ca/~rakerman/digimusic.html

and that after Apple (finally) launched iTunes in December 2004, I stopped paying much attention to the issue of the availability of legal, Mac-friendly, and ideally non-DRMed music in Canada.

There has been a lot of buzz about the topic of music DRM lately though, plus my new Sony phone plays MP3s but not, of course, the protected AACs from the iTunes store.

Steve Jobs has been under pressure in Europe to open up iTunes, his response was to examine a number of options, ending with what some read as a call for the elimination of DRM.

With cellphones gaining more features each year, it's becoming obvious to me that the phone is the logical place to have your music, rather than juggling two devices.  Other figures in the electronics industry see a strong benefit from removing DRM, in order (one assumes) to open up more content for use on their phones.  The Globe reports today on RIM speaking out in favour of non-DRMed music.

"I think [DRM is] just going to break down with the normal proliferation of the Internet," Mr. Balsillie told analysts and investors at an RBC Dominion Securities Inc. conference in Toronto. "It's going to be tough. I think [content providers] are going to have to shift their business models. But they will go down swinging."

As well, out yesterday was Cassandra Szklarski's CP story Music labels flirt with looser DRM rules.  The big news is that PureTracks, a Canadian service, is selling unencumbered MP3s for a small set of artists now, in addition to its tradition WMA Windows Media DRMed songs.  However, if you're on a Mac, you're still greeted with

A polite message that would, nevertheless, in another context be called a "PFO".  Basically, thanks for visiting, only Windows is supported, have a nice day.

For Nettwork at least (BNL, Sarah McLachlan and others) you can buy directly from their Nettwerk Werkshop store (formerly Nettmusic).  Works great on a Mac.  I bought The Perishers - Sway EP from there a long time ago, still one of my favourite sets of tracks.

Rogers has also been promoting something called the Rogers MusicStore

http://rogers.com/musicstore

It has three basic features:
1. An application called Rogers MediaPlayer that is Windows 2000+ only.

2. The ability to have "unlimited" downloads to a PC or PC and mobile phone.  These downloads are DRMed, I think they will only play in Rogers Mobile MediaPlayer on selected cellphones.  And if you stop your subscription to the unlimited download service?  Poof, no access to any of that music any more.

Rogers FAQ: What happens to the songs I’ve downloaded to my PC or mobile phone when I cancel my Unlimited subscription?

If you cancel your Rogers MusicStore Unlimited Music Subscription, you won’t be able to play the songs you have downloaded to your PC or mobile phone.

3. Pay per download.  Still DRMed.

Rogers FAQ - What are Rogers MusicStore pricing options?
What is pay per download Music?

Pay per download Music refers to purchasing tracks a la carte, one at a time. Each downloaded track will appear as a unique charge on your wireless bill. Pay per downlaod songs also are encoded with DRM, but these tracks are owned by the customer indefinitely. The songs can be played an unlimited number of times, at any time the customer wants. These songs can also be burned to CD.

Pay per download pricing is, err, a bit outrageous

You can browse, preview and download songs to your PC for $1.25 per song or download songs to both your PC and your mobile phone for $1.99, plus a $1 mobile download fee.

To download music from the MusicStore on your phone you must have a supported phone because you must use the aforementioned Mobile MusicPlayer (624KB download).  Featuring a big glowing red EULA you must agree to before starting the software.

Attempting to buy ABBA's "Money, Money, Money" through my cellphone brought up yet another set of terms and conditions, in which I appeared to be agreeing to a monthly MusicStore subscription, so I cancelled the purchase.

Ridiculous.

But the Sony phone is no better in a way - it has a proprietary interface, the "Fast Port", rather than a regular headphone jack, which means that in order to use any normal headphone I have to buy a special FastPort-headphone jack adapter.

Basically the underlying problem with any proprietary technology, whether it's DRM or an interface, is it makes hugely unreasonable assumptions in an age of technological change, along the lines of:

• everyone uses a Windows PC or device that supports Windows DRM or
• everyone uses an iPod
• hard drives (or any other forms of storage) never fail
• authentication services (needed to verify and play DRMed songs) will never fail, and will be available forever
• you never need to move content from one platform to another

What I also find frustrating, and part of what motivated me to create my page on digital music 6 years ago, is that even if you want to obey the law, the music (and movie etc.) industry puts barriers in your way.  In 2001 the main problem was I couldn't buy many songs online legally in Canada at all.  Now there is a lot more content available, but still not all.  Want to get the UK TV series Hex on DVD in Canada?  Sorry, region 2 DVDs only.  Want to buy "Glass Vase Cello Case" by Tattletale from the iTunes Music Store Canada?  Sorry, not available.  Want to buy any TV show of any kind from iTunes Canada?  Sorry, no TV shows available.  How bizarre is it that I have no way to legally acquire desired digital content?  Talk about your marketplace gaps.

UPDATE: You can also buy music legally in Canada from Sony Connect

http://www.sonyconnect.ca/

Windows only, you have to download their SonicStage app or access a different site that only supports Windows Internet Explorer.  The test songs I bought were all downloaded as OpenMG DRMed ATRAC files.  Brilliant, take a format no one uses (ATRAC, "the 8 track of digital music formats", yet another bit of proprietary Sony brilliance) and then put extra DRM on top of it.

ENDUPDATE

EMusic remains my fave store so far, although I haven't bought from them since their long-ago days of unlimited legal MP3 downloads for a fixed monthly fee.

You can find more (somewhat dated) info at

http://www.akerman.ca/digimusic.html

PS I took a picture of the music store purchase agreement when I tried to buy the ABBA song but--I am not making this up--my camera's hard drive crashed.  Which is a good reminder that the probability of a hard drive failing is 100%.  On the plus side, it had lasted something like 7 years--it was an IBM/Hitachi 340MB Microdrive.

undersea cyberinfrastructure

Some interesting Canadian science sensor workflow achievements, albeit with a typically complex IBM solution

In September 2005, [VENUS] Data Management Archive System (DMAS) was awarded a grant from the CANARIE Intelligent Infrastructure Program (CIIP) for a project called: “Toward a Service Oriented Architecture and Workflow Management for VENUS and NEPTUNE”. The goals of this project were to provide these two high profile Canadian Cabled Ocean Observatories with an integrated scientific instruments management system, the capability to deliver event information to users, as well as integrated access to distributed compute and data resources through the use of innovative technologies.

The initial draft of the Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) was proposed by IBM Canada, one of the largest R&D investors in Canada. This architecture was later refined by the DMAS team. It is worth mentioning that this is also the approach taken by Alcatel for the interaction with the NEPTUNE backbone.

This style of information systems architecture enables the NEPTUNE Canada and VENUS DMAS to be built by combining loosely coupled and interoperable services. The IBM Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) with its underlying message system WebSphere MQ provides the features such as point-to-point data delivery and message publish-and subscribe to implement the DMAS SOA.

Bill St. Arnaud - Cyber-infrastructure for undersea instruments and networks - in CAnet News - February 20, 2007

in which I receive a hard drive

In case you're wondering if web contests are for real, the Seagate blog one was.
Although one might take issue with the delays in getting the winners posted, I certainly don't take issue with my shiny, blue-glowing disc of a prize

(The centre glows blue when the hard drive is accessed.)

It fits in the palm of my hand and can easily be carried in a pocket.  (I suppose for true Canadian content I should say "about the size and shape of a hockey puck with rounded edges".)  It beats my current portable storage solution (a 1GB USB key) by a factor of 8.  So I'm very pleased.  It's actually a better prize for me than the 2nd prize would have been.

Previously:
January 17, 2007  in which I win a prize

LibraryThing 1100

The 1100th book I've entered into my LibraryThing library is Paris Inside Out: The Insiders Handbook to Life in Paris, 7th Edition.  It just arrived from Amazon today, in advance of a trip later this year.

In case you're wondering how I got from 864 to 1100, I indexed a bunch of my books that are in storage.

Previously:
July 23, 2006  my LibraryThing 864 update

FeedBurner reporting Google readers

FeedBurner is now reporting the number of users reading your feed using Google Reader (and other Google RSS environments).  To my considerable surprise, this number is on par with my Bloglines readers.  Judging by the discussion, a lot of other people are also surprised at this large number of previously uncounted readers.

2007 Cdn Health Libraries conf in Ottawa

The 2007 Canadian Health Libraries Association (CHLA) conference will be in Ottawa, May 28-June 1.
The programme is available as a web page or PDF.

CISTI participated in the organization of this conference, and will also be providing a number of speakers, including

• Pam Bjornson, CISTI Director-General on Digital Initiatives
• Mary Low on CISTI and the Power of Partnering

Previously:
July 5, 2005  presentations from Canadian Health Libraries Association (CHLA) [2005] conference, including CISTI update

Australia to ban incandescent light bulbs

Australia will ban incandescent light bulbs to help cut greenhouse gas emissions, its government announced today.

Malcolm Turnbull, the environment minister, said replacing the country's incandescent bulbs could prevent up to 4m tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions entering the atmosphere every year by 2015.

Banning the bulbs would also help cut 800,000 tonnes from Australia's current greenhouse gas emissions level by 2012 and lower household lighting costs by 66%, Reuters reported him as saying.

Guardian Unlimited - Australia switches on to light bulb change - February 20, 2007
also see e.g. CBC - Australia says lights out to incandescent bulbs

California is also considering a ban:

Slashdot California Proposes to Ban Incandescent Lightbulbs /.

I delight in this news as I hate inappropriately inefficient technology.

2007 Emerging Trends in Scholarly Communication

The programme for the 2007 Allen Press Seminar on Emerging Trends in Scholarly Publishing™ is up.

I am pleased to announce that I will be speaking on the panel "Online Scholarship 2.0".  The title of my presentation is "The Internet - A Scholarly Community?"  I'm placing my slides in the Creative Commons, they should be online here in my blog and on Slideshare.net sometime on or after April 13, 2007.

There's a good lineup of speakers - I'm looking forward to meeting them and seeing their presentations.

If I do any blogging related to the event, I will use tag AP2007.

Chasing Crusoe

An online multimedia exploration of the real Selkirk and the fictional Crusoe.

http://www.rcrusoe.org/

German scientific library services

Because how often do I get to use "Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft" in a sentence?

DFG - Scientific Library Services and Information Systems: Funding Priorities Through 2015 (PDF)

9 pages, English.

I think Lorcan will like this:

Today's libraries, archives and other specialised information services operate largely independently of one another.  These different institutions must integrate into a coherent nationwide network for the provision of digital information for science and the humanities.  By creating a digital environment within universities and research institutes in which digital channels become the standard medium for accessing, analysing and publishing research data and scientific results, libraries can become the cornerstone of e-science.

Another part that jumped out at me was about their scientific information portal

The creation of Vascoda, the nucleus of a "German Digital Library," sponsored mutually by libraries and specialised information services, represented an important building block in the development of an integrated system of national information provision.

via In Between

(In case you're wondering

The Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft [DFG] (German Research Foundation) is the central, self-governing research funding organisation that promotes research at universities and other publicly financed research institutions in Germany.

)

underwater forensics

Finally, an answer to the time-honoured question

What can you do with four kilometres of fibre-optic telecomm cable and a dead pig?

Canadian Chemical News - Forensics Overboard (PDF) - November/December 2006

(An interesting idea leveraging the data provided by the underwater sensor grid of the VENUS project.)

trouble in technostan - FT writer slags technophiles

Thomas W. Hazlett with a good rant about the dangers of technohype

Overhype about the emerging markets is good clean fun when confined to mindless text-messaging. There is an undeniable “wow” factor. But there is also a madness to the e-crowd. Whenever a trend is spotted that captures the fancy of the zeitgeist, it is formulated as a linear trajectory, and shot into orbit. All cross traffic is banned. Call it “asymmetric triumphalism.”

...

Our buzz-coloured shades block out key drivers of innovation. Take wireless. While 2.5bn people were subscribing to mobile networks, the tech spotlight was on … WiFi. While a handy way to make a DSL connection cordless, the disruptive technology claims – that the exclusive rights used for wide area cellular networks were now eclipsed by unlicensed spectrum governed by power limits and regulatory standards – were wrong. Not many folks dropping their mobile subscription to talk from their “hotspot.”

trouble in Gadgetzan - Gizmodo writer slags gadgetphiles

Joel Johnson with a world-class rant (which, it not being April 1, I suppose is serious).

every single one of these consumer electronics companies should be approached as the enemy. They work for us. Hold their feet to the fire when they say their product is going to change even a small part of our lives. Circle back again in six months when they're shilling the incremental upgrade and ask them why the last version didn't cut the mustard.

Warning: I think profane and vitriol-strewn would be an accurate description.

Tech to Watch in 2007 Horizon Report

They identified six technologies with time-to-adoption of between one and five years.
In addition to their analysis, they provide a useful list of web links for more information on each topic.

UPDATE: Probably I should link to the report (PDF). ENDUPDATE

Of most interest to me was "The New Scholarship and Emerging Forms of Publication".

New forms of scholarship, including fresh models of publication and nontraditional scholarly products, are evolving along with the changing process. Some of these forms are very common—blogs and video clips, for instance—but academia has been slow to recognize and accept them. Some scholars worry that blogging may cut into time that would otherwise be used for scholarly research or writing, for example, or that material in a podcast is not as well researched as material prepared for print publication. Proponents of these new forms argue that they serve a different purpose than traditional writing and research—a purpose that improves, rather than runs counter to, other kinds of scholarly work.

I also found it interesting that they separated "Virtual Worlds" (e.g. Second Life) from "Massively Multiplayer Educational Gaming".  I think these categories are too often combined, whereas I find they are quite separate experiences, as I described in Second Life, Warcraft, and SOA.

As with last year, they had a Horizon Project Wiki

http://www.nmc.org/horizon/wiki/Main_Page

They also have tagged bookmarks in del.icio.us under hz07, and invite others to add to their tagged collection

http://del.icio.us/tag/hz07

via Stephen's Lighthouse

Previously:
February 26, 2006  New Media Consortium / EDUCAUSE 2006 Horizon report