resources
Web-Lockers Next in Line on UK Politicians’ Black List
Engaged in an overwhelming battle against online piracy they are planning to win, the UK government has not been taking the best decisions lately as we already noted in a previous post this week. After the politicians’ intention to alter the Digital Economy Bill by introducing a regulation that empowered judges to block access to a specific website if suspected to promote copyright infringement caused a wave of public discontentment, the UK government tried to fix things but only managed to come up with yet another outrageous solution. In fact, the “reassessed” proposal announced by politicians may have an even more pronounced negative impact on perfectly legitimate online resources, as Cory Doctorow describes in his write up in The Guardian : “As our routine media files have increased in size – multi-megapixel images, home videos, audio recordings of meetings and so on – it's become increasingly difficult to use email to share data privately with family, friends and colleagues, because most email servers croak over really big files.
Continue reading »University of Ottawa goes Open Access
There is some exciting news at the University of Ottawa as it has become the first major Canadian research university to announce a comprehensive open access strategy . As part of the announcement, the University has joined the Compact for Open Access Publishing . It is the first non-U.S.
Continue reading »Vuze, Amazon and Google support FCC net neutrality rules
Vuze ’s CEO Gilles Bianrosa joined 26 other CEOs and execs from new media companies like Google, Amazon and Skype today to support the FCC’s upcoming net neutrality rules in an open letter to commission chairman Julius Genachowski . The letter reads in part: “We believe a process that results in common sense baseline rules is critical to ensuring that the Internet remains a key engine of economic growth, innovation, and global competitiveness. (…) America’s leadership in the technology space has been due, in large part, to the open Internet.
Continue reading »Department of Energy lays out plans for stimulus spending
One of Steve Chu’s first actions when he took over the Department of Energy was to appoint Matt Rogers as a senior advisor. Rogers had previously worked on energy issues at a consulting firm and brought a wealth of industry experience to the DOE. Yesterday, at a meeting hosted by the American Council on Renewable Energy, Rogers provided a high-level view of the DOE’s current position on energy policy and the Department’s view of where it stands in terms of fostering a transition to renewable energy in the middle of a financial crisis.
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