You probably haven't heard about it, but as you read this, the government is in the final days of its effort to gather input from Canadians about the country's digital future. On May 10, at a major conference with tiered levels of access to leaders in industry and government, Industry Minister Tony Clement announced a 60-day consultation on a digital economy strategy.
digital age
Censored Then & Now: The politics of news media: WWII to the Digital Age
Feb 28 2012 - 6:30pm
Location
The Gladstone Hotel
1214 Queen Street West
Toronto, ON Canada
Phone:
416-975-9366
43° 38' 33.216" N, 79° 25' 37.6212" W
See map: Google Maps
The Book and Periodical Council in celebration of 2012 Freedom to Read Week presents:
Censored Then & Now: The politics of news media: WWII to the Digital Age
Join author Mark Bourrie (THE FOG OF WAR: Censorship of Canada's Media in World War Two) in conversation with author/activist Susan Swan about past and present censorship in the Canadian news media.
Also, The Writers' Union of Canada will present the recipient of the 2012 Freedom to Read Award
Doors open at 6:00
Admission is free!
Contact name:
Freedom to Read
Contact email:
We're all hackers now
It's a wet Saturday afternoon at a hacker convention in an industrial section of Hamilton, Ontario. Treven Watson's Lucite badge is flashing: blue, green and red. The LED lights are controlled by a circuit in the laser-etched ID. That little bundle of electronics is about to be probed and reprogrammed by Watson and the three dozen other coders, anxious to make it do anything but alternate primary colours.
"There's a tradition in hacker conventions of making badges that can be expanded, can be hacked to do other things," said Watson.
Watson is a member of the Hamilton hacker space think|haus. Attendees at the convention each got their own badge and spent hours seeing who could hack it best.
3D printers: The ultimate makers
Neil Gershenfeld has been known to make some bold predictions about the future. But even by his standards, this one was a doozy.
"Twenty years from now," he told a 2006 conference in Berkeley, "we'll have Star Trek replicators that can make anything."
You remember the replicator -- the one that provided Captain Picard with his "cup of Earl Grey tea, hot," with a simple verbal prompt? It might sound like jet-age fantasy, but Gershenfeld was absolutely serious with his reference.
In praise of words, not books
Speaking writer to readers, I want to register some year-end thoughts on climate change in the realm of reading.
Begin with technology. Canadians can finally buy Kindle e-readers. I know there are people who'd rather these had never got here. They say they'll miss the tactility of print on paper, the rustle of turning pages, etc. Yet this may pass. When computers first appeared, I constructed a complex argument against writing with them -- something about it being anti-creative. Then, one day, the prices dropped and suddenly I couldn't recall my objections.
The future of books in the digital age
A battle is raging over the future of books in the digital age and the role that libraries will play. One case now before a U.S. federal court may, some say, grant a practical monopoly on recorded human knowledge to global Internet search giant Google. The complex case has attracted opposition from hundreds of individuals and groups from around the planet.
Meet the Net Gen
Grown Up Digital: How the Net Generation is Changing the World
(McGraw-Hill,
2008;
$30.95)
Ian Capstick chats with Don Tapscott about his latest book, Grown Up Digital, all about the first generation to grow up with the Internet -- the Net Gen -- how they think, work, socialize and are activating to change their worlds.
Free speech vs. surveillance in the digital age
Tools of mass communication that were once the province of governments and corporations now fit in your pocket. Cell phones can capture video and send it wirelessly to the Internet. People can send eyewitness accounts, photos and videos, with a few keystrokes, to thousands or even millions via social networking sites. As these technologies have developed, so too has the ability to monitor, filter, censor and block them.
Counting on stupid
This is a story of two ideas: one's a drunk, flatulent grandad at a wedding, the other a zombie and both are counting on stupid customers for success.
First up, the Kindle DX.
Like the grandad, it's malodorous, inappropriate and needs to be put to bed.
When it was announced, Amazon's new big-screen e-book reader, the Kindle DX, was heralded as the saviour of newspapers. The larger screen real estate was seen as perfect for magazines, newspapers and textbooks. But, when it was launched there was a collective gulp at the price, just south of $500 US. That's a pretty pricey saviour, especially since that's before the cost of the magazines, newspapers and textbooks that are supposed to find a new home on the device.
VanChange Camp
Jun 19 2009 - 7:00pm
Jun 20 2009 - 7:00pm
Location
BCIT Downtown Campus
555 Seymour St.
Vancouver, BC Canada
49° 17' 0.5712" N, 123° 6' 52.6536" W
See map: Google Maps
VanChange Camp is a participatory, web-enabled event to imagine and build new ways to collaborate for social change in the digital age.
It is meant to explore the following questions:
- How can we help government become more open and responsive?
- How do we as citizens organize to get better outcomes ourselves?
VanChangeCamp addresses the demand for a renewed relationship among citizens and government. We seek to create connections, knowledge, tools and policies that drive transparency, civic engagement and democratic empowerment.