Diaspora: The Other Facebook? (Ron Chichester)

Many of us have had a love/hate relationship with Facebook. Admit it, you like the ability to reconnect with old high school chums, but absolutely hate the way the company is leaking many private tidbits.

Well, take heart friends. A group of geeks in New York announced the start of an open source replacement for Facebook. The project is called “Diaspora*”.

Think of it as a true open social network, but without one company holding all the data. Instead, you put your seed out on the Internet where others can find it. They see what you want them to see — and nothing else. The transactions can be encrypted (using PGP), so prying eyes can’t see in/track/mine/sell the data.

Another feature will be the ability to scrape the data from your existing social network account (“reclaim your data” or at least avoid a lot of typing). The application could put people back in the driver’s seat, assuming there are enough defections from Facebook. Look for the beta this September.

The code for Diaspora* will be released under the open source GPL (GNU Public License), so you’ll be able to write your own extensions to the application.

You can find their website at: joindiaspora.com

Apple iPad Giveaway

The SBOT Computer & Technology Section is giving away an Apple iPad.

The winner will be announced at the Section’s Annual Meeting on June 11th during the State Bar of Texas’ Annual Meeting in Fort Worth. You can get one entry for doing each of the following:

1. Become a Section Member
2. Register to win at our booth during the State Bar Annual Meeting
3. Follow us on Twitter: @TXBarCompTech and Tweet this message:

@TXBarCompTech is giving away an Apple iPad. Details here: http://bit.ly/TXBarCompTech

Good luck and see you in Fort Worth.

Privacy in the Internet Age: State Surveillance vs. Social Networking

At what point does information sharing online become an invasion of privacy? A case in Seattle may start to provide an answer.

At issue in the case is a state government (North Carolina) who has begun conducting audits of online retailers to track down potentially unpaid sales tax versus one of the largest online retailers (Amazon.com) who claim that such information requests by government entities amount to an invasion of privacy.

The case offers a glimpse at the changed landscape of privacy in the United States. Under the old model, the law was meant to protect the public from a snooping government. And the government was generally the only entity with the resources to snoop on people in a systematic way.

Today, the online snooping (make that “data collection”) never stops. Can the old tools really prevent the government from closely monitoring its people when so much information is a mere Internet search away? And is the government the one we really need protection from?

We’re gonna party like it’s 1984.

Potential Legal Issues with the new iPad

Jeff Neuburger, partner in the New York office and Co-Chair of the Technology, Media and Communications Practice Group at Proskauer Rose, raises some interesting potential legal issues with Apple’s latest offering. For instance, when addressing technology “known or hereafter to become known” in a contract, where does the iPad fall? Is it a gaming device? A computer? A smart-phone? And then there’s the questions of ownership rights of constantly-updated, interactive applications.

Questions, questions, everywhere… and not a thought to think.

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SupCt 2 Hear TXTing Case IRL :)

The Supreme Court will soon be hearing an employee texting case to decide if employees have any expectation of privacy when texting on company-issued devices. (A side issue relates to the privacy rights for the non-employees engaged in exchanging those text messages with the employee)

At issue in City of Ontario v. Quon is whether a SWAT officer — a public employee — had a reasonable expectation of privacy when sending personal text messages on a police-department-owned pager. The official policy at the Ontario, Calif., police department had prohibited personal use of things like email and the Internet at work, and employees were explicitly told they should have no expectation of privacy in that regard, but the policy never said anything about text messages.

It will be interesting to see how the High Court addresses this case considering that the technology is changing so fast these days the technology in question could well become obsolete before the ink is dry on the opinion.

ABA TechShow 2010: “60 Whaaaaat?” (mark i unger)

From the ABA TechShow in Chicago:

I believe it was Dennis Miller who said “I’m ADD-OCD, which means I’m constantly changing what I obsess over.” If you happened to be at either the ABA Techshow‘s 60 Sites in 60 Minutes or 60 Apps in 60 Minutes and you concurrently live in the web on a daily basis, you were downloading manna from heaven in Gigabytes. Well, it’s all up in the Clouds now and available for your “InTechLectual” consumption. Enjoy!

60 SITES in 60 MINUTES: Raucous Rants with the 411 on everything cool, funny, surprising, and obsessive about being a web-surfing-lawyer in 2010; Toby Brown, Debbie Foster, Adriana Linares, Ernest Svenson

And

60 (iPhone) APPS in 60 MINUTES: Presented by the effervescent and biting wit of Jeff Richardson and the no-nonsense power-consulting of Reid Trautz, this free fall of power-Apps was presented to a packed room — sign of the times of the applicability and use of the iPhone.

ABA TechShow: Storyboarding is the New Forty (mark i. unger)

From the ABA TechShow in Chicago.

Inevitably, we age. We ‘de-learn’ immortality and acquiesce to the scrimping and savings derived from Fear – Fear that we’ll slow down, that someone will pass us, be better, faster, stronger…Fear that we won’t be ‘Relevant,’ as Simon Cowell says.

But every so often there is a technology track, session, speech or movement that draws us back to our youth, our immortality, our lack of fear and allows us to get excited about something. Today that something is Storyboarding, either within or without Powerpoint.

Paul Unger and Nils Jenson have properly advised us. The old rules don’t apply: Some of the new from the “Storyboarding for Powerpoint” session are as follows:

‘Storyboarding is a series of images and headings glued together by your strong storytelling skills.’

‘Interest + Attention = Persuasion’

-   Less Text
+  More Single Line Slides
*   If using text lines, highlight ‘KEY WORDS,’ then remove the rest

Practice Tip: If you’re using a Powerpoint to persuade a Judge, create a Handout for him/her.
—goto File/ Print/ Handout

As Confucious said–

“I HEAR and I FORGET. I SEE and I REMEMBER”

ABA TechShow 2010 “Pre-Game” Ignite and Pre-60 Sites (mark i unger)

There are few things in life that truly engender the stirring lifeblood of the Tech-addled Lawyer. There’s the Superbowl. But in that we’re relegated to new E-Trade Commercials and followup Lawsuits. There’s Presidential elections, but the ‘dimpled chad’ has minimized legal ramifications in all future realms. But now there is what might only be referred to as the ABA TechShow’s ‘Pre-Game’ aka “Ignite Pre-Show”. This year, we visit the enigma known as “ignite,” (a raucous 16 presenter-6 minute and 20 slide per presentation). In addition to last year’s 60 Sites in 60 Minutes presentation, it should be one heckuva pre-game show.

Be sure to follow the Section’s coverage of the ABA TechShow on Twitter: @TXBarCompTech

Apple’s iPad – Better for Lawyers?

Is a simple tool with less functionality better than a revolutionary tool with more functionality better for the legal profession? Let the debate begin.