A strange development, the UK Government is using Google, Overture and Espotting to drive users to the new Directgov site. Probably very cost effective marketing compared to printing leaflets or a TV spot. But is it really appropriate for a government to be placing itself in search engine listings? Not sure, it all depends on what they're promoting I suppose.
Software Improvements, who developed the original open sourced e-voting system for the Australian Capital Territory have decided to not provide future versions of the software under an open source license.
It seems like Software Improvements have woken up to the global market and don't want others profiting from their work. Once GPL'd is not always GPL'd in the future…
The BBC has reported on its site that more postal voting trials are 'possible' according to Local Government minister Nick Raynsford MP. The BBC article is essentially following up responses to a House of Commons report on the pilots.
The snappily titled 'Office of the Deputy Prime Minister: Housing, Planning, Local Government and the Regions Committee' published their seventh report specifically on the matter of all-postal votes. It's a good report which makes excellent recommendations to improve the security of postal ballots. In particular the report recommends the voter registration is tied to the individual and not the household in future. This would allow a pass code to be written onto identity slips and checked electronically during counting.
They also recognise the pressure for postal voting is due to desires to boost turnout. Yet they conclude that 'the Government must not rely on changes in the electoral system to increase voter turnout, they must also ensure engagement of electors in politics.' Good stuff.
Joe Kiniry from the Nijmegen Institute for Computing and Information Science has put a short paper online about the current status of e-voting in The Netherlands.
An excellent comment piece in yesterday's Guardian by Prof. Justin Lewis highlights the paradox of declining terrorist attacks amidst ever growing media coverage of terrorism. Unfortunately the online version doesn't have the little graph that accompanied the print piece but it's still worth a read.
Of course media coverage is never going to be simplistically correlated to how often something occurs. Nevertheless Prof. Lewis' piece is useful in reigning in an excitable media stuffed with 'terrorism analysts' whilst also calming governments who are getting themselves in a sweat over the matter. Yes terrorism is an important and real threat, but so is global warming, and the greenhouse effect has more predictable risks than fevered imaginings of terrorist plots.
I got a quote in an e-voting article by the Wall Street Journal Europe this week. For this article I'm quoted as being a political scientist. Odd, I never told the journalist this and it says nothing of the kind on this site. I've been told that maybe I should have been a political scientist but those bits of paper my universities gave me show otherwise. Ah well 🙂
I can't link to the article as it's for subscribers only, but here are the details, it's a nice summary of the European situation:
“In Most of Europe, Electronic Voting Loses Out to Paper Ballots — Pilot Programs and Tests Are Run, but Reliability And Security Are Concerns”
By John Miller – Dow Jones Newswires
26 July 2004
The Wall Street Journal Europe
VoxPolitics' James Crabtree has a new article discussing MPs' use of the Internet over the last ten years. Like many James had high hopes for the Internet's role in politics. But most politicians just aren't getting it. The article notes the relatively low levels of resources MPs have when compared to their US equivalents. True enough and Parliament's actual modes of working are antiquated: Richard Allan MP often complains that his days are structured in a way to prevent him doing the things he wants to!
Still the article ends on a hopeful note… A new generation of MPs might be more open to using the Internet to its full potential. I certainly hope so. In the mean time we can work on fine tuning the tools and the online political environment. We'll be ready when the MPs are!
Sony has always had a bit of a weird ability to create technically strong hardware that sports arcane interfaces. Their products have usually revelled in names only a geek could love whilst being shrouded in attractive casings.
Enter the 'Network Walkman NW-HD1' Sony's proposed iPod killer. Problem is that the Network Walkman is looking like a big flop before it's even available in stores. Sony have over-hyped the device's capabilities, botched the interface, made poor technical decisions (forcing users to convert music to ATRAC3) and been slow to market. In the meantime Apple have been able to release a new version of the iPod with a higher battery life, even slicker interface and introduce a price cut. This leaves Sony as an expensive late-comer to the digital music player.
Poor old Sony can't even agree who should be making digital music devices, the Walkman group or the Vaio group so we will be treated to an even more expensive Vaio player from Sony later in the year.
Apple probably can't believe their luck. Read the whole WSJ review on Sony's sorry little music player here.
A naive little article shows how the Indians are trying to sell their e-voting system into the United States. But they're disappointed not to have had any buyers afters doing some demos. Folks, the purchase process for e-voting machines in the US is long, slow and involves many lunches! Still one of the Indian manufacturers is quoted as saying that their system is 'tamper-proof' so they've got their marketing right for the US market!
I cracked… I couldn't resist any longer and I dove into the iTunes Music Store UK. I can't deny that my first five purchases are an odd selection. But that's part of the fun with the store, you end up in musical places you wouldn't suspect.
Overall it's a remarkably smooth experience. I've had a few glitches in terms of trying to access pages on the store probably because it's so busy. Yes there's lots of stuff I'd like to see online, but I'm sure they'll get there.
What I really miss is user reviews though… I found myself with a Safari window open to Amazon UK so that I could read reviews of albums as I browsed. I'm not sure why Apple chose not to include user reviews in the store… maybe it's coming or maybe they just don't want negative views to be put online next to their wares.
Let's face it though… Apple have made the music industry's massive vaporware (easy digital music) come true. We can probably thank WebObjects and the savvy realisation that iTunes was a better interface than the web browser for music buying for this new way of spending our money!
Jason Kitcat 