Posts Tagged ‘government’

Yesterday Barack Obama chose Vivek Kundra for the post of Federal CIO, entrusting him with the task of overseeing the IT architecture of the federal government. Kundra is very fond of Google and what it has to offer.  ’Why should I spend millions on enterprise apps when I can do it [with Google] at one-tenth cost and ten times the speed? It’s a win-win for me,’ he says.

This is one of the many ways the new administration is catching up with technology and its commitment to be a more open government with larger public involvement through available Web 2.0 tools.

The only question is, isn’t this too much power for one company, especially for Google, which has its hand on almost anything that’s on the Internet? You can also catch the announcement of the DC-Google Partnership a few days ago on YouTube:

The United Nations is trying again to enforce its believes and demands to the world, this time trying to pass a law that would make blasphemy punishable by law. In particular, the UN says “blasphemy against Islam” and is backed by 57 countries (many of which are muslim). Not that it has a chance, but a bill like that would strike right at the heart of the most basic human right – freedom of speech.

Watch and see Christopher Hitchens’s thoughts on that (I won’t spoil it for you)… oh and I was joking about the eating babies part, but I wouldn’t be too surprised.

It’s funny how hippocrates operate. Actually sad. French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s political party has been going around the EU trying to enforce the “3 strikes” policy for filesharing and copyright infringement. Little do we know that his party used a song by American Indie band MGMT without paying the licensing fees. Needless to say, the band found out and was less than pleased. It actually threatened to sue the President’s party. But wait, it gets better — the party decided to make things right and offer €1, that’s right – 1 Euro, to the band for compensation. Can you believe it? I wish all those teenagers that got sued by the RIAA could do that. 

Not only did the band turn the offer down, but it rightfully called it an insult. And that’s just a week before the party is to present a new policy for online piracy that will have very strict penalties.

Good job, frenchies!

More at CBC’s site. Oh and in case you wanted to check out the now-infamous song, here it is:

President Obama's helicopter - Marine One

More in the world of weird and fun, highly sensitive Marine One blueprints  are apperantly exposed on a peer-to-peer network (my guess is Limewire and to see why check out this YouTube video). The IP of the uploader originated in Iran, and according to a security company that specializes on P2P networks, it’s a defense contractor who has top secret information on his computer and also happens to be running a file sharing program. In the holy words of Mother Mary, “WTF!”

“I’m sure that person is embarrassed and may even lose their job, but we know where it came from and we know where it went.”

To read the story, go to MSNBC

Seems like the government of Ontario is very determined to provide the best higher education learning experience in Canada, and as such is pumping out $51.6 Million to add about 3300 graduate spaces – both masters and PhDs. 

Good news for us students, especially considering University of Ontario is getting 97 spots. Read the full story here.