Chief scribe
Yesterday, in the final stage of the EU approval process, the European Parliament formally adopted updated EU rules on the re-use of public sector information. The Council of Ministers had already agreed to the new rules at last week’s Telecoms Council. European Commission Vice-President Neelie Kroes said: “Today we can celebrate our efforts to bring […]
French computing news site Le Monde Informatique reports that online tat merchants eBay will be organising a tour of French beaches from 22nd July to 17th August 2013, during which holidaymakers will be able to benefit from free wifi, as well as a space dedicated to this well-known auction site. On each of the tour […]
The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) reports that on 7th June the German Parliament (Bundestag) passed a joint motion to limit software patents (PDF, German). The Bundestag is urging the German Government to take steps to limit the granting of patents on computer programs. Software should be covered exclusively by copyright and the rights of […]
This Saturday 15th June a Raspberry Pi boot camp will be taking place at At-Bristol, Anchor Road, Bristol BS1 5DB (map) from 10.30 am to 4.30 pm. Entry to the event is free, but does not include access to the exhibits of At-Bristol. The event aims to provide fun hands-on workshops for beginners through to […]
Yesterday, the Bristol Wireless members of the production crew returned to Bristol from this year’s Barncamp event (the fifth that has been organised. Ed.) after clearing out all the kit. Barncamp is a joint event organised by HacktionLab, Bristol Wireless and FLOSS Manuals, and has been described by our friend Charlie as follows: …hanging out […]
Wearing his company secretary’s outfit, your correspondent has just sent the following email and posted the following notice in the lab. NOTICE OF AGM The Annual General Meeting of Bristol Wireless for 2013 will be held at 4.30 pm on Tuesday 18th June 2012 in the Lab, Windmill Hill City Farm, Philip Street, Bedminster, Bristol, […]
The Guardian reports exclusively today that Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Yahoo! and Twitter have dismissed the UK government’s Communications Data Bill (aka the Snooper’s Charter. Ed.) and its plans to track the email, internet and social media of everyone in the UK as “expensive to implement and highly contentious”. The revelation comes from a letter dated […]
On Wednesday this week the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed a formal objection to the inclusion of digital rights management (DRM) in HTML5, arguing that a draft proposal from the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) could stymie Web innovation and block access to content for people across the globe. The W3C’s HTML working group is […]
In a typical knee-jerk response in the wake of the barbaric murder in Woolwich last week of Lee Rigby, allegedly by a couple of religious nutjobs, Theresa May, the UK’s control freak Home Secretary has threatened to revive the so-called “Snooper’s Charter” (news passim). In this move she has been joined on the bandwagon by […]
News has just arrived via email that registration for the Bristol IT Megameet (news passim) on 1st June has now been extended until Friday 24th May. To quote from the email: Although we currently have over 250 people registered, with the very recent addition of a couple more sponsors, we are now able to take […]
Next month on the weekend from Friday 7th to Sunday 9th, BarnCamp 2013 – a weekend of hacktivism, workshops, entertainment, politics and fun in the sun – will be taking place. BarnCamp is three days of workshops, discussions, demos and practical how-to sessions looking at how technology can be useful (and dangerous) for campaigners, community […]
On Thursday 23rd May, Bristol once again plays host to a South West meet-up for people who are interested in, using or developing for CiviCRM, the free and open source customer relationship manager package (as used by Bristol Wireless! Ed.). As with previous meet-ups, this next one will be held between 4.00 pm and 6.00 […]
On Saturday 1st June, UWE will be hosting the 2nd Bristol IT MegaMeet on its Frenchay Campus at Coldharbour Lane Bristol BS16 1QY (map). The event itself will be taking place in Rooms 2Q42 to 2Q50 in Q Block; more direction details and maps here. The event starts with a brew at 9.30 am, with […]
Some time ago we drew attention to the possible eavesdropping problems in using Skype, which is now owned by Microsoft (news passim). This has now been confirmed by German technology news website, Heise. Anyone who uses Skype, has agreed that Skype may also read too. Heise Security has found out that Microsoft actually avails itself […]
Laptops for crew use on the International Space Station (ISS) are being migrated from Windows to Linux, the Linux Foundation reports. The reason for the migration, given by Keith Chuvala of United Space Alliance, a NASA contractor deeply involved in Space Shuttle and ISS operations was as follows: We migrated key functions from Windows to […]
The W3C, the organisation responsible for web standards (which have so far been open standards. Ed.), has taken a step away from openness now that the HTML Working Group has announced their decision to release a First Public Working Draft of the Encrypted Media Extension (EME) specification and a statement has also been released by […]
Yesterday the world witnessed an annual bit of Ruritanian pantomime that passes for the unwritten British constitution in action: the state opening of Parliament and the Queen’s Speech. According to a report in today’s Guardian, it would appear that the so-called Snooper’s Charter (news passim) is proving harder to kill than a particularly stubborn vampire. […]
We learn from Accessible Bristol that tomorrow, Thursday 9th May is Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD). On that day people all over the world will be coming together to spread the word about accessibility and Accessible Bristol will be among them. Throughout the day the Accessible Bristol team be on Twitter answering your questions about […]
Wikimedia Commons is a great resource: nearly 17 mn. freely usable media files that anyone can use for any purpose and to which anyone can contribute too! Contributing to Wikimedia Commons is also getting easier: it’s now possible to transfer images to the Commons database from an Android or iOS smartphone using a free and […]
On 27th April the administrative court of Almada, Portugal, declared a €550,000 contract between Microsoft and the Municipality of Almada to be illegal. The technical specifications of the competition launched by the municipality prevented any company other than Microsoft and their partners from submitting a bid. This ruling is especially significant as it clarifies that […]