Chief scribe
One of the common complaints of novice editors of Wikipedia is the awkwardness of learning wiki mark-up combined with the lack of a visual (WYSIWYG) editor. This has now been remedied with the launch of the VisualEditor on the English-language version of Wikipedia (and other sites using MediaWiki, the software upon which Wikipedia runs). However, […]
Regular readers will be aware that Bristol Wireless is deeply concerned about the implications of the Government’s proposed Communications Data Bill (news passim). Yesterday the secretary (aka the chief scribe. Ed.) has had the article below posted on local news website on Bristol24/7. In June of this year, the Government published its draft Communications Data […]
IT news site The Register reports today that Linux kernel overlord Linus Torvalds has announced the Linux kernel no longer supports Intel’s 80386 processors, which were first introduced back in 1985 and pottered along at a top speed of 33 mHZ. Torvalds announced the demise of Linux on 386 in a post entitled “Merge branch […]
Today the Free Software Federation Europe (FSFE) reports that the European Parliament has adopted a proposal to create a patent with unitary effect for Europe (posts passim). This decision will leave Europe with a patent system that is both deeply flawed and prone to overreach. It also ends democratic control of Europe’s innovation policy. “We […]
The Joint Committee of MPs and Lords today published its report into the draft Communications Data Bill, otherwise dubbed the Snooper’s Charter. The Committee has spent six months scrutinising the proposals, receiving a substantial amount of oral and written evidence. The final report is available from the Joint Committee website. As predicted yesterday (news passim), […]
London’s classic black cabs will be able to offer free wifi access to passengers in the New Year after Transport for London (TfL) approved a project run by Tech City start-up EyeTease Media to provide in-vehicle connectivity according to technology news website V3. The system, called CabWifi, will allow passengers 15 minutes of free wireless […]
IT news website The Register reports today that the joint parliamentary committee scrutinising the government’s draft Communications Data Bill – also known as the Snooper’s Charter (news passim) – will publish its report tomorrow. It is believed that most of the committee’s members felt the Home Office had failed to make a convincing case for […]
The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) reports that the European Parliament is about to vote on a “unitary patent” for Europe in its plenary session on 11th December. The proposal currently on the table is widely acknowledged to have serious legal and practical problems. In the light of these problems, Free Software Foundation Europe is […]
One of the great benefits of using free and open source software is the manner in which it can be shared, modified and redeployed and the Belgian federal government certainly seems to have embraced this aspect. Joinup, the EU’s public sector open source news site, reports today that the Belgian government is prepared to share […]
The Document Foundation has announced the release of LibreOffice 3.6.4 for Linux and other popular operating systems. LibreOffice is the main office suite that comes bundled with most major Linux distributions. According to the Foundation, this new release of the free and open source office suite is another step forward in the process of improving […]
Yesterday evening the chief scribe attended the launch of Accessible Bristol down at Bristol’s City Hall (formerly the Counts Louse). Accessible Bristol’s aim is “bringing together digital and strategic knowledge to champion inclusion in Bristol and the South West”. We were welcomed to the event Stephen Hilton, the council’s Director of Futures (the man with […]
Our friends at Connecting Bristol have announced that they’ll be holding a stakeholder event at the Watershed in Bristol (map) on Friday, 7th December 2012 from 2.30 pm to 4.30 pm. The event is free to attend and will be chaired by the Watershed’s director, Dick Penny. Connecting Bristol adds that there are currently lots […]
About this time 10 years ago, Bristol Wireless made its initial tentative appearance online. The very first item we posted online was the holding page (complete with the obligatory typo! Ed.) in the image below. The image comes courtesy of Archive.org’s Wayback Machine, which regularly trawls the web to archive its constantly changing face. The […]
Courtesy of Mr Treasurer’s Twitter feed, we’ve just come across the following small item of good news news for rail travellers. UK train operator Greater Anglia is working with The Cloud to introduce free Wi-Fi at 100 stations. — Railway Gazette (@railwaygazette) November 26, 2012 Greater Anglia provides rail services in the East of England […]
Technology news site The H Online reports that a prototype of the Pi Cam camera for the Raspberry Pi was presented at Germany’s Electronica 2012 show. The camera offers a 5 MP sensor and can record 1080p H.264 video at 30 fps. The camera connects to the Raspberry Pi’s free CSI pins and is controlled […]
Regular readers will know that Bristol Wireless takes a dim view of the government’s draft Communications Data Bill, also known as the Snooper’s Charter (news passim). Consequently, we were pleased to hear that the Open Rights Group is organising a series of workshops around the UK so supporters can help to tell people across the […]
The Portuguese government is prescribing Open Document Format (ODF) as the sole format for editable documents for public authorities in a list of open standards, according to Germany’s Heise IT news site, commenting on a report from ESOP, the Portuguese Open Source Business Association. The list is part of a body of rules to ensure […]
The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) reports that the German Ministry of the Interior published a white paper (English version here) about “Trusted Computing” and “Secure Boot” yesterday. The white paper says that “device owners must be in complete control of (that is to say able to manage and monitor) all the trusted computing security […]
Our friends at Bristol Dorkbot will be meeting as usual for a show and tell meeting tonight (Tuesday 20th) from around 7pm in the the Watershed‘s Pervasive Media Studio (map). For those unfamiliar with the layout of the Watershed, the Pervasive Media Studio can be reached by going through the Watershed bar. All are welcome […]
The chief scribe recently took part in some smart city sessions organised in Bristol by Knowle West Media Centre, so he was interested to learn of recent smart cities developments in Italy. According to the EU’s Joinup open source news site, open source software is a key element in many of the Smart City projects […]