31 December 2011

Anzac Bridge

Can anyone explain why, since Anzac Bridge is closed to traffic during
fireworks, there is black plastic and fences preventing pedestrians
from watching the fireworks from the bridge?

I counted 15 NSW Police and 6 private security oafs carefully guarding nothing.

Great use of resources, NSW Government, police and RTA (and it's successor).

20 December 2011

Mégane RS 250 Cup, MY11, Extreme Blue

TomTom Traffic HD Australia

After poor previous experience with TomTom HD Traffic around Sydney on an iPhone, I strangely resubscribed hoping that over time it would improve... but it hasn't.

This morning there was an accident in North Sydney near the Sydney Harbour Tunnel. As I drove along the Gore Hill Freeway at 80 km/h the TomTom showed me traffic at a standstill. A few kilometres later as I was actually at a standstill for 10 minutes the TomTom showed no incidents and a happy green symbol...  

And of top of that, I can drive for 1/2 hour to work some days while the TomTom tries to download traffic information unsuccessfully. Of course, this morning it managed to do it before I even got out of my street (for all  the good it did).

I can't recommend it, no matter how much I want to. I get better results from Waze http://www.waze.com/.

16 December 2011

Top judge opens way for court tweets

Tweeting in court...

http://www.smh.com.au/technology/-1owpr.html

ISP filtering in Europe

In May 2011 I wrote about the SABAM case, in which Scarlet Extended SA (an ISP) had been sued by Société belge des auteurs, compositeurs et éditeurs SCRL, better known as SABAM.

That case seems to hit finality in Scarlet's appeal to the Cour d'appel de Bruxelles. The court requested a preliminary ruling from the Court of Justice of the European Union in Case C-70/10, and judgement was handed down on 24 November 2011. It held:
EU law precludes the imposition of an injunction by a national court which requires an internet service provider to install a filtering system with a view to preventing the illegal download of files (press release)  
The case turned on the E-Commerce Directive, which prevents Member State laws from requiring ISPs to carry out general monitoring of information passing through its network. The Court recognised the importance of protection of intellectual property rights, but found that the SABAM injunction would not respect fundamental rights of citizens - particularly their right to personal data and the right to receive or impart information. The personal data issue arose because Scarlet would have had to collect and identify IP addresses, which are protected personal data.
Accordingly, the Court’s reply is that EU law precludes an injunction made against an internet service provider requiring it to install a system for filtering all electronic communications passing via its services which applies indiscriminately to all its customers, as a preventive measure, exclusively at its expense, and for an unlimited period.
The full text of the judgement can be found here.

iTunes Match in Australia

iTunes Match launched in Australia, after a fashion, on 14 December 2012. However, signing up didn't result in anything happening until 16 December, when it seems that someone flipped a switch at Apple and the status started updating from "Waiting" to "Matched".

So if you're using the Australian iTunes Store then be patient, and perhaps quit iTunes once or twice to give it a kick along.

Don't forget to go into Music preferences on your iOS device and turn on iTunes Match as well!