New Media Awards 2005 Weblog

A study by Dixons has shown that digital radio sales have overtaken those of traditional sets for the first time. By the end of 2004, there were 1.3 million DAB radio sets in British homes, according to the Digital Radio Development Bureau, and Dixons expects demand for digital sets to rise by more than 50 per cent over the next year.

This is partly due to digital radios’ drop in cost over the last couple of years; however, these figures also reflect the considerable appeal of community targeted stations and services not offered elsewhere. The store has also found that the technology is being adopted by people of all ages, especially those in their forties and above, people perhaps with a greater emotional attachment to the medium.

Community orientated services have started to attract listeners in increasingly large numbers. Over half a million people now tune in to the BBC’s Asian Network every week. This digital medium has allowed local stations to target previously uncatered for groups; Southall’s Panjab Radio , for example, is specifically tailored to the UK’s large Panjabi community. The radios, which are usually easy to use and offer improved quality in sound, clearly appeal to people on a number of levels, and have helped make the broadcasting world more accessible and user friendly.

More than half of internet users in the UK are unable to name their local MP, according to a study conducted by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESCR). KableNet.com reports that the internet has failed to initiate public interest in politics.

Based on an NOP survey, the study also found that only 69 percent of internet users know the party of their MP, and less than 2 percent have visited their representative’s personal web site.

Dr. Stephen Ward of the Oxford Internet Institute, who conducted the research, believes the survey is an “antidote to the hype that often surrounds the role of the internet in the political world.” Still, Ward thinks the internet has potential to be an effective political tool if used correctly.

“Simply adding new electronic means of communication to old structures, or providing information online, will not automatically spark interest,” said Ward. “Politicians and institutions need to actively attract people outside the usual suspects by demonstrating that their contribution is valued and listened to.”

Civic leaders across the country are being encouraged to set up blogs to help them communicate more directly with the public. The e-Democracy and Directgov projects want local authority councillors and officers to record their thoughts and experiences online. They have piloted the site www.readmyday.co.uk in association with the Hansard Society. The aim is to develop direct and authentic communication, hosted on local authority websites.

Participating councils so far include Kingston, North Lincolnshire and Lewisham. Under the tutelage of Griff Wigley, who apparently makes a living out of this sort of thing, civic bloggers will learn the art of informing and educating citizens on local issues and government services. The idea is that they will do so in a more engaging way than perhaps they have been used to.

We assume that such blogs will not take the form of:

9.12am got up… 9.15am had cup of tea… 9.34am departed on ‘fact-finding’ junket at taxpayers’ expense… etc.

The Prevention of Terrorism Bill was introduced to the House of Commons this week. The Bill gives the Home Secretary powers to make control orders with a range of conditions, including a ban on internet and mobile phone use.

Home Secretary Charles Clarke was explicit in highlighting the use of technology in the fight against terrorism. This new Bill is set to replace the ‘Part 4 Powers in the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001’ with a scheme of control orders. The Home Office believes the new orders will be a valuable tool in disrupting and preventing terrorist-related activity.

The Prevention of Terrorism Bill is available at www.parliament.uk.

The Guardian Online section reports today that a group of councils in Dorset are to take down their websites and replace them with one over-arching web presence. The newly launched one-stop-site will be operated under the domain name www.dorsetforyou.com.

This intriguing move may be the start of a new presidence. With over 468 local authority websites, numerous Whitehall departmental sites and microsites perhaps Dorset will acheive in a small way what DirectGov has been trying so hard to do: provide a portal of information regardless of who is responsible.

In a ruling by the Charity Commission announced this week, charities will now be able to deliver e-Government services at a local level. According to eGov monitor, public bodies will now be able to contract out to charity, services which they have a statutory duty to provide.

A review by the sector regulators, the Charity Commission, has resulted in a change to the scope of service activities that existing charities are permitted to undertake. This paves the way for charities to act as intermediaries or even the sole deliverers of e-Government services at the local level.

The full decision can be found at the Commission’s website at www.charity-commission.gov.uk under ‘Decisions of the Commissioners’.

Kent County Council Social Services is revolutionising social care and community health by investing in three ground-breaking electronic services designed to enable people to stay in their own homes and take greater responsibility for their own care.

According to e-Gov monitor the new Telecare package will be launched on Friday 4 March and will be piloted among 275 people across Primary Care Trusts in Kent, with a £1 million cash injection from KCC.

In partnership with US firm Viterion, Kent’s Telehealth element of the package will employ touch screens, video link-up and digital cameras to enable people to self-monitor conditions. So have the days of shuffling along religiously to your friendly GP, ‘who’s such a lovely chap’ gone? Telehealth provides communication with health and social care professionals via hi-tech user-friendly computer based unit through a telephone line to a secure web-based facility… That’s a no then.

Other services to be launched are client cards, electronic ordering and invoicing systems and a self-assessment website for community care. The intention is to increase efficiency in order to free up money to reinvest into front line services.

Leader of Kent County Council Sir Sandy Bruce-Lockhart said: “These projects, based on the most advanced thinking in Britain and America, are partnerships with the private sector and have the potential to make a national contribution to modernising public services and improving the quality of lives for residents of Kent and beyond.”

It seems it might be good for your health to be IT savvy.

The communities of Brighton & Hove and the London Borough of Newham will have the chance to discuss issues online, in forums launched this week. Using the new open source e-democracy tool GroupServer, it is hoped more communities across the UK will be encouraged to use the system during 2005.

As part of the government funded UK Local E-democracy National Project, the forums are designed to be a neutral space for local communities and officials to communicate and galvanise change within their localities. Hosted by E-Democracy.org, the forums aim to empower citizens by offering them a public platform to voice concerns.

E-Democracy.Org is a non-profit, non-partisan, citizen based project intending to increase participation in democracy through IT. It began in 1994 as the internet’s first election-oriented website designed to help citizens increase their civic participation. It has adopted new and innovative open source technology developed in New Zealand to host the UK forums. GroupServer technology allows participation via e- mail or the web by utilising a number of emerging social networking techniques that effectively bring communities of people together online.

It is the intention of these forums to build community cohesion within a socially diverse local population, the key to the future of local democracy being ‘any time, anywhere’ participation.

British net users now lead the world in downloading American TV shows, according to research by web-tracking company Envisional. Fans eager to see new episodes of shows such as 24, Desperate Housewives and Six Feet Under are illegally downloading episodes hours after they are broadcast in the US.

18% of downloads are from within the UK, with downloads of TV programmes increasing by 150% in the last year. Between 80,000 and 100,000 people in Britain are now estimated to download TV shows. A typical episode of 24 is downloaded by 100,000 people around the world, 20,000 of whom are British. Australians are the second biggest culprits, accounting for 16% of downloads.

Traditionally, British telly addicts have had to wait weeks or months to see US shows. Now however, six million people in the UK have broadband, allowing them to download new episodes very quickly. About 70% of downloaders do so using the file-sharing software BitTorrent.

David Price of Envisional said: “It’s a double whammy for advertisers. First, they are losing eyeballs. Second, the people whose eyeballs they are losing are the demographic they want, young and technologically savvy with high disposable incomes. TV companies must take a leaf out of the record industry’s book, set up legal download sites and bring lawsuits against the worst offenders.”

A trend towards millions of Americans downloading episodes of Richard and Judy and Countdown has not yet been spotted.

“Will the internet reconnect Britain?” is the subject of an event to be hosted by the All Party Group for e-Democracy, the All Party Internet Group, e-Society and the Hansard Society. It will be held on Tuesday 8 March 2005, at 5pm-6:30pm in the Boothroyd Room, Portcullis House in Westminster, and chaired by Derek Wyatt MP.

Speakers and topics are:

Can we close the Digital Divide? - Catherine Bromley (Research Director at the National Centre for Social Research)

New Technology, New Politics? - John Curtice (Professor of Politics at Strathclyde University)

e-Democracy in Parliament – Brian White MP (Chair, All Party Parliamentary Group on e-Democracy)

The event is free and open to the public. The short presentations will be followed by a Question and Answer session. To reserve a place, email edemocracy@hansard.lse.ac.uk.

Relentless digit tapping, incessant ring-tone recitals and persistent text warfare have become the bain of teachers’ classrooms in recent years. Yet it seems the mobile is to be the latest weapon in the war against bullying. So take up your phone and tell the bullies to ‘text off’.

Text Someone encourages young people to report incidents of bullying, theft, crime or any antisocial behaviour directly to schools. The new initiative allows schools to offer pupils the chance to text, email or call 24 hours a day 7 days a week, to report any problems they may be encountering.

The new technology hopes to eliminate the embarrassment attached to bullying by using technology that children are familiar with and feel confident using. The system also hopes to address the increasing trend of threatening text messages. Research by children’s charity NCH suggested 16% of 11 to 19 year-olds had been subject to such abuse. ‘Text Someone’ allows these unwanted messages to be forwarded onto the school along with details of when the message was received.

With government backing the developers of ‘Text Someone’, Truancy Call Ltd have already successfully launched ‘Truancycall’ . As part of the government’s £11.25m ‘Electronic Registration Project’ in secondary schools, ‘Trunacycall’ allows schools to automatically contacts parents when their children are absent by phone, text message and email.

The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) is holding a live online webchat to help the public beat conmen. As part of Scam Awareness Month, the webchat will be hosted by scam expert Mike Haley, who will take questions on how to avoid being the victim of a scam.

The British public loses £1bn a year to scammers. We’ve all had crude emails urging us to let deposed African dictators rest their money in our accounts, but many people are also caught out by far more sophisticated scams. For example, pyramid investment schemes appear lucrative and can be very hard to identify as fradulent.

The OFT has teamed up with trading standards departments, Citizens’ Advice, the police, charities and neighbourhood watch schemes to publicise the elements most scams have in common. A list of the top ten scams has also been published.

The webchat will take place at 4pm on Friday 18 February. To submit a question in advance email questions@webchats.tv, or log on at 4pm to www.webchats.tv.

A group of internet service providers (ISPs) have got together to form a co-operative. They aim to improve their collective purchasing power and better compete in an increasingly tough market. Under the umbrella of the United Kingdom Internet Forum (UKIF), which represents 70 small and medium-sized ISPs, the co-op will be better placed to pool orders for IT hardware and wholesale broadband, thus earning better discounts from suppliers. So far 17 ISPs have signed up for the scheme.

In a related move, UKIF is also launching an Enterprise Forum aimed at “helping companies across the UK develop their businesses [while] advancing the growth of broadband in the regions". At present 17 large companies, including BT and NTL, have exclusive rights to bid for public sector contracts to supply broadband. Smaller ISPs, such as UKIF members, are excluded. It is hoped that the group will be able to tap into a niche market by supplying broadband in less commercially viable regions of the UK, which have been overlooked by the larger suppliers.

The Register reported last August that many small ISPs were facing ruin after Ofcom rulings which were seen as increasing the monopoly of the larger suppliers. By teaming up, they will hopefully survive to make the British broadband market more competitive and fairer for businesses and consumers.

A new computer system designed to speed up court cases is now on trial. The £20m XHIBIT – eXchanging Hearing Information By Internet Technology – scheme is designed to save time and money by making criminal trial proceedings more efficient.

Under the scheme, now in use in Avon and Somerset, witnesses can be called instantly by text message to give evidence. It is estimated this alone will save 80,000 days of police time – leaving more time for PC Plod to walk the beat. Interested parties will be able to track court hearings online, and public display screens in the court building will feature the latest case status. The system is linked to the police’s computer system and is therefore expected to speed up the delivery of warrants issued by the courts.

Originally piloted at Snaresbrook Crown Court in London, the system should be rolled out across England and Wales by early 2006. Courts Minister Christopher Leslie commented: “This is a clear example of courts using technology to improve the reality and perception of the criminal justice system. It all adds up to a better deal for victims and witnesses in the court process. It is a practical measure that will help make it easier for victims under great pressure.”

Unfortunately the system is not yet in place at Michael Jackson’s trial in Santa Barbara County Court – so Bubbles will just have to sit around and wait.

The UK’s first virtual school has won overall honours at Liverpool’s first Neighbourhood Renewal Awards. The awards have been designed to recognise the achievements of local projects in significantly improving the services and regeneration of some of the most deprived areas of Liverpool.

The innovative ‘virtual school’ has 800 pupils on its register and has achieved excellent results since its conception two years ago. The online school aims to ensure that all the city’s children in care gain the same educational opportunities as their peers. Pupils have access to their own computer and e-learning packages, which have been tailored to assist pupils and their carers with online study support, information and advice. This distant learning programme, in conjunction with regular school attendance, continues to significantly improve academic results of children in care within Liverpool. The award recognises the technological advance as an opportunity to reduce barriers to learning in an attempt to help students recognise their academic potential.

The school has a virtual board of governors, a virtual headteacher and even virtual parent governors. A million pounds worth of IT equipment has been made available to ensure all children have access to a computer and develop IT skills on par with other students outside the programme.

The people that brought you Fax Your MP have been busy. Yesterday they launched the beta version of Write to Them, which enables you to contact not just your local MP but local Councillors, MEPs, MSPs, and Welsh and London Assembly Members for free. But before anyone is even remotely tempted to use this new tool, or to tell all your friends about the service, there are several sensible points which the designers would like you to bear in mind:

• Do not give people text to paste into their messages.
• Don’t spam people either.
• Don’t supply people with a postcode to use.
• If you’re talking to an international audience, stress that only people living in the UK should use the service.
• If you’re talking to a very large audience, please try to let Write to Them know in advance.
• Be considerate.
• If in doubt, ask them first.

The ongoing saga of the government’s attempt to overhaul NHS IT systems took another twist this weekend, with doctors and MPs criticising the appointment of a top PR firm to promote the £6.2bn project. Porter Novelli was awarded the six-figure contract by the National Programme for IT (NPfIT) to convince the public of the benefits of introducing electronic records.

The appointment is in response to a National Audit Office (NAO) report in January criticising the programme and the government for not engaging with GPs enough. However, the British Medical Association (BMA) branded the move as a “clumsy” attempt to regain the interest of GPs disillusioned with the project. Liberal Democrat health spokesman Paul Burstow called the appointment “a massive waste of taxpayers’ money.” The NPfIT denied the move was a cynical marketing exercise, claiming it was vital to inform patients of the rights they will have under the new system.

The new NHS Care Records Service (CRS) will allow NHS staff to access patient records wherever they are treated, and to make appointments for patients at the hospital most suitable for them. The programme is the biggest civil IT project in the world, but has not had an easy labour. Doubts have been raised over the security of the system, and the government has been forced to allow patients to opt-out.

Last week medical pollsters Medix found widespread disillusion among healthcare professionals, who say they have not been adequately consulted on the changes. Only one in twenty GPs felt they have been adequately consulted on the changes, and just one in five now describe themselves as enthusiastic about the project.

Paul Cundy, chairman of the GPs’ committee on IT at the BMA, said: “It’s increasingly difficult to remain optimistic about NPfIT, given the collapse of enthusiasm for it in the profession. It’s fallen over a cliff edge.” The government will be hoping that Porter Novelli, also responsible for launching Viagra to the Swedish public, can arouse a bit more interest.

Michael Martin MP, Speaker of the House of Commons, today warned that he will eject from the Chamber any Member of Parliament caught using a BlackBerry device, according to the BBC.

The £200 handheld computers can be used as a phone, pager or to send emails. Launched in 2001 by Canadian firm Research in Motion, BlackBerries hit the headlines this week when Alastair Campbell accidentally used his to send a four-letter tirade to a BBC journalist. Labour’s former Director of Communications seems not to have mastered the latest must-have accessory, admitting he was “not very good at this BlackBerry malarkey.”

Some Members have already been caught using them during debates, and Michael Martin seems to be losing patience. He also cautioned MPs against using hidden earpieces. His threats should be taken seriously: he threw Tory MP Henry Bellingham out of the Chamber in 2003 for using a camera phone.

However, it could be that Michael Martin is merely trying to protect MPs from themselves. Doctors at Imperial College London recently warned that overuse of the gadgets has spawned a new repetitive strain injury, dubbed ‘BlackBerry thumb’. In giving BlackBerries the thumbs down, the Speaker may be doing MPs a favour.

Members of the e-gov community were left open-mouthed this week when Tony Blair admitted to Parliament’s Liaison Committee that he had never visited the Directgov website, or even knew its address.

The multi-million pound venture is a key part of the government’s joined-up government policy, and represents one of the biggest IT projects in the EU.

The website boasts of its usefulness: “Directgov is the place to turn to for the latest and widest range of public service information from the UK government. Book a driving test, find a job, get advice about childcare, renew your passport and lots more.”

According to Rt Hon Ruth Kelly’s comments in Hansard on 9 December 2004, Directgov had an operational budget of £4.4 million in 2003/4, before the site launched last April.

However, when Richard Allan MP asked the PM on Tuesday: “Have you ever visited the multi-million pound central government website that you have set up to get us all to use these new electronic government facilities?”

Mr Blair replied: “I think that is a very unfair question. The answer is no.”

This is all the more shocking considering the pressure put on local authorities to integrate services online, and the berating received by those not on-track to meet the end-of-year deadline.

The Liaison Committee, which comprises the chairmen of the 34 select committees, considers general select committee business and advises the House of Commons Commission on which reports to debate in the House, with evidence provided by the Prime Minister. The committee is chaired by Rt Hon Alan Williams.

The response to President Bush’s State of the Union address was immediate. An e-mail was circulated among prominent technology-savvy Iranians. It announced the launch of Iranians for Peace: “a weblog dedicated to the Iranian people who are against a military attack on Iran” (http://nowarforiran.blogspot.com). Here and on similar sites are the thoughts of Iranians, written in English, as they contemplate the latest threats by the US.

“The news of war frightens me. I remember the years that I was a schoolchild, when my country was included in a bloody war with Iraq. Nothing is worse than living in fear,” one Iranian, under the pseudonym “No War”, has written. He goes on to explain Iranians’ complex relationship with the government and their patriotism. “I just want to warn the US or any other country that Iranians are one of the most patriotic nations.” Much as they loathe their current leaders, young Iranians, it seems, do not want Bush to invade.

To read the rest of this article on the New Statesman website, click here

Iranian weblogs which may be of interest:

http://yaserb.blogspot.com
http://nowarforiran.blogspot.com
http://broodingpersian.blogspot.com
http://hoder.com/weblog

Petitions to the UN and George Bush regarding Iran can be found here:

George Bush - http://nowar.21mehr.com
The UN - http://www.petitiononline.com/NWinIran/petition.html

The Government’s enthusiasm for the e-enablement of local government suddenly seemed to be bearing fruit after a flurry of activity on a Yorkshire parish website - only for the council to pull the plug on the site.

The Copmanthorpe parish council website had attracted the attention of a prankster who littered the message board with web-links – to pages containing the sort of ‘mature lady’ material normally reserved for a Richard Desmond publication.

The discussion forum has now been closed down by the council. It was originally intended to offer residents a forum to discuss local services.

“We don’t wish to be associated with that kind of thing,” said council clerk Diane Greenwell to the BBC: “It would appear that whoever is doing this may be cleverer than us”

Otherwise, the most popular posts on the message board concerned dog-related problems in the town’s alleyways and parks. Stan Collymore had not been seen in the area.

IBM unveiled new software to help avert public health crises, in San Francisco yesterday. The Health care Collaborative Network (HCN) will allow health care workers to share critical information and access data from conflicting databases. The system will connect the doctor’s diagnosis and prescription with real-time information about a hospitalised patient, while ensuring patient privacy.

James Rinaldi, chief information officer for the US Food and Drug Administration, said to Reuters: “The doctor knows what the patient should be prescribed. The pharmacy knows what was prescribed. The hospital knows how a patient is responding.” A national electronic network would alert medical practitioners to unusual medical patterns, help them to identify the origin and spread of a problem, and target solutions.

The system was developed with US health agencies and private hospitals to cope with problems such as the anthrax attacks in 2002, but will also recognise flu and contaminated food-related outbreaks. The software can also track long-term conditions such as diabetes and highlight adverse drug interactions.

The software was designed for local and regional medical communities, and Canada’s government will pilot an early warning and response system for biological threats in Winnipeg. The software has been tested and validated by selected hospitals around the US, according to IBM.

IBM’s middleware will bridge the gap between incompatible medical databases and help identify patterns – a task that previously took up to two years, according to Jim Gabler, an analyst with Gartner Inc. speaking to Reuters. “This sort of software is just going to speed that up,” he said.

Is there no end to Google’s energy for inventiveness? Today Google Labs announced the beta version of Google Maps. Features include not only the more traditional location finder (much like Multimap and Street Map) but also directions to get from A to B and a business search facility. At the moment the maps only cover the US, but with such great advertising potential it won’t be long before this particular product is on everyone’s map.

The world’s first digital TV channel to support educators will be launched tomorrow. Teachers’ TV (TTV) will broadcast free programmes that provide teachers with new teaching methods and and insights into how other schools are run. The 24 hour, year-round service is editorially independent of the DfES, which funds the service, and aims to reflect the views of the teaching community.

TTV will target programmes at teachers of all levels as well as other education professionals and support staff. The schedule will contain news and debate, professional development advice and curriculum-based programmes for use in the classroom. More light-hearted viewing includes highlights of “OFSTED! The Musical". The channel aims to reach a wide audience within the profession through word-of-mouth recommendation and accessible programming.

The channel will be broadcast on satellite, cable and DSL. Programmes will also be repeated overnight on Freeview, which the channel expects to be mainly used for recording. Listings and other information are available on a dedicated website, and in a supplement in Teachers magazine. Discounted digital subscriptions are available to teachers that do not currently have access.

The channel is a product of Education Digital, a collaboration between media and education specialists: Brook Lapping Productions, Carlton Communications, and the Institute of Education.

Teachers’ TV will be launched without many of the interactive services originally promised. When the channel was announced last summer, a spokesman told informitv: “interactive services, enabling viewers to access further information about programmes, personalise their viewing and highlight what’s relevant to them on the schedule [would be available].” This has been scaled back to a more modest website with downloadable resources such as lesson plans and worksheets, as well as files containing programmes.

A more consistent approach to the design of central government websites is emerging with a “demonstrable” improvement in usability, according to a report by Porter Research.

Porter Research looked at each government department’s website and scored them out of 100, based on government’s own best practice guidelines. The recently redesigned Department of Health website received the highest score of 85.6.

Adrian Porter, the author of the report, said: “The site performed consistently well in all our categories of assessment, and as with last year’s design, it demonstrates that it is possible to create an attractive and intuitive website without recourse to the extensive use of graphic elements.”

However, older sites were poorly maintained and email response times were unacceptably low. Last year’s best performer, The Equal Opportunities Commission, only managed a score of 67 this year largely because its fundamentally good design was overloaded with content.

Half of all sites received a score under 65, which Porter considers the level where urgent attention is needed. The Office of Fair Trading was the worst performer with a score of 53.7.

Local e-Government also received a boost this week, when the minister responsible, Phil Hope, announced that all local authorities are expected to meet the year end target for getting services online.

Speaking at yesterday’s National Projects EXPO 2005 event in London, the minister expects authorities to deliver £1.2 billion in efficiency savings by 2007/08 as a result of e-Government investment.

Phil Hope said: “The results from IEG4 show the good progress councils are making on e- government, and the potential efficiency gains arising from this work, supported by outputs from the National Projects. The key is making it real - real life changes to the quality of life for ordinary people - people focussed outcomes.”

The National Gallery, London, today unveiled their new interactive multimedia system called ArtStart. The Sainsbury Wing will house twelve new interactive kiosks, which will increase to 36 by the end of 2005.

Interactive displays have been a part of museums and galleries for about two decades but have rarely been successful at augmenting the visiting experience. In almost every gallery or museum, you will probably find one located in a small, neglected corner attracting occasional visitors. With a touch screen display or trackball, visitors will usually sit at it for a few minutes before leaving, disappointed by the whole experience.

The National Gallery has spent three years of careful planning and development creating ArtStart, in collaboration with digital agency NYKRIS. The initial reception seems positive as ArtStart has already been shortlisted in the design category for the prestigious BAFTA interactive awards. The gallery hopes it will change the visiting experience for the better.

ArtStart allows visitors to browse the entire 2,300-strong collection of the gallery and view pictures that have been digitised on a 100-megapixel camera. Dr John Cupitt, of the gallery’s scientific department stated: “The 100-megapixel camera is calibrated against international colour standards, as are the screens. So what you see on the screen is very close to how the painting actually looks.” In addition, visitors can zoom in and examine any section of any painting with remarkable detail.

Visitors can learn background information on all of the paintings with specially written in-depth explorations of the gallery’s thirty most popular works. Users can also plot their own unique tour around the gallery, focusing on themes or their favourite artists and paintings.

The system has been designed to be an integral part of the National Gallery experience, so there are no plans for ArtStart to go online. Steve Dale, deputy head of new media at the National Gallery, said: “We didn’t want something that felt like a bolt on to the side of the gallery. Ultimately, we want it to make people go back to the paintings as it’s never been designed as a substitute for the painting themselves.”

Though some may doubt the installation of interactive displays, the new zoom and other features will certainly allow visitors get closer to works of art without the worry of being warned by eagle-eyed security guards.

Last year’s Graf report hit the BBC’s New Media arm hard, forcing the closure of several of its sub-sites, and the re-appraisal of its current practices. The BBC’s response to the report is a turgid document to say the least, but blogger, journalist, and gentleman adventurer Ben Hammersley spotted a most interesting paragraph in it this week. The BBC are planning the launch of “Backstage", which will be, “a public site for the BBC’s in-house development teams to share development plans with their peers and audiences".

Involving members of the public with development and beta-testing of new projects isn’t just good for geeks; it’s the BBC living up to its charter - something which the Graf report had suggested it was failing to do. And it could be beneficial for the BBC too; Google, Amazon, and flickr have all taken a similar approach and found the feedback and ideas generated from letting the public play with their systems invaluable.

Until now, glimpses of the BBC’s New Media research and development have been limited to its developers posting articles on their own blogs (such as Matt Biddulph’s explanation of how Radio 1’s Ten Hour Takeover was run). Backstage would give developers far more opportunities to show off their work in progress and gain the feedback of their peers. There’s no word of when it will be live, but it’s definitely worth keeping your eyes out for.

Teachers of information and communication technology awoke to criticism this morning from Public Technology , following the publication of yesterday’s Ofsted’s annual report into the nation’s schools.

Public Technology reported: “Achievement for primary age pupils in information and communication technology (ICT) continues to improve, but it is still the subject where there is most under achievement.”

Although the Ofsted report notes that achievement in ICT compares unfavourably with other subjects, it is now considered good in half of all schools and only unsatisfactory in one school in ten. Starting from a marginally lower base, the report also says: “ICT is again the subject showing most improvement in schools when compared with their previous inspections.”

Other plusses include very positive attitudes throughout the primary age range and an improvement in teaching, especially at the foundation stage. The main area of weakness remained assessment.

Six years after the introduction of a national strategy on the teaching of ICT, Ofsted said the level of teaching competence was the best it had ever been, but expressed concern over discipline and the continuing difference in achievement between social classes.

Conclusion: “Could do better".

Providing affordable, accessible and usable computers for the developing world has become an increasing priority for technology companies. VIA Technologies, manufacturer of chipsets, low-power processors and small-form factor motherboards, is ramping up plans to develop their own platform for computing in the developing world. VIA President Wenchi Chen’s vision is to deliver computing, “To the next one billion people,” based around providing low power PCs.

Developing markets frequently face the problem of fluctuating power sources stemming from their unstable infrastructure. Mr. Chen expanded on the problem: “Computers in the developing world have to operate with an unreliable infrastructure…Current and voltage can go all over the place. If people [in developing countries] are going to invest in a system then they need to ensure it will last five years. You have to build long-lasting devices.” VIA intends to tackle this problem by producing cheaper, low power components.

Mr. Chen stated it was a myth that computer manufacturers could sell computers to the developing world simply because they could hit the $100 price point. This was a swipe at Nicholas Negroponte, the founding chairman of MIT’s Media lab, who touted his $100 laptop computer for the developing world last week at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

VIA is planning a number of related launches this year that including: the “communication station” that would allow email, browsing and VoIP; a “media station” that would enable full computing but based on flash memory rather than a hard disk; and a full PC.

The credibility of e-government was set back today when the Inland Revenue admitted thousands of online self-assessment tax returns were rejected, forcing the deadline to be extended by two weeks.

People filing their tax returns over the weekend feared that they would be liable for a £100 fine for late completion, after overloaded web servers refused to accept submissions before yesterday’s midnight deadline. The Inland Revenue has promised to waive the charge for anyone who attempted to submit online, which the agency will check against a list of attempted returns.

This is a remarkable change of fortune for the online self-assessment system, as less than two weeks ago the Inland Revenue was a joint winner of publictechnology.net’s e-Government Excellence Award for Strategic Plan/Achievement (Central Government).

Electronic voting has been plagued by controversy and mistrust, stemming from past problems with e-voting machines. The most famous example is the Diebold Election System, used by the US government, which was criticised for not producing physical paper trails.

To combat this problem, and introduce uniform standards, legendary cryptographer David Chaum has set up the Voting System Performance Rating (VSPR). The VSPR aims to publish a report, and set of tests, that will allow e-voting systems be evaluated in areas of privacy, accessibility and accuracy. Mr. Chaum said it would be like: “a Consumer Report for voting systems.”

Mr. Chaum had to convince voting companies that VSPR was: “the only way they could get the market to straighten itself out so they could make money. This was the only way they could stop the war between the voting officials and security advocates.” Either way VSPR indicates a move towards stricter standards for e-voting devices, which in turn could lead to not only a faster and more accurate processing of votes on election day but also increased trust in the electoral process.