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).