A brief post, this, simply because it can get tiring linking to all the amazing applications Google keep coming up with. But it seemed worth updating our first look at Google Maps now that Google Maps UK has finally launched. It has all the features of the US version - finding places, businesses, and directions - apart from the slightly creepy satellite photos. I’m sure they’ll get around to photographing the UK from space at some point in the near future. The business finder is particularly impressive, because its information is all sourced from Yell. So if you’ve ever wondered where the Indian restaurants in the vicinity of the NS offices are, you can now find out.

In addition to localising their mapping service for the UK, Google have also now launched UK-specific versions of Google Local (which allows you to search for businesses and services by location) and Google SMS. The latter service will send you Google results via text-message; you simply text your query to a number and Google responds - all for the cost of a standard text message. Cheating in pub quizzes has never been so easy.

Google may be a large company with some great minds working for it, but credit must be given where credit is due: their services are pretty nifty, and it’s great to see their growing support for non-US audiences. Let’s hope that as well as continuing to innovate, they roll out their current localised services across the globe.

The Labour Party has hired Zack Exley, the controversial cyberactivist from liberal American website MoveOn.org, according to Silicon. As of now, there is little known about what exactly Exley will be doing for Labour.

Exley originally made a name for himself through “cybersquatting” – the practice of buying up an internet domain in the name of a party or politician and using it to help the opposing side. He purchased the domain name gwbush.com in the late 1990s for $70, and he used the site to post doctored photos of George W. Bush snorting cocaine and drinking. Exley avoided legal penalties because he was a registered Independent at the time and was not employed by any of the political parties.

He then went on to join MoveOn, a major player in the 2000 presidential election which engaged in grassroots campaigning and claimed to have built an online community of some 2 million political activists. MoveOn created an uproar when it posted a video comparing Bush to Adolf Hitler. Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry went on to hire Exley as his Director of Internet Campaigns.

The Conservative Party claims that several websites with party leader Michael Howard’s name have already been registered by the Labour Party. Labour is not alone in its cybersquatting, however. The Lib Dems have come under fire for registering plaid-cymru.co.uk, and the Conservatives themselves own both tonyblairmp.com and tonyblairmp.net. In an election where honesty and trustworthiness are shaping up to be key issues for voters, online trickery is probably not the best way to win people over.

The Museum of London is working to develop a new e-learning project called Exploring 20th Century London, reports PublicTechnology.net. The project, funded by DCF/Hub, is in partnership with London’s Transport Museum and three other London museums. The goal is to create an integrated database of selected records from each museum’s collection featuring sound, film files, and images.

The Museum of London’s official website currently offers a wide array of features, including description of all the museum’s galleries and a learning centre where students, parents, and teachers can download educational packets. The Exploring 20th Century London site should enhance the interactivity of the current website, as it will giver users the option to access more than text. This is in line with a current trend that sees more museums using new media technology on their websites. The Tate Britain website, which we reported on a few months back, allows users to take a flash tour of the museum.

The Museum of London is holding a seminar on May 10th to discuss the new, online project. The seminar will feature speakers from MLA, ALM London, and the London Museums Hub. The aim is to gather information from regional museums, archives and libraries that will better prepare the Exploring 20th Century London project team on how the site can best serve its users. Although the site stands to benefit from the seminar, one questions why they don’t launch the site sooner and continue to improve it after its launch. There is a tendency to want to deliver grand, fully realised projects, but many great projects have started small and grown over time.

Somehow www.notapathetic.com launched last Thursday and we failed to notice. The MySociety gang, with their finger on the proverbial pulse, has built a website for people who are planning not to vote in the UK General Election on May 5th, and who want to tell the world why.

The aim is not to persuade anyone that voting is a good or a bad idea - they just want to hear, record and share the explanations. It makes fascinating, if depressing, reading. Those who have taken the time to make posts are not (as the domain name says) apathetic, but they are fed up and many seem to feel powerless.

Charles Kennedy will be pleased to know that his party is the only party to get much positive feedback but there are enough other nay-sayers to alternatively make Charles weep.

For anyone trying to engage the public in the general election this site should be an essential read.

A new website is available to help people, businesses, and organisations in West Lindsey search for grants, low-cost loans, and awards, reports eGov monitor. By visiting www.west-lindsey.gov.uk and clicking on the ‘West Lindsey 4’ logos, users can access information about what grants are available, to whom, how much is available, and how you access the money.

The site, offered by West Lindsey District Council’s Economic Development Services, provides information on what is available to fund projects, ranging from new business development to charitable projects. It features a straightforward menu system with easy-to-follow onscreen instructions and is regularly updated when new sources of funding become available.

Putting all the available information on one website should make searching for funding opportunities much easier and more convenient. The service, provided by j4b, has been available for several years now. West Lindsey’s implementation of it shows how it is not just county councils, but the smaller district and borough councils that can make use of new media technology to provide services at a highly localised level.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao wants to join forces with India to make the 21st century the “Asian century of the IT industry”, reports Silicon. Speaking at the office of Tata Consultancy Services in India on Sunday, Wen said the two countries must combine their strengths to take a leadership position in the IT world.

Wen marked the second day of his four-day visit to India by meeting with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and top Indian leadership in New Delhi on Monday. “India has the advantage in software and China has the advantage in hardware,” said Wen, after a ceremonial welcome at the red sandstone official residence of Indian President Abdul Kalam. “Both countries could work to their mutual advantage and be world leaders. I strongly believe that the combination of India and China could certainly set a new trail in IT.”

According to The Asian Age, the Chinese Premier exuded confidence when discussing the numbers of computer and internet users in China, which is estimated to be upwards of 100 million.

“We are making giant strides in the field of IT,” said Wen. “There is an ever broadening market for the IT industry. The coming together of India and China would be mutually beneficial.” With an ever broadening market for the IT industry, Wen sees the two countries coming together as not only beneficial for Asia, but for peace throughout the world, as well.

“I hope and believe that my visit will inject fresh vigour and vitality into relations,” said Wen. “As the world’s two major developing countries, China and India will exert positive influence on peace and development in Asia, and the world at large, when we live in peace, deepen mutual trust and expand co-operation.” An IT alliance between China and India could significantly level the playing field in the competition with the West, and Wen’s pledge to use China’s and India’s burgeoning power for peace is encouraging. As China’s influence in the world increases, only time will tell whether this good-will approach to power extends itself to other facets of Chinese policy.

The Institute for Public Policy Research launched an online consultation today in which people can post thoughts on the future of Britain’s digital policy. The consultation will take place on the project’s weblog at www.digitalmanifesto.org.

The consultation is aimed at people who are not traditionally interested in information technology. IPPR hopes to implement ideas posted in the weblog into its ‘Manifesto for a Digital Britain’ – a new digital policy programme for the UK that will be released in July.

“We want to hear suggestions and opinions from people who are not already involved in the field,” said William Davies, Senior Research Fellow in Digital Society at the IPPR. “We’re interested in hearing from people who talk about digital policy at the pub.”

For three weeks the site will pose different questions that people are invited to respond to. They fall under the categories ‘Innovating’, ‘Reassuring’, and ‘Empowering’. Current questions include: “Does British competitiveness depend on additional infrastructural improvements, or should skills, content, and media literacy become the dominant policy issues?” and “What single measure could support better relationships between public and private sectors, in the delivery of large eGovernment projects?”

Davies hopes to take a specific recommendation or some illuminating quotes from the weblog to include in the manifesto. He is careful not to be exceedingly optimistic about the project’s potential, however. “We mustn’t expect an online consultation such as this to be a fabulous success, just because it’s using new media,” he said. “Techies can be over-ambitious in their expectations.”

E-mail fraud has grown from 4-16% in the last six months, and it only takes 6.4 days for a system to be attacked after vulnerabilities are exposed. IP owners convened at an e-Crime Congress yesterday in London to discuss the problem of internet fraud. Computer hackers are no longer breaking into systems for fame; they are doing it for money. In an economy where security is a marketing tool valuable to the brand, companies that process secure information online must work to instill confidence in their consumers.

“Sixty-one per cent of internet users are concerned with online credit card safety,” said Tim Morris, Vice President and Regional Head, Security & Risk Asia Pacific, MasterCard international. “Merchants must be willing to adopt new payment technologies. And we must work to shut down collusive merchants who can run businesses from a bedroom with a great looking website.”

Experts see consumer education as a critical step in fighting online fraud. David Litchfield, Managing Director and Chief Research Scientist at NGS Software Ltd, suggested that the government adopt a national computer security day, in the same vain as national no smoking days, in which people are educated on how to secure their computers. Litchfield also thinks the government should take greater strides in ensuring e-criminals are apprehended and fully prosecuted.

“It is a fantasy to think that you can get full security,” said Litchfield. “Inevitably, people are going to break into your system. There have to be consequences for these people – law enforcement response and jail – so that nobody will want to take the risk.”

In an age of quickly advancing technology, many companies find it difficult and expensive to keep their security systems up-to-date. How much money should a company spend on security? Litchfield compares this decision with insuring one’s car.

“You have to accurately access the risk,” he said. “It is hard to put a measure on it because there is no panacea or silver bullet. The most expensive is not always the most effective.”

Litchfield added that the best way for companies to protect themselves is to employ someone who understands exactly what kind of technology they are working with. “If you don’t have those people working for you, you need to find them,” he said.

The Home Office last Friday announced that the government is to set up a ‘Centre for Child Protection on the Internet’. The Home Office press release detailing the project explains that the Centre’s aim will be ‘to reduce the harm caused to children, families and societies by child abuse facilitated through the internet‘. The Centre will tackle every aspect of the ever-growing problem of online child abuse, from the ‘grooming’ of children via chat rooms and instant messaging, to the distribution of child pornography and other abusive material. The Centre is supported by members of the Internet Task Force, making the project a real concerted effort: it is not only the police and government behind the project, but also child welfare groups.

The Centre’s proposed duties include providing support to victims and their families and advice to local agencies, active investigation of ‘high priority targets’, and managing the national database of child abuse images (the imaginatively titled ‘Childbase’). It will also provide a ’single 24/7 point of contact’ for anyone to report suspected abuse. This last service may raise some suspicions; a single point of contact to shop paedophiles sounds like every News of the World reader’s dream come true. Hopefully the public promotion of the service will also educate users in how to use it appropriately.

Though it has been announced today, the agency will only come into operation in April 2006, when it will be attached to the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA). SOCA itself will only come into being at that time; its creation is subject to the passing of the Serious Organised Crime and Police bill. If that bill is not passed, there will be no Centre. The Home Office clearly wishes to act in the best issues of children and parents, and deal with the serious problem of child abuse online at a national level. The announcement of the Centre, though, has the air of a PR exercise rushed out of the door prior to some major political event.

The Vatican used text messaging and e-mail to update the press on the medical condition of Pope John Paul II, reports Silicon. The 2,000 year-old church employed new technology in order to meet the demands of real time news. Only fifteen minutes after the Pope’s passing on Saturday, the Vatican had sent journalists an SMS message informing them of the news.

Journalists purchased state-of-the-art handheld computers, at the suggestion of the Vatican, which they used to communicate with church officials. Upon the pope’s passing, the computers were e-mailed a simple Word document, reading: “The Holy Father died this evening at 21:37 in his private apartment.”

Television viewers across the globe were informed of the pope’s death even before the thousands of people gathered outside his apartment in St. Peter’s Square in Rome. Archbishop Leonardo Sandri informed the crowd minutes later, and they responded with a long round of applause – an Italian custom, which was captured on live TV.

The events surround the death of John Paul II stand in stark contrast to the secrecy surrounding previous pontificates. In 1963, for example, the Vatican kept Pope John XXIII’s inoperable stomach cancer secret until days before his death. John Paul II himself was a proponent of information technology. In February, he wrote a letter in which he encouraged the church to use the internet to spread its message, saying the “mass media can and must promote justice and solidarity.”