The Net and Other Election Issues

There are a few issues that have become an election issue in Australia and have not been as high on the Canadian election agenda. One is the Internet. Australians are rightly concerned about the next generation of high speed Internet.
Other issues on the Australian agenda not seen in Canada:
fishing
camping
shooting (ok... so a few common issues)
boiling the billy (?)
...and of course, the deadly flying foxes.

Do I Sound Illegal to You?

Sounding Out! has an interesting post about how law (Arizona's anti-illegal-immigration law) and sound (sonic profiling) can be used to target undocumented workers and make them subject to deportation, police harassment, and criminalization - and how remixers and other performers are using sound to fight back.

Turning tide? E-book text-to-speech exception

The Daily Finance has an article on how the Library of Congress' recent ruling allows the circumvention of digital locks in order to use ebook text-to-speech features. Kevin Smith thinks the latest rulemaking represents a turning of the tide in US copyright policy.

The Future of the University

The mandate of P2PU - the peer-to-peer university - is "Learning for everyone, by everyone, about almost anything". Going beyond open courseware, P2PU creates actual classes - online communities - that students can join to take the courses. Course designers can participate in an online course about designing courses!
Does P2PU offer formal credits? Not yet.

Humane Reader Project

Ted Striphas writes about the Humane Reader project. Noting that e-books and the digitalization of reading "threatens to freeze large swaths of the world’s population out of one of the most important vehicles for literacy", Striphas points to the Humane Reader project, an open source-based ebook that is supposed to cost $20 bulk.