Victoria launching $100,000 'Apps my state' competition to create open data applications

Following the lead of the Gov 2.0 Taskforce's MashupAustralia and NSW's Apps4nsw competition (which runs until 24 March), Victoria's Minister for Information and Communications Technology, John Lenders, has announced the 'Apps my state' competition.

In his media release, Minister Lenders said that,

"App My State is a competition to encourage software developers and members of the public to create web or mobile applications using Victorian Government data.

"We’re looking for the cream of Victoria’s innovative and hi-tech communities to come up with new and helpful ways to use this information – an added incentive for local talent to develop their ideas for fellow Victorians.

"Applications will be judged for their innovation, design and development, usefulness, accessibility and general excellence."

Victoria already has range of data available that would be usable in the competition, hopefully with more to come.
The competition will launch in late February at the Victorian Premier's website.

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South Australian Premier vows to repeal internet censorship over election comments

As a follow-up from my post yesterday,South Australia bans anonymous election comments online, South Australia Premier Mike Rann has twittered that the South Australian government has decided to repeal the January 6 amendment to the state's Electoral Act which made it illegal to publish anonymous comments online during an election campaign.

Reported in a post in Ars Technica, Internet uprising overturns Australian censorship law (which is an excellent read), South Australian Attorney-General Michael Atkinson sent a statement yesterday to AdelaideNow, where many citizens were protesting the new law, stating that,

"From the feedback we've received through AdelaideNow, the blogging generation believes that the law supported by all MPs and all political parties is unduly restrictive. I have listened. I will immediately after the election move to repeal the law retrospectively... It may be humiliating for me, but that's politics in a democracy and I'll take my lumps."

Note that I assume this statement is based on the assumption that the present South Australian government is re-elected. If another party wins power, the law may stand.

Australian online pundits are labelling this a victory for democracy over censorship and I expect to see the example of South Australian's decision used by opponents to the Australian federal government's planned mandatory internet filter.

I've included the key tweets from Premier Rann's validated twitter account below...

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Google to end support for Internet Explorer 6 during 2010

Google has announced that it will progressively end support for Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 during 2010 - beginning with Google Docs and Sites in March. Youtube, another Google company, is also phasing out support.

Announced in the Google Enterprise blog post last week, Modern browsers for modern applications, Google Apps Senior Product Manager, Rajen Sheth, said that the web had evolved in the last ten years from simple text pages to rich interactive applications and that very old web browsers cannot run these new features effectively.

This approach isn't limited to Google. A number of companies have already dropped support for Internet Explorer 6.0 in their online applications and more, including Facebook and Digg, plan to drop it in the near future.

Microsoft (up to CEO level) have also advocated dropping the IE6 web browser for their latest version, Internet Explorer 8.

EDIT at 8:10AM 3/2/09:
Nick Hodge, a Microsoft staff member, has commented on this post that Microsoft is also progressively dropping IE6 support, saying that Microsoft has,

dropped support for IE6 in Sharepoint 2010 and the forthcoming web versions of Word, Excel, Powerpoint and OneNote 2010; plus live@edu and other web properties. 

END EDIT

However, to support its customers, as there are a number of major corporations still tied to the ageing browser, Microsoft recently extended support for IE6 until April 2014, when all support for Windows XP ends.

Given the recent severe security issues reported with IE6 and the increasing proportion of the internet unavailable to those using the 2001 vintage web browser, I hope to see the remaining organisations migrating away from the browser in the near future.

It is estimated that only 20% of web users - predominantly workers in large organisations - still use IE6, however up to 50% of Chinese internet users are still on the web browser.

Reportedly Microsoft's Internet Explorer web browser has been losing market share at least 2004, when it reached 90% of the market. According to Wikipedia's Usage share of web browsers article, it is now estimated (through tracking subsets of internet users) that only about 60% of internet users are on one of the Internet Explorer variants, with Firefox 3.5 having overtaken IE8 as the most popular browser by version.

Some commentators expect to see Microsoft's share of the web browser market fall below 50% by mid-2011.

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South Australia bans anonymous election comments online

I've been alerted by CloCkWeRX in a comment in my post, Australian Labor Party launches social media website, that the South Australian government has passed a law banning anonymous online comments about the South Australian election.

According to the article South Australian Government gags internet debate in News.com.au,

The new law, which came into force on January 6, requires anyone making an online comment about next month's state election to publish their real name and postcode.

Intended to force media outlets to police the publication of online comments in their sites in order to prevent anonymous comments or comments involving fake names, this revision to the South Australian Electoral Act potentially could be interpreted broadly across any websites hosting public comments.

This could mean the provision would apply across blogs, forums, social networks, Twitter and other online services that support public comments.

If this is the case, and the ACT is enforced across South Australian hosted sites containing public comments, this may encourage organisations to move their website hosting away from South Australia to other Australian states or overseas. It is also unclear whether or how the South Australian government would enforce the Act across other jurisdictions hosting social media websites containing public comments about the South Australian election.

It is also unclear how the law applies to online opinions posted by those aged under 18 years old, who might still have an interest or school assignment involving state politics. There could be privacy issues in having a state government government force minors to publicly publish their real full name and postcode when commenting on electoral issues during election periods.

Privacy and security issues may also apply for people in witness protection programs, who would avoid using their real name and postcode on online comments to avoid detection by criminals.

Whilst not a lawyer, it appears to me that this amendment will be very difficult to enforce - a view shared by the South Australian Attorney-General, Michael Atkinson, who is responsible for overseeing state laws.

Mr Atkinson is known for his opposition to a national 'R' rating for computer games, despite the average age of Australian gamers being over 30 and 'R' rated movies being legal in Australia. He was also involved in a recent South Australian law which prohibits the display of promotional material for 'R' rated movies in areas children may enter. My understanding is that this ban is despite whether the promotional material itself portrays 'R' rated images.

Quoting the AdelaideNow article, Outrage as Rann Government, Opposition unite to gag internet election debate,

In a press conference today, Mr Atkinson said the law was "all about honesty''.

He conceded it would be difficult to police but the most "egregious and outrageous'' breaches of the new laws would be identified.

As none of the news articles actually quote the relevant section of the South Australian Electoral Act, you can find it at the Electoral Act page in the South Australian Legislation. Refer to Section 116.

 I apologise for not published the relevant section of the Act here in my blog, I am currently unclear on whether this would be considered a breach of copyright.

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Australian Labor Party launches social media website

In a first for a major political party in Australia, the Australian Labor Party (ALP) has embedded blogging, tweeting and video in the heart of its website, relaunching www.alp.org.au as a Politics 2.0 website.

Termed 'Labor Connect' the redeveloped site aims to foster active policy debates, stating that,

We know we won’t always agree about issues and it would be pretty boring if we did. Labor Connect will not always be endorsed policy and its aim is to create debate and discussion about progressive policy development in the Party.

The ALP calls its relaunched site a 'beta' and says there are many additional social media features yet to release. Their comment moderation process is very simple, with four basic guidelines:

• Stick to the topic
• Be respectful
• Be honest
• No Junk Mail

Nielsen recently reported that 9.9 million Australians were active on social media sites and that they used social media for longer than any other nation they studies, with the average Australian spending 6 hours and 52 minutes per month on social media sites.

Besides the site's value in an election year, perhaps it is also an example of what the government is looking for from the public service in departmental engagement.

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