The Australian Copyright Council have a useful introductory article on protecting writing, visual imagery, music and moving imagery with copyright in Australia. The website also contains useful information sheets, publications, news pages and useful links.
Screenrights for example, is a body that assists Educators where it is difficult or impossible to negotiate individual copyright clearances, in film and television. Following lobbying by both the film industry and the education sector, provisions were introduced into the Australian Copyright Act allowing educational institutions to copy from radio and television without having to obtain individual copyright clearances, provided they pay a fee. Screenrights was appointed by the Government to administer these provisions.
Hutchison launches 3G is Australia
Hutchison has today launched the next generation mobile phone network, 3G in australia. It is the first to offer services such as video news and sport updates, mapping services and video conferencing in it’s $3 billion initiative in Australia. Here is an article from the Sydney Morning Herald.
Some of the phones which takes advantage of the 3G services include, Motorola A830, A920 and NEC e808N. Here is an image of the coverage area in Sydney for Video, Messaging and Talk.
Australian INFront Visual Response
Last Saturday, on Day2 of the Semi-Permanent Design Conference, there was a talk by Australian INFront members, Justin Fox, Matthew Willis and Sean Torstensson who commented on a Visual Literacy project.
They have been running a Project for several years now that asks designers to create an image without photographs and text which is representative of a “Word” they set out in a brief. The project is titled, Visual Response and contains visual responses by many designers from words such as Ant, Love, Marine, Eternity, Karma, Unity, Refugee, Traffic, Culture, Light and Magnetic, among others. The project was started in November 1999, by Domenic Bartolo and it’s aim is to promote creativity.
Scientists complete the Human genome
Scientists have finally completed the Human Genome (also known as the genetic blueprint) three years after a working draft was completed and 2 years ahead of it predicted schedule.
BBC Science have an interesting indepth article on the discovery which also comments on Genetics and the DNA structure. Here is also a related article in the Sydney Morning Herald.
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DevEdge comments on the Business benefits of Web Standards
Netscape DevEdge has published an interesting article (with useful links) which comments on some of the advantages of developing with Web standards. The article comments on search rank, speed, extensibility, browser compatibility, user experience, reduced maintenance costs and accessibility.
Avid announces new Avid Express Pro
Avid have announced a new Avid Express Pro with Avid Mojo to provide True Real-time Editing and Output. This, alongside the Avid Media Composer products can run on a PowerBook G4.
A talk by Peter Bray co-founder of Clear Blue Day
I visited a lecture/talk the other night by Peter Bray co-founder of Sydney based convergent media company Clear Blue Day.
Clear Blue Day among other top sydney based companies such as Massive, Red Square and Glass Onion are an interesting company to look at because they are one of the only few companies, particularly in Sydney, who have survived the Dot Com crash.
The interesting life of Whitespace
We often forget that most programming languages have a common character which sits silently in the background yet plays a significant role in any computer program.
During development and execution, the Whitespace (spaces, tabs and newlines) allows for programs to run correctly by invisibly guiding execution of code to either continue or stop. Finally someone has commented on the interesting life of Whitespace. :)
Flash MX and its accessibility features
Jeffrey Veen writes in a recent post on some accessibility features of Flash MX. He comments briefly on Flash and Section 508 and how accessibility is turning into a hot topic, particularly for disabled users. Here is an excerpt from Jeff’s blog:
Making a Flash file accessible to disabled users used to be virtually impossible. In fact, the only recourse was to offer a non-Flash alternative — typically a less-usable text version of the content or features. Not exactly quid-pro-quo for your users.
AGDA article on protecting identities
AGDA has a useful article on protecting identities such as logos. The article comments on strategies and contains a useful list of things to remember and consider for both a client and designer perspective.
There is also a great 16MB movie on the AGDA site titled, What is Graphic design? which was shown at the AGDA awards last year and has Melbourne journalist Andrew Pegler asking the public questions about graphic design.
BBC Learning celebrates DNA Discovery with webcast
BBC Learning are producing a live webcast on Friday 25th April to coincide with the 50 year anniversary of the Francis Crick and James Watson discovery of the DNA Double Helix.
The one-day webcast of the conference will include presentations by internationally renowned scientists on the history behind the monumental discovery and the progress made over the last 50 years by the science industry and society that resulted from the discovery.
More information can be found at the BBC Leaning Studies website.
The 2003 Webby Award nominations have been announced
Nominations for the 7th Annual Webby Awards has been announced including a selection of sites in 30 categories including, Best Practices, Education, Film, Health, Net Art, News, TV, Sport, Technical Achievement and Broadband which included the Australian ABC nominated site, Homeless.
Amit Pitaru's Insert Silence revisit
I revisit Amit Pitaru’s Insert Silence website for a little creative inspiration. He has created some amazing creative digital pieces and his work is exhibited in the Design Museum’s Exhibition, among other designers including, Daniel Brown, Tom Dixon, John Galliano, Yugo Nakamura and Luis Barragán, one of Mexico’s most influential 20th century architects.
Amit Pitaru and James Paterson will be speaking at the Semi Permanent Design Conference this Saturday.
Shortlisted designers for UK Designer of the Year
Voting has started for the UK Designer of the Year which includes a shortlisted group including Jonathan Ive, Industrial Designer at Apple.
The award by the Design Museum is given to the designer or design team living or working in the UK but are now based in another country.
More info can be found at the Design Museum.org website. Voting is open till June 29, 2003.