On cabbages and kings with Jim Mora today

Afternoons with Jim Mora - Radio NZ National 
This afternoon Jim Mora and discussed the news around the items below, including the late insertion of a the web site for the Tuhoe people whose negotiations with the NZ Crown for the return of their ancestral lands is a current hot news topic.  See here for a sample from the NZ Herald, as well as the recommended web site above.

The audio
The notes are below, and the audio  is here  Ogg Vorbis   MP3 - or click the wee player:

1. The iPad and the competition The Slate from HP .

Last week I touched and used, however briefly,  an iPad and I am underwhelmed.
I was so looking forward to this - BUT - not in love - maybe not even bothered about asking for a date. It just doesn't feel ready for the revolution it is claimed to kick start

That said New Zealand has a launch date -July  as does Australia - and yes they get it before us. - May 28th. Good coverage on the options coming up with the SMH, Sydney Morning Herald, here

Competition from HP
More seriously we went on to compare the iPad strategy with the apparent rethink of HP's device The Slate which used Windows 7. HP just bought Palm and the rumo mill is alive with speculation that they will go head to head with Apple with a new device
See this story from CNET News for context

2. XT - Report on the XT failure released by Telecom
UK-based Analysys Mason Report shows  XT network not ready for the amount of traffic it was asked to handle and that immature management practices failed to catch the problems in time.

Useful Summary on Kiwi Blog

1. The network failed because the network and supporting operations were not ready to manage the levels of traffic it experienced
2. Software issues contributed to network instability
3. Although the XT network was designed to initially provide planned coverage that matched the CDMA network the initial configuration of the XT network and, some network build issues, led to coverage variability
4. Some aspects of the network architecture are overly complex meaning that any faults are difficult to find and rectify
5. Immature operational management systems and process failures contributed to the impact of network issues.

Plus summary and full report from Telecom , here

3. Australian Gov 2.0 TaskForce.
The Australian Government have come out in favour of the key recommendations of the Australian Gov 2.0 TaskForce. Details here.

Creative Commons 

The endorsement include the recommendation that all Australian government data /information should be open for reuse - with minimal copyright restrictions and should, by default , unless there is a proper reason not to - use the Creative Commons License.

This is a very big deal - opens up shed loads of Australian knowledge assets into the market - mapping data - and puts to rest the notion that Governments should make money out of their information .

This issue of open data goes to  NZ Cabinet in July.

New Zealand Creative Commons
http://www.creativecommons.org.nz/

4. TED 
Some brilliant new sessions/talks on TED from the 2010 conference February, including this one from Stephen Wolfram and his quest to make all knowledge computational -- able to be searched, processed and manipulated. - See TED, here

5.  NGAI TUHOE
Last but not least, as per the opening comment to the post, the Tuhoe Establishment Trust  have a very good web site which explains their plans for the development of the Tuhoe people. See especially the section on their vision - which, among other things, explores the centrality of regaining control of their lost lands.